Animation, Movies

Full “Look-a-Like” From Sonic OVA Unearthed After Nearly 25 Years

This morning a member of the community  under the handle @SAAC_RUS tweeted out a link to the above video. Rather surprisingly, the video contains the full and proper version of “Look-a-Like” from the Sonic OVA. The two episode shorts originally released in Japan in early 1996 and featured “Look-a-Like” as part of its backing music. However, the only official release of the song since was a truncated version available on the True Colors: The Best of Sonic the Hedgehog Part 2 CD, but now the full version is available for our listening pleasure thanks to illuminor. The video and its description explains how they came into possession of the song, shared below:

The universe of Sonic the Hedgehog is full of its own secrets and mysteries. And so it happens that some interesting things might be hiding in the most unexpected places. And today we would like to share with you an amazing discovery our good friend and the community member illuminor has made. illuminor specializes in translations – Japanese translations in particular. Having looked the Japanese version of Sonic OVA he noticed that the credits song «Look-a-like» has certain words that have never been used anywhere else and that differ from what fans usually document. «Look-a-like» is the ending theme of Sonic OVA performed by Riyu Konaka. Its full version was never officially released, though most of the song can be heard in the original Japanese release of the movie. And its short edit was later released in the official «True Colors: The Best of Sonic the Hedgehog Part 2» album. In all variations available on the Internet we can hear the line «A short while ago, I was born» which then repeats twice, but in the movie the first time sounds as «A long time ago…», though we cannot hear the rest due to the dialogue of the characters. illuminor decided to get to the bottom of it and reached out to one of the people who was involved in creating of Sonic OVA. We will not disclose the identity of this person not to cause them any troubles. The original plan of illuminor was to ask for the song’s lyrics, but his interlocutor exceeded all expectations and just sent the whole track instead of the plain text. And so, friends, for the first time in history we are happy to introduce you the full and original version of the song «Look-a-like». Have a nice listening! We are thanked to illuminor for the news and for such a great material!

How great is it to finally have it after all this time?

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7 Comments

  • Reply

    Nice find after such a long time! Serendipity smiles favorably upon us today. 😄

  • Reply

    To say this is way past cool would be an understatement… this is one of the best things that had happened in 2020. Thanks for sharing!

  • Reply

    Well! Not how I expected to start my morning today, but I’ll take it!

  • Reply

    Awesome, now the clicking sound that used to play in the original upload will be a thing of the past.

  • Reply

    Appreciate this so much thank you illuminor and Sonic Retro for bringing it to us fans what a find!

    That clicking always bothered me too @sqingo, like a poor edit right before the (shortend!) solo. Now we know that’s pretty much true.

  • Reply

    Thats quite the awesome find! I always liked the song.

  • Reply

    yeah sonic is one of the best games we all had played in our childhood, thanks sega for making our childhood more enjoyable

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