#off target part 1

[taffysannotatedsonichu]

Sub Episode 7 Page S-8

CHRIS: The more you haze me, I will grow stronger! You all are vicious, so in the name of my heart, soul, and love quest, I shall punish you!

BAGGET: I don’t think so…!

Caption: *sword of lightning*

CRYSTAL: !

On this page, to combat Bagget’s actual sword, Chris creates a “sword of lightning”, which displays another inconsistency in the Anchuent Prophecy - these electric weapons. This sword is probably Chris-Chan’s equivalent of Sarhama Rosechu’s lightning bow, and Wes-li Sonichu has a “flame sniper”, another bow and arrow, but those are the only such weapons in the comic. Crystal, Reldnahc and Liquid don’t have any swords or anything. In fact: Chris, Crystal, Reldnahc, and Liquid have medallions, much like the ones Chris and Liquid have in real life, Sarah Hammer has Lightning Bracelets and Wes-Li has the Fireshock Pendant, which is different from a medallion. Chris, Crystal, and Reldnahc all have finishing attacks (the Curse-ye-ha-me-ha, Shocking Tiara Magic, and the Quee-fee-mae-mo-bo-bo attack), but Wes Iseli, Sarah Hammer and Liquid Chris don’t. And, as previously mentioned, only Wes-li and Liquid have Pokemon types. Take note that Chris-Chan is the only hedgehog to have both an electric weapon and a finishing attack.

In the back we see an exclamation point; we later see that this is an alarmed Crystal.

[taffysannotatedsonichu]

Sub Episode 7 Page S-13

BAGGET: Cuff him!

BAGGET: Well, “hero”, what sayest thou now?

CHRIS: All I wanted for over two years was a boyfriend-free girl to make into a sweetheart from the ground-up whom I can love and trust! Why is it illegal to find true love? But in this situation, I can only say one thing…

CHRIS: HELP!

For once, Christian Weston Chandler has been bested. And he’s not immediately going to turn around and whoop Bagget, either, like he does with Mary Lee Walsh and your average manajerk who gets the upper hand. Chris not only is legit taken down by Bagget and Crackder, but he stays captured for the rest of this episode and most of the next. This stretch in the Off Target storyline is the longest Chris is ever incapacitated in the comic and one of the only times Chris would be completely toast without the help of someone else. If Crystal wasn’t here, Chris would have been vanquished by Mary Lee Walsh once and for all. These moments Chris allows himself a darkest hour are few and far between.

One thing to remember is, again, Chris was still awaiting prosecution for this incident when he drew the comic version. His victory hadn’t yet been assured in real life, so he didn’t want to write his comic victory quite yet. If he hadn’t had the charges dropped against him, perhaps the peachy ending of Sub-Episode 8 wouldn’t have been so peachy. McAttack, the only other two part story, was split because it was the merging of two real life events at the same McDonald’s two days apart. Off Target is a two-parter because Chris didn’t know the ending to the true story.

The gray scribble in the top right of the page is supposed to be a “Big Ball of Violence” - a big cloud of smoke that characters disappear into to fight, implying that they’re kicking up so much dust in the fight that it obscures them completely, a technique iconic to early cartoons. Often times, since these cartoons were aimed at children, the swearing in the fight would be censored as symbols being ejected from this gas cloud, those are what those orange things are.

[taffysannotatedsonichu]

Sub Episode 7 Page S-4

CHRIS: After being thrown out of regions because having a girlfriend was illegal, I lost all possible great watering-holes. But, that the new Get-Tar region is open, I feel that I am right on target to finding a boyfriend-free girl!

CHRIS: This is a great set-up… an open bar facing the exit, a dollar for a drink with free refills, and all the ladies will have to walk by me. I’m bound to be found by a boyfriend-free, 18-23 year old girl now. Especially since this love quest has been going on for about two years now! 𝅘𝅥𝅮 Toodie-froodie, drawing comics all day long, only three days since I skipped my last deadline! 𝅘𝅥𝅮

Caption: *MP3 Player playing*

DS: NINTENDO DS

Although Chris bowdlerizes it into the “Get-Tar” region, he makes no secret that this “region” he’s visiting is in fact a Target store (although apparently it’s occasionally mistaken for a Guitar Center, another place Chris needs to stop by). The Target in the Charlottesville area had opened earlier that year and Chris had decided to use the cafe area as his latest “Attraction Location”.

The line “only three days since I skipped my last deadline!” is, again, taken from - three guesses - Excel Saga! Thaaaat’s right! This line is taken from the first episode where Excel is sent to kill the real life author of the Excel Saga manga, Koshi Rikdo, who says this as he finally gets to work on his manga. It has nothing to do with the 1955 song “Tutti Frutti”, made famous by Little Richard, where the first part of Chris’s sentence seems to be taken from.

Nintendo DS’s could not play MP3’s - the add-on required to play MP3’s on a DS was only released in Europe about 18 months after the comic was written. Either Chris is just listening to video game music or he’s got a magical DS from wish fulfillment land.

[taffysannotatedsonichu]

Sub Episode 7 Page S-7

Caption: Sonichu Medallion

CHRIS: But, if that’s how it’s going to be…

CHRIS: Electric hedgehog power!

Caption: Chris-Chan Sonichu

CHRIS: You’re not getting to me, no matter what you may try in attempt to threat, I will hang out where I want, when I want, or how I want! Because I’m making myself publicly visible in my quest for a boyfriend-free girl! So all you Jerkops may as well go back to PVCCitizens, and tell Mary Lee Walsh that she will never re-shatter my indestructable heart!

One thing Chris makes a point of mentioning in his latest Love Quest speech is that he makes himself “publicly visible” in his Love Quest. While Chris most certainly has used online dating sites as well, at this time he was almost exclusively using his Attraction Sign (which sadly never makes an appearance in the comic) in real locations around Charlottesville. In these places, dubbed “Attraction Locations”, Chris would, as we’ve seen, loiter with the sign and wait for girls to approach him - which they never did, barring jokes like Hanna. And Chris would, like clockwork, always go to the same spot until he was banned from the entire store - first the Fashion Square Mall, then Walmart, then Target.

Chris considers his going out of the house to be in some form “conquering his autism”, and something he deserves an exceptional amount of praise for. When Chris was a child, he would often be inordinately praised when he did simple things - for instance, when his mother was trying to get him to start speaking again she would buy him any Transformers toy that he could say the name of; similarly Chris thinks that leaving the house at all, let alone using this opportunity to try to be social, he deserves the girlfriend of his dreams.

[taffysannotatedsonichu]

Sub Episode 7 Page S-3

Caption: *July 20, 2005…

Caption: In the office of Mary Lee Walsh, at the Private Villa of Corrupted Citizens…

MARY LEE WALSH: Count Graduon and I have gone over your records…

MARY LEE WALSH: And we found that you are the best of the worst; you’re even better than that Jerkief! So we’re going to give you a very special assignment!

COUNT GRADUON: Our nemesis, Christian Chandler, has been located at the new Get-Tar Region; we want you to intercept and capture him, and bring him to us. I will send a hypnowave to the manajerks in the region to help you in the capturing.

MARY LEE WALSH: But if you fail, you shall spend the rest of eternity in a pool of hot lava! Do you understand?

BAGGET: I will not fail you, mistress Mary Lee Walsh!

MARY LEE WALSH: See that you don’t!

After six months of trying and failing, Mary Lee and Count Graduon finally decide to show the Jerkief the door and get a new, more competent jerkop chief to capture Chris. This is Bagget, inspired by the actual police officer who arrested Chris for loitering at the newly opened Charlottesville Target three days prior to the writing of this comic, on 20 July 2005.  As recounted by the CWCki, Bagget’s real life counterpart, Officer Marcus Bagget of the Albemarle County Police department, is a hero who saves people from burning buildings and obese manchildren. It is assumed that while on the job he does not dress like a Power Ranger.

This Sub-Episode is a recounting of the event on 20 July 2005, but Sonichu-fied - this time Chris wins! At the time Chris was writing this comic, he was still awaiting trial for the incident - he was charged with disorderly conduct and trespassing - eventually the prosecutors decided to drop the case and Chrissy Boy got off scot-free.

That purple orb is supposed to be a crystal ball, showing Chris on a literal target, symbolizing that he feels “on-target” to finding a girl at the Target store, a drawing we will see in greater detail on the next page. This crystal ball is how Chandler contextualizes how everywhere he goes, it seems like there’s always some kind of manajerk or jerkop harassing him - Mary Lee Walsh and this overarching evil are watching over him and tracking his every move to keep people hounding him.

I don’t exactly get why we need to know or care that Mary Lee has threatened Bagget with eternal punishment if he fails. He’s a villain, hypothetically we’re not rooting for him to succeed. This doesn’t really add any stakes to the story that we care about. Not to mention it’s never brought up again; Bagget does fail at his quest to crush Chris’s heart and he’s not punished.

[taffysannotatedsonichu]

Sub Episode 7 Page S-14

CRYSTAL: *gasp*

CRYSTAL: I’m coming brother!

BAGGET: Looks like we’ll have to torture you until your trap is shut! Crackder! Drop him!

CHRIS: AAAAAAAH…!

Caption: To be continued…

Now, in real life, Chris’s mother bailed him out for the Target incident, as she always does. But Crystal’s replacement of her gives an interesting insight into what Chris wants his women to do. Up until this point in his life, the only woman in his life was his mother, who babied him and gave him whatever he wanted and bailed him out for everything his whole life. And, because he knows his mother won’t last forever, his main want in a girlfriend was someone who would take over for all of that, plus give him a little china on the side. But when it came to the comic, he had a weird dilema - it’d be embarrassing to admit he was rescued by his mother, and at the same time it’d be embarrassing to create a fictional girlfriend in his comics (although after several fake troll girls he would give up and create one anyway in Lovely Weather). So Crystal was a compromise - she was a younger girl, but she wasn’t a girlfriend and (technically canonically) isn’t having sex with Chris, but she’s doing everything else he wants his future girlfriend to be, like saving his ass here, supplanting his mother because, again, it’d be embarrassing and drive the china away to admit his mother saved him.

Bagget’s main “torture” is to drop Chris… and then what? If they’re trying to kill him there are much more efficient ways Crackder could do it, and if they’re trying to torture him, again, this just doesn’t seem very efficient.

Will Crystal make it through the field of snowballs? How easily will Chris beat Bagget and Crackder once he gets back into his Mary Sue form? Find out next time on Sonichu!

[taffysannotatedsonichu]

Sub Episode 7 Page S-12

CHRIS: NOOO…!

SFX: WHAM!

In an unprecedented turn in the Sonichu comics, Chris tries to keep running but finds himself stuck - Crackder has grabbed him by the tail with his vice-like grip. He pushes the captured Hedgehog forward onto his transformation spot, turning him back into the helpless virgin he was at the start of the episode.

I don’t exactly know why the background changes to purple for this scene - purple in Sonichu stands for psychic powers. Crackder and Bagget don’t have psychic powers, they haven’t been confirmed to have them earlier and they’re never mentioned to have them later.

In the last panel, Chris becomes surrounded by Jerkops, who are apparently, compared to the length of Chris, only about a foot tall.

[taffysannotatedsonichu]

Sub Episode 7 Page S-11

Caption: *Mega Punch*

CHRIS: That will confuse them. But I really need to Spin-Dash its spark out! And I have just the…

So Chris dodges a big ball of flame from Crackder and runs up to attack him again. The second and third panels are designed to show Chris-Chan Sonichu’s super speed. The second panel is (Chris’s approximation of) a perspective shot, much like ones used in Sonic the Hedgehog games and cartoons, to show the ground Sonic has covered. The third panel is of his feet with speed lines - surprisingly he doesn’t use the “Wheel of Feet” technique common in Sonic media.

Surprisingly, in spite of the fact that, in theory, every Electric Hedgehog Pokemon has the super-speed emblematic of Sonic, the only two hedgehogs to ever use it are Sonichu himself, Blake, Chris-Chan, and way later in Sonichu 12 Robbie; everyone else either has another form of transportation that is more specific to them that they prefer to use, like Angelica’s flight, Wild’s vine whips, or Magi-Chan’s teleportation, or they’re pretty sedentary characters, like Jamsta and Lolisa. Given that most of the hedgehogs also seldom use Electric-type Pokemon attacks, they start to bear less and less of a resemblance to their two progenitors, Sonic and Pikachu. They’re still complete rip-offs though.