Shadow the Hedgehog stands above most of the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise. It's a banner year at the Shadow family. He's leading his second video game with Shadow Generations and making his big screen debut with Sonic the Hedgehog 3. He's a beloved character who embodies the challenges with the rest of the franchise. Shadow has been around for 23 years with a wide variety of depictions and presentations. In those decades, he's enjoyed several voice actors, eventually including Keanu Reeves.
Sonic changed forever when he received a voice. One of his greatest accomplishments as a character was his ability to communicate his personality without speaking, but his ability to talk made him even more iconic. Sonic still resolutely maintains his dictionary of radical 90s cool terminology. The drawn tone of his voice, provided most commonly and recently by Roger Craig Smith, is as iconic as any element of his gameplay. His allies and enemies often have the same level of consistency across performances.
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Kōji Yusa
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Notable Games and Shows |
Dates |
|---|---|
|
Sonic Adventure 2 |
June 19, 2001 |
|
Shadow the Hedgehog |
November 15, 2005 |
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Sonic Heroes |
December 30, 2003 |
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Sonic Boom |
November 8, 2014 |
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Sonic Prime |
December 15, 2022 |
By far the most prominent voice actor behind Shadow the Hedgehog is his Japanese portrayer, Kōji Yusa. Yusa is an exceptionally prolific voice actor with a long history of fascinating roles. Unlike the English dubs, the Japanese Sonic the Hedgehog franchise has relied almost entirely on Yusa to provide the voice of Shadow. He's the character's most consistent voice by an extremely wide margin. Outside the Sonic franchise, anime fans would recognize Yusa best as the voice of Gin Ichimaru in multiple iterations of Bleach. He also plays Lau in Black Butler. He's very much still working in the voice acting space, including providing the most recent iteration of Shadow in this year's Shadow Generations.
David S. Humphrey
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Notable Games |
Dates |
|---|---|
|
Sonic Adventure 2 |
June 19, 2001 |
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Sonic Adventure 2: Battle |
December 20, 2001 |
The first English voice of Shadow the Hedgehog was David Humphrey. Humphrey is a dedicated and celebrated theatrical performer with much more experience on the stage than in the booth. Outside of Sonic Adventure 2 and its GameCube port, Humphrey's only notable video game voice-acting role was in the 2007 point-and-click adventure game Jack Keane. Humphrey reportedly got the job after working with Sonic's voice actor at the time, Ryan Drummond. Drummond also provided a couple of lines for Shadow in the character's debut. Humphrey set the English standard, leaving many other actors to follow in his wake.
Jason Griffith
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Notable Games and Shows |
Dates |
|---|---|
|
Sonic X |
April 6, 2003 |
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Shadow the Hedgehog |
November 15, 2005 |
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Sonic the Hedgehog |
November 14, 2006 |
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Sonic and the Black Knight |
March 3, 2009 |
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Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Winter Games |
October 13, 2009 |
Jason Griffith was the second English-language voice actor to portray Shadow. He picked up the role for the dub of the hit 2003 animated series, Sonic X. Griffith's voice work on the character is a little more polished than that of Humphrey, who joined the project when Shadow was still finding his footing. Griffith also provided the voice of Sonic the Hedgehog in more than a dozen titles. Fans who take a look back at Shadow the Hedgehog or Sonic X might notice the similarities between the two hedgehogs' voices. It's a striking choice that adds a lot to their rivalry. His tenure with the characters ran from 2003 to 2010, but it lives on in some archival footage used in a few other sources.
Kirk Thornton
|
Notable Games and Shows |
Dates |
|---|---|
|
Sonic Colors |
November 11, 2010 |
|
Sonic Generations |
November 1, 2011 |
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Sonic Boom |
November 8, 2014 |
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Sonic Forces |
November 7, 2017 |
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Shadow Generations |
October 25, 2024 |
Kirk Thornton is probably the most prominent English voice of Shadow. He picked up the torch from Jason Griffith and held it to this very day. Thornton's voice is arguably the most recognizable as Shadow, given his 14 years with the character. Thornton is another extremely prolific voice actor with several iconic characters under his belt. He portrayed Brandon Heat in Gungrave, Kisame Hoshigaki in Naruto, and Jin in Samurai Champloo. He's still working with the Sonic franchise, providing the voice of Shadow in Shadow Generations.
Ian Hanlin
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Show |
Date |
|---|---|
|
Sonic Prime |
December 15, 2022 |
One of the most well-received versions of Shadow the Hedgehog comes with a voice no one had ever heard in the role. Ian Hanlin is a Canadian voice actor who started his career in 2010. His voice appeared in many cartoons, including My Little Pony and Ninjago. He's also notable for video game roles in titles like Dead Rising 3 and Far Cry 5. Hanlin provided the voice of Shadow in Netflix's Sonic Prime, where he also portrayed Big the Cat. Sonic Prime's Shadow is iconic for its unique maturity and compelling character arc. Even if he's only played the character in one work, it remains one of the most impactful.
Keanu Reeves will take the role of Shadow in Sonic the Hedgehog 3. It seems fitting that the character's big-screen debut would come with an A-list performer. Keanu might be the most famous example, but Shadow comes with a long history of excellent performers.
Shadow the Hedgehog is Becoming 'Batman'
A new crossover event will reimagine Sonic characters as DC superheroes, with the edgy antihero Shadow the Hedgehog becoming the Dark Knight.