Waifu Wednesday: Cream the Rabbit

There are many reasons one can find a character appealing.

Sometimes it’s as simple a base desire as “BIG FAT BAT TATS” — although many fans of Rouge will almost certainly point to other aspects of the character they like besides her formidable assets — but at other times it’s about a feeling of connection and warmth.

In many ways it’s a lot like the eight different types of love the ancient Greeks posited. Even among a cast of characters such as that of the Sonic series, where many characters have a lot of appeal elements in common, one can feel very differently about one character compared to how they feel about another.

Here’s Cream the Rabbit.

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Fanart by Tomynokke (Twitter)

While the erotic appeal of Rouge is all but undeniable — and how comfortable you are with saying that is a pretty good reflection of how comfortable you are with yourself as a person in general — and there are aspects of Amy one can use to fuel one’s fantasies should one desire to do so, Cream is, to put it politely, a non-sexual being.

This isn’t to say she’s unattractive or unappealing, mind — it’s just that the things that do make her appealing are very different. She stokes the fires of a different form of love in those ancient Greek terms; while Rouge and Amy very much fall into both the “eros” (erotic love) and “ludus” (playful love) categories to varying degrees according to your own personal preferences, Cream is, for most people, an example of “philia” (affectionate love) or even “storge” (familiar love).

To put it rather more simply, Cream is the kind of person you’d want to love, protect and care for rather than… well, you know… do anything else with.

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Fanart by home (Pixiv)

Cream was created by Sonic Team specifically for Sonic Heroes. She would act as the “Fly” character for Team Rose (aka the easiest path through the game) by using her ears like “wings”, similar to how Tails is typically depicted making use of his twin fox tails as improvised helicopter rotor blades.

Cream underwent a few revisions before taking on the form we now recognise. Initially, she was going to be another fox character, but with her hair in pigtails; then, she was going to be a squirrel with multiple tails. While she was designed with the intention of including her in Sonic Heroes, her first appearance was actually in 2003’s Sonic Advance 2 for Game Boy Advance.

The reasons for this were twofold: firstly, to ensure she was better established as a character in the series as a whole by the time Sonic Heroes released, and also to help Sonic Advance 2 distinguish itself from its predecessor. Sonic Advance 2 also featured one of the few in-game appearances of Cream’s mother, Vanilla the Rabbit; she also appeared in Sonic Advance 3 and Sonic Rush as well as having a few cameo mentions in other installments; otherwise, her daughter has very much been the more famous member of the family.

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via Danbooru, source and artist unknown

Part of Cream’s appeal is that she is extremely polite and well-mannered. This is typically represented through her insistence on appending “Mr.” or “Miss” to people’s names — despite spending all of Sonic Heroes alongside Big the Cat, she is still referring to him as “Mr. Big” by the end of it, for example. Cream’s well-mannered nature stems from Vanilla’s teachings, though she is also aware of the fact that acting in this way is a good way to get what she wants, too.

Cream is also represented as a pacifist who truly hates violence throughout most of her appearances. In BioWare’s Nintendo DS RPG Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood, she refuses to fight back even when knocked back by a powerful foe, for example, and all her special “POW” moves are supportive rather than offensive in nature. In Sonic Heroes, meanwhile, she never actually attacks any foes directly, instead relying on her inseparable Chao friend Cheese to do her dirty work.

Besides Cheese, Cream’s closest relationship is with Amy. Much as Sonic and Tails share a relationship akin to that of two siblings with a bit of an age gap between them, so too do Cream and Amy, with Cream being the younger of the two. While Amy is usually the “dominant” one in this relationship, hoping to protect Cream from hardships and pain, Cream is shown on a number of occasions to be rather brutally honest with Amy, even going so far as to describe her obsession with Sonic as “short-sighted” at one point.

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Fanart by Naoko — via Danbooru, original source not found

Despite the fact that Cream is strong-willed and determined to help her friends whenever possible, she is also depicted as rather quick to burst into tears when confronted with a sad situation. Since she is one of the youngest members of the overall cast, she is rather prone to misunderstanding situations, being oversensitive and generally overreacting to situations — particularly if, as often happens, she gets herself overly wrapped up in other people’s issues.

While she rarely plays a leading role in a Sonic game, Cream is nonetheless a joy to have around whenever she puts in an appearance — and she’s appeared in more games than you might think, putting in cameos as early as the “DX” rerelease of Sonic Adventure for Gamecube and PC. She also regularly appeared in the anime series Sonic X as well as the numerous Archie Comics adaptations of Sonic in general, so if you find yourself with a bit of a taste for Cream after enjoying Sonic Heroes or Sonic Advance 2, then there’s certainly plenty more where that came from.


More about the Sonic the Hedgehog series

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3 thoughts on “Waifu Wednesday: Cream the Rabbit”

  1. Did you really play Sonic Chronicles? I saw about ten minutes of that game on Youtube and it looked painful. I love Sonic (well, sort of) and RPGs but that mixture is like beer and ice cream, two great tastes that don’t mix.

    I think of Cream as every other character’s little sister. Who could hate her?

    1. I haven’t played a lot of Sonic Chronicles, but I quite enjoyed what I did play. Music’s a bit shit, but the rest of the game seems pretty solid so far. Unfortunately I don’t have time to cover it in detail this month, but I’d like to explore it further when I have a bit more time!

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