Sonichu Sub-Episode 2 Critical Review: How to Lose a Girl in Zero Seconds

The madness starts here, click on the images to proceed

Aaand now we go back to the " classic " Sonichu, the style that obscures its plagiarism with its warped recounting of Christian Weston Chandler's personal problems. The second sub-episode recounts another installment in Chris-Chan's Love Quest. While loitering at the mall ( apparently having cursed the Jerkops away this time ), eating his eight daily Chicken McNuggets and waiting for a girl to come up to him, a girl DOES come up to him. A blonde woman named Hanna** invites him for coffee, and while is able to maintain his composure enough to agree, he leaps for joy against a rainbow background* while declaring his Love Quest over. Chris' hedgehog friends are equally happy to see Chris share his Sonichu-themed world with Hanna. However, Rosechu overhears Hanna gloating over the phone to her friends about how fun it is to yank Chris' chain, and immediately tells Chris. Chris confronts Hanna, and upon finding this to be true, screams a massive no as his heart level is reduced to 15%. " ***Fortunately " for Hanna, he's willing to send Hanna an email telling her that he forgives her and is still open to the possibility of them dating.

At first glance this seems to be another affirmation of Chris-Chan's virtues, painting him as the victim with the woman rejecting him portrayed as a manipulative harpy. This actually happened to Chandler in real life, and the only substantial difference in the fictionalization's plot is that Rosechu tells Chris the truth, instead of a " gal-pal ". The real-world Hanna is actually as cruel as Chandler makes her out to be; however, the event reveals the faults in Chris' dating methods, and how he unwittingly sets himself up for this sort of trolling time and time again.

For somebody who wants a girlfriend so badly, Chandler has done tremendously little to actually learn how he should best go about finding a mate. The sub-episode's altered reality only serves to highlight Chandler's willful ignorance and subsequently warped perspective, because...

A.) Chris-Chan doesn't get involved with any outside activities during his Love Quest. The most he's done to put himself out there is to loiter in a public place. And even then he's just waiting to be noticed, eating his eight McNuggets and playing his DS.

B.) Chris-Chan puts all his expectations into every girl he meets. This is hard for most single people to control, but most of them intellectually realize that relationships do take time to build. Chris immediately-- and literally, in the most homo-erotic way possible-- jumps to the conclusion that he's found his soulmate right after an initial coffee date is arranged.

C.) Chris-Chan doesn't reflect on whether any of his behaviors are socially acceptable. What is documented of Chandler in real life shows that his fashion sense and conversation style are EXACTLY what we see here. He regularly wears a shirt resembling Ernie from Sesame Street, he brings up Sonichu in every conversation, and he spams all of his personal effects with the plagiarized kid show mash-up. There are plenty of geeky men who are able to attract women, but they are aware that their interests aren't necessarily socially acceptable, and are able to poke fun at themselves. Chandler doesn't even think this far. If Chandler could give himself an honest assessment, he'd realize that the gaudy Sonichu medallion he wears is more effective than any chastity belt, and a woman who comes up to him with a sudden invitation is probably trolling.

D.) Most damningly, Chris-Chan doesn't leave his own little world, even when trying to embrace others. He " practices " dating by playing Sprung, a DS dating simulation. He's trying to take real-life advice from a video game designed for entertainment purposes only. Perhaps he was drawn to this because it was available for the DS handheld, meaning he didn't have to leave his comfort zone. But instead of using the advice of real friends and family, self-help books, or even reality shows like " Blind Date " , Chandler goes for a low-quality*** dating sim. It's also worth noting that Hanna only gets one line of dialogue when they're getting to know each other, saying that she's a fan of Fight Club director " Chuck Paladuck ". First of all, it's Chuck Palahniuk, and secondly, he wrote the original NOVEL that inspired the book; the movie was directed by David Fincher. Apparently Chandler wasn't paying attention to what she was saying, and was too lazy to use Wikipedia as a fact check.

Chandler actually captures the truth in this installment-- that any human female who enters his candy-colored atavistic world and isn't his mother is probably screwing with him. But his intention was to set himself up as the innocent victim, not the clueless sucker.

* Chandler went back and editted this image. The new version is a significant improvement, as it looks cleaner and more consistent, and doesn't exaggerate further than even a cartoony style will allow. Mind you, it's still crude and childish, just less so. Why Chandler chose this image and not others in the strip is probably because of the homo-erotic symbolism attached to rainbows, which he couldn't reconcile with his vicious homophobia.
** Chandler also retconned the names to distance them from real people, as per the advice of a troll pretending to be Nintendo R&D head Shigeru Miyamoto. In the modified version, " Hanna " is " Fandanna ". Everything else is the same, including her spherical Peanuts-gang head.
*** Even putting aside the ridiculousness of measuring his romantic feelings in a " Heart Level ", Chris-Chan apparently thinks that being rejected by a girl you knew all of a few hours is heartbreaking.
**** GameRankings Aggregate Score for Sprung: 48%. But being a fan of Sonic the Hedgehog, a game being completely terrible never stopped Chandler from buying it, yes?