Sonic Team Head Says Shadow Isn't Inspired By Dragon Ball Z's Vegeta

Summary

Sonic Teamhead Takashi Iizuka recently claimed during Anime Expo 2024 that Shadow isn’t inspired byDragon Ball Z’s Vegeta, but fans have proven him wrong with concept art fromSonic Adventure 2.

Shadow the Hedgehog has been one of the most popular characters in the Sonic seriesever since he was introduced in Sonic Adventure 2, but he’s never been at the forefront of the series as much as he has in 2024.Sonic 3 and Sonic x Shadow Generations are putting a bigger spotlight than ever on him, which means that we’ve been seeing and hearing plenty about his history (which apparently doesn’t include Sonic 06).

Sega has been pretty open about Shadow’s development and conceptualisation in the past,but it’s been giving us even more details about it now that it’s crowned 2024 as Fearless: Year of Shadow. Strangely, though, it doesn’t seem likeeveryaspect of the character’s past is being embraced, as Team Sonic has tried to rewrite some of his history.

Sega Doesn’t Want Shadow To Be Compared To Vegeta

Sega recently attended Anime Expo and hosted a showcase focused on Sonic x Shadow Generationsas part of the event. Beyond giving us our first look at the Dark Beginnings anime, the panel also featured a Q&A between fans and Sonic Team head Takashi Iizuka. During the showcase, Iizuka was asked by a fan if it was true that Shadow was inspired by Dragon Ball Z’s Vegeta.

Although it’s been clear for some time that Shadow was inspired by Vegeta, Iizuka surprisingly replied to the question byclaiming that Vegeta wasn’t an inspiration and that it was actually characters like Spawn who acted as a key influence. The Spawn comparisonisan accurate one, but fans have already proven that the claims about Vegeta aren’t true.

As posted by Twitter user AdriWindGB, Shadow being inspired by Vegeta has been known for a while now thanks to concept art from Sonic Adventure 2. The concept art lists several keywords for Shadow (who looks like his original Terios design), and one of the phrases included simply reads “Vegeta”.

To make matters even funnier,a recent event that included that concept art of Shadow actually has a sign covering up the reference for Vegeta, which suggests that Sega really doesn’t want that connection to be made. We know from the original images what’s underneath that sign, so it’s a little strange that it’s being erased from his history.