Sonic the Hedgehog, the famous video game character created by Sega has been very popular amongst both gamers and non-gamers. The collective liking of the Sonic character has a lot to do with Sonic's appearance in other media. And such appearances have in turn inspired people to create things related to Sonic and these creators aren't always gamers by nature. They may be artists, musicians or even clay model makers. They have loved and adored this spiky hair Hedgehog who can only be seen in blue.

Hence, Sonic as a character goes beyond the video games and has made an appearance everywhere, from mangas to cartoon shows, from t-shirts to lunch boxes, Sonic can be seen everywhere you go. There are just so many things that are built around Sonic that it is impossible to encapsulate within just one article. So let us look at the major forms in which Sonic has made appearance outside his usual world of Video games.

The first mention should be of the animated series that featured our beloved blue hero and his team of friends. He has in total, starred in three major animation series. Each one is based on the story from the Sonic video games and they are all centered on Robotnik trying to take over Mobius, Sonic's home planet. The animated series keeps everything intact from the game, especially Sonic's signature move - the spindash. It is shown as a way of getting things done for Sonic, who uses it for everything from digging holes and destroying things.

The characters from the game really come to life in the animated series and fans get a view in to Sonic's daily life (well, sort of) for the first time. The cartoons have been a great success and have had many reruns, for each season. Every character is flashed out and we get to see the nuances of major characters like Robotnik and Tails. The storylines revolve around yet another plan of Dr. Robotnik to take over the planet and sending his robots to do the dirty work for him. But each and every time, our hero foils his plans and things take a hilarious turn mainly due to the stupidity of Robotnik's plans and robotic creations. The egg-shaped theme stays and Robotnik very much lives up to his nickname - Eggman.

There were also two animes made on Sonic and both met with huge success. Sonic then appeared in serialized mangas in Japan. Later, like any other popular character, Sonic Online was merchandised. As a result, the market was suddenly filled with Sonic stuff like t-shirts, action figures, stuffed toys and such things. Kids of course loved every bit of it and many adult fans also bought all the collectible items there were.

So Sonic's success can not only be measured by the popularity of the video games he stars in but also by the amount of merchandise, collectible items and memorabilia that he has to his name and likeness.