Isn't Sonic the Hedgehog a kid's show? Why do you still like it?
In short, yes, and why shouldn't I? A good series is a good series, no matter how young or old you are, especially when it holds personal or nostalgic significance to the viewer.
"G-rated" animated movies and TV shows are often marketed to children for the simple fact that it is the only way for them to be commercially viable in the marketplace. Target audience marketing, however, is not usually intended to be restrictive.
I realize that we, especially in America, have a certain way of looking at these things: We tend to insist that entertainment is created either specifically for children, or specifically for adults. If it doesn't have cursing, sex, and/or graphic violence in it, than it's considered "kiddy" by a large segment of the public. Sometimes all it takes is for series to be animated for it to be written off immediately.
This all too familiar attitude causes many older children and young adolescents (particularly middle school to high school age) to want to have nothing to do with anything that might be perceived by their peers as being targeted at a slightly younger audience. For some kids, this desire to be seen as older or less childish involves verbal attacks on others in an attempt to inflate their own egos. When kids give in to this peer pressure, the cycle perpetuates. Essentially, what we end up with is a case of mass insecurity in which a substantial segment of the public is simply afraid of looking like a child. A little childish, don't you think?
The good news is that, for most people, this mentality tends to wear off with age. In fact, there usually comes a point (around about college-age) at which people start getting nostalgic and wish they were kids again. Ah well, such is the way of things…
All of this isn’t to deny that there are some forms of entertainment made exclusively with young children in mind; entertainment that might be considered quality by child standards, but maybe not by adult standards. Likewise, there is some material that is fine for adult viewing, but not appropriate for children.
I don't believe that SatAM (or Sonic in general) is limited by the above categories. Sure, SatAM had a younger target audience, but that doesn't mean that anyone can't enjoy it. Sometimes referred to as “family friendly”, SatAM Sonic is entertainment that can be enjoyed by individuals of all ages.
"Critics who treat "adult" as a term of approval, instead of as a merely descriptive term, cannot be adults themselves. To be concerned about being grown up, to admire the grown up because it is grown up, to blush at the suspicion of being childish; these things are the marks of childhood and adolescence....When I was ten, I read fairytales in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so. Now that I am fifty I read them openly. When I became a man, I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up."
-C. S. Lewis
