post #1361678

Feels the Rabbit is a fan moniker for a concept design of the character that would eventually become Sonic the Hedgehog. In the early planning stages of the original Sonic the Hedgehog, the player character was conceptualized as a rabbit with the ability to grab and throw objects using their ears.

The design was discarded after the development team pursued a different gameplay idea. The concept of grabbing objects would later become the basis for Ristar. Confusion regarding the rabbit's original purpose would result in the Sonic fanbase widely adopting the name "Feels" to refer to the rabbit; a corruption of "Feel", the early name for Ristar. Other names given to the character include Maxs (or Max) and Reto, both of which originated from Naoto Ohshima when asked about the character's name in 2021.

The design would not physically appear in a Sonic game until Sonic Superstars in 2023, where it appeared as an alternate skin for Sonic simply known as "Rabbit". In addition, the rabbit has had several cameos as a background character in the IDW comic series, which also features an alternate version of the design recharacterized as a Hatsune Miku-inspired virtual idol known as Cyber Singer Mika.