VGMP: Find all Sega Easter Eggs in PSO2: The Animation
BRAND NEW GATE! PHANTASY STAR!
After covering PSO 2: The Animation on VGMP, we decided to deep-dive to find all the visual Easter Eggs we could within the show itself.
For those not aware, PSO 2: The Animation is a strange anime, in that it is by Sega themselves but acts more like a culture series than a franchise one. Within the show, PSO 2 is just a video game, and we follow High School academy students as they navigate the game and school life.
Before we start, we will not be covering references to Phantasy Star Online 2 - there are a plethora of references to that series, which is obvious by the show's title. I'll only be referencing other Sega properties.
There are also a couple of dialogue references that should be acknowledged;
- Suzuki's first name is Aika, her school friends decide to call her "AiAi", which is also the name of the main character in
Super Monkey Ball.
- The academy is called Seiga Academy in dialogue, and Seigasai in visuals. This is not unlike the SehaGaga academy seen in
Sega Hard Girls, or the name of the failing game company you are trying to save in Sega's Japan-exclusive Dreamcast game "SegaGaga".
Now for the visual references. We will do these in Episode order, however some episodes have more than one reference and later episodes have none (that we have found so far).
- EPISODE 1 -
When we are being introduced to Seiga Academy, we are granted the aerial shot seen above. The Sonic Team logo of Sonic's head is clearly visible in the academy grounds, seemingly the shape of the pool in the internal gardens. Unfortunately we don't seem to see this location up-close.
- EPISODE 2 -
When Itsuki Tachibana is explaining the Dorm facilities to newcomer Aika Suzuki, we get still-frames of the different locations (most of which we never see again). One of those one-off shots is of the baths, which includes a statue of Alex Kidd in the middle of the bath itself.
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- EPISODE 3 -
When Itsuki Tachibana "outs" Yu-Chan's real identity in PSO2 (after identifying him as the troll player), we see a darkened desk with Yu-Chan at his laptop. To the right of the frames, we can see small pictures of the
Sega Hard Girls characters. From highest elevation to lowest;
- Dreamcast
- Saturn
- Mega Drive
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Later in the episode, Tachibana visits Yu-Chan's room with the lights on, and we see more Sega references on the walls. Firstly we see two large posters for
Virtua Fighter and
House of the Dead III, then on the far left we can see six of the
Sega Hard Girls in frames, similar to the ones to the right of his desk. From highest elevation to lowest;
- Dreamcast
- Mark III
- Saturn (Hard to see)
- Master System
- Mega Drive
- Game Gear
- EPISODE 4 -
When Rina takes Itsuki to the Phantasy Star Online 2 convention, she winds up shooting at targets (and missing). We get one shot of the entire gallery, and we see 9 dolls lined up to shoot. 7 of them are Phantasy Star characters, but to the top left we see
Sonic the Hedgehog, and the top right we see
Carbuncle
from the game series
Puyo Puyo
(he is also known as
Hasbeen
in the Mega Drive Western adaptation of Puyo Puyo, known as Dr Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine).
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- EPISODE 5 -
Rina and Itsuki stalk Suzuki to a mall, and they wind up shopping and doing various other things together. In the stills above, Suzuki wins the UFO Catcher game, however we can see the distinctive horns of
Reala from
NiGHTS into Dreams amongst the plushies. There is also what appears to be the purple of
NiGHTS
himself within the shots, but we don't get a clear enough image of this plushie to see if it is him or not.
- EPISODE 6 -
When the Student Council all go to a Hot Springs to relax and do some work, we get a brief shot of Yu-Chan's mobile phone. His phone case bears the face of
Tails the Fox/Miles Prower from the
Sonic the Hedgehog series.
Only 2 minutes later, we find the Student Council twins (more on these two later) playing table tennis/ping pong at the Hot Springs. When we are introduced to this scene we get a close up of another UFO Catcher machine, with a different assortment of toys. I have listed the characters below in no particular order;
- Sonic the Hedgehog
- Tails the Fox/Miles Prower (Sonic the Hedgehog)
- Carbuncle/Hasbeen (Puyo Puyo)
- Red Puyo
- Purple Puyo
- Green Puyo
- Yellow Puyo
- Blue Puyo
- Clear Puyo
- EPISODE 7 -
In this episode, one of the student council members goes missing - Konoe. While her room is largely decorated with the pink bear character from PSO 2, hanging on her wall are two tokens in green and yellow. These are the item boxes from the first Phantasy Star Online, which is technically set in an alternate dimension from the story of PSO 2.
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- EPISODE 8 -
Another Sonic reference from Yu-chan. When Itsuki is about to follow Suzuki, Yu-chan tries to talk to him and is left behind. Throughout the exchange Yu-chan is seen wearing a set of
Sonic the Hedgehog pajamas. It looks like Sonic is swallowing him!
When Itsuki catches up to Suzuki at the mall, we see these hanging banners with the Sega
Dreamcast
swirl displayed backwards. This might be considered a coincidence (this swirl design is seen frequently for things other than the Dreamcast), however the name
TowerView DreamTown seems to suggest it is a less-than-subtle nod at the classic console. Due to the differing colours, we also see the swirl in blue in the background to match the
PAL Dreamcast swirl design - though because there are green and purple banners in front of it, I believe this PAL colouration is merely coincidence.
- EPISODE 10 -
This first one is weird. As Rina and Itsuki make up at the festival, we see some artwork painted on the sides of the stairs. Most of it is bland and generic, but this one shows what looks like a blue knock-off of Tails the Fox, mixed with the words Dream Land. I tried looking this up online but found no mention of a Sega DreamLand, nor an iteration of a blue fox. Could just be a mock-up of Arcade knock-o ff art that was prevalent in the 90s?
That appears to be where the references end, however there is one theory I would like to throw out there on two of the characters in the series being allegories for Sega characters.
- THE TWINS -
This table is where we see the Student Council at the heart of PSO 2: The Animation. The empty chair is usually occupied by Konoe, and she was actually my first context clue into this theory. She is slowly introduced to be a lesbian character however, on her desk, we see a visual clue in her being the only character with rainbow coloured folders. This is a standard visual detail, and was also seen in Captain Holt's office in the US sitcom Brooklyn 99.
Next to her is Yu-chan, the Sonic-pajama wearing nerd. Then Itsuki, then Rina in t he centre, then Masaya. We can ignore these characters for this theory.
The ones we want to focus on are Seiya (the blue-black haired twin) and Mayu Urisaka (the red-brown haired twin). Their gimmick is they do and say things simultaneously.
However, from this angle, there is something of a NiGHTs and Reala look to the two of them. The hairstyles, specifically. Which matches in with Reala and NiGHTs being two-sides of the same coin to each other. There are also the purple streetlamps they both have on their desks, and the odd doilies they have under their laptops suggesting an ethereal theme.
