Sonic character creator - Japan can't live on cartoon-style games alone, Sonic's shoes were inspired by Michael Jackson?!

“Games are a part of the overall realm of entertainment, including movies and music and so on. I think that movies play a sort of big-brother role for the game industry. The Japanese film industry has been around for ages, but once films from other countries began to see wide distribution here, Hollywood films very quickly became the most popular. Within that environment, Japanese animation has managed to attract worldwide praise, which is great. But we’re seeing a sort of Hollywood-ization of the game industry right now, and Japan’s traditional strengths in cartoon-style games are going by the wayside. So in thinking about the future, I realized I wanted to do both “real” and “cartoon” games. Now, Vampire Rain got a negative reception from a lot of its players, and we regret a lot of things with that game, so in the future we definitely want to make games that excite people a great deal more.” - Sonic character designer and Cavia head Naoto Ohshima

This is just a small part from a 3-page interview with Mr. Ohshima. You have to make sure to check it out, because you’ll get to see more on gems like this.

Gamasutra: It’s a cliched question, but was that why Sonic’s main colors are red, white and blue?

NO: (laughs) Well, he’s blue because that’s Sega’s more-or-less official company color. His shoes were inspired by the cover to Michael Jackson’s Bad, which contrasted heavily between white and red — that Santa Claus-type color. I also thought that red went well for a character who can run really fast, when his legs are spinning.