Charmy Bee

Charmy Bee (チャーミー・ビー) is a fictional character from the Sonic the Hedgehog series of video games and a member of the Chaotix detective team. He is an anthropomorphic bee and his trademark is his flying helmet. Charmy is 6 years old (the youngest of all the Sonic characters tied with Cream), stands 70 cm (2' 3") in height and weighs 10 kg (22 lb), making him the lightest character in the series.

History
Charmy first appeared in a Sonic the Hedgehog manga, and was later used for the games.

Knuckles Chaotix
In Knuckles' Chaotix, Charmy makes his first game appearance. According to the Japanese manual, Charmy is out doing what bees do best when he arrives at an island and is captured by Doctor Eggman, who is currently taking over the island. In the US version, he his a friend of Knuckles the Echidna who is visiting "Carnival Island" when Eggman makes a surprise attack on the island.

In both cases, he is captured and placed in Eggman's "Combi-Confiner", and becomes one of the several characters the player can choose to play as, or play with (as a partner character). Charmy can fly, and can as such do a dash in any direction instead of jumping. He can also start hover, which allows him and his partner to fall at a much slower and controlled rate.

Sonic Heroes
In Sonic Heroes, Charmy is part of a detective agency along with Espio the Chameleon and Vector the Crocodile. One day he brings a package to the group, which contains a walkie-talkie. The voice behind it promises the Chaotix a large reward if they perform some missions for it, which they do. Charmy is the "flight" member of Team Chaotix, which lets him lift the other two to higher areas, or to kick them at enemies.

In the end, the voice turns out to be Eggman, which angers the Chaotix as they know he won't pay them. Vengefully, Charmy starts stinging the doctor with his tail. Later, it turns out that Metal Sonic had betrayed and imprisoned Eggman, which is why he needed their help. Metal Sonic proceeds to transform into Metal Madness, and Eggman tells the heroes that the only way to defeat it is by using the Chaos Emeralds. The Chaotix give Sonic theirs, with Charmy having the cyan Emerald. They then stall Metal Madness by fighting his left side, so that Sonic can turn into Super Sonic.

Shadow the Hedgehog
Charmy and the Chaotix work on a new mission in Shadow the Hedgehog. They all appear in the cutscene prior to the Mad Matrix stage, but Charmy's most notable part of the game is on the Prison Island stage, where he is a partner character. When Shadow the Hedgehog goes to the island, he finds Charmy, who explains that Vector sent him there to find five "top secret discs" that belongs to GUN. The player can choose whether or not to help him find these discs. Unlike most partner characters in the game, Charmy cannot be controlled by the second controller in the GameCube and PlayStation 2 versions, as he is constantly airborne.

In the Last Story, Charmy inadvertently saves Earth when ramming his stinger into a computer aboard the Space Colony ARK while helping Espio and Vector hack in. By doing this, Charmy activates a videotape that allows Shadow to break free of Black Doom's mind control.

Sonic Rivals
Charmy Bee appears on two collectable cards in Sonic Rivals.

Personality
Charmy is hyperactive and scatter brained, and not too bright. Being a child, he would rather play than work, as shown in the first level of Sonic Heroes when Team Chaotix is recieving their first mission on a beach, and he's hovering around singing "Sea, sea, sea". However, he is also the most friendly and optimistic of all the Chaotix members. Due to his age, he is not as skilled a detective as Vector or Espio, but he is nonetheless valuable to the team.

He shows a deep respect, even admiration, for Shadow in Shadow the Hedgehog.

Abilities
Charmy, like many other Sonic characters, can run at high speed, but is mostly known for his flying ability, as he is the flight character in Sonic Heroes. He can use his stinger as a method of attack when he is alone and has the abilities to somehow warp between large flowers, helping him and his friends to get around obstacles and complete their missions more quickly. In the game, if the team does not get all of the items by the time they finish a zone, Charmy can activate a flower and take them back to the beginning of the level. He also has acute hearing and is good at finding lost objects. Like other flight members in Sonic Heroes, Charmy can use Thunder Shoot, where he charges his friends with electricity and kicks them at enemies. Though he doesn't seem to excel at it, Charmy also plays drums during the "Chaotix Recital" Team Blast.

Sonic X
In the anime Sonic X, the Chaotix crew play a very minor role in Season 2, only appearing in one episode where they try to help Vanilla the Rabbit find her daughter, Cream. In Season 3, they play a much larger role, first bringing supplies to Chris, but Vector thinks they are also supposed to bring Cream back to her mother, Vanilla. Charmy seems to act as Vector's right-hand man during these missions, because while Espio reluctantly does them, Charmy acts a lot more enthusiastic while taking orders from Vector. Later, they appear to help fight the Metarex. Charmy seems to be calmer in the anime unlike his video game counterpart.

Comics
In both of the comic continuities he is a prince of the bees. In the Sonic the Hedgehog Archie comic he is a sophisticated 18-year-old, and is betrothed to a girl named Saffron. His personality is radically different than in other media, and he is much older than his video game self.

In Sonic the Comic however, his teammates do not know that he is a prince. In "STC", just like in the post-Heroes games (though it predates them), he is extremely scatterbrained and hyper, frequently annoying his team-mates to the point of insanity with his banter, odd speech patterns and cries of "righty-diddly-doo!" Despite his seeming insanity, he sometimes appears to be smarter than he seems and deliberately putting on his annoying air; he is also the one responsible for defeating the villains in both Chaotix solo strips, first by having the Fundamental Four turned into a vase and then by buying out the Crimson Cobra's company and the base, minions, weapons and even robot arms that came with it.

Friends/Allies

 * Chaotix
 * Espio the Chameleon
 * Vector the Crocodile
 * Sonic the Hedgehog
 * Miles "Tails" Prower
 * Knuckles the Echidna
 * Mighty the Armadillo
 * Shadow the Hedgehog

Foes

 * Dr. Eggman
 * Black Arms
 * Metal Sonic
 * Metarex (Sonic X exclusive)

Voice acting

 * Video games, Sonic X - Youko Teppouzuka (Japan)
 * Sonic Heroes - Emily Corkery (US)
 * Shadow the Hedgehog, Sonic X - Amy Birnbaum (US)

Trivia

 * In the US Manual of Knuckles' Chaotix, Charmy was labeled as being 16 years of age; however, with the release of Sonic Heroes, his age has been retconned to 6. It should be noted however that the Japanese manual for Chaotix didn't list an age for Charmy, as it did for the other characters.
 * His size changed greatly from Chaotix, where he was very small, to Sonic Heroes, in which he was approximately the size of Cream (smaller than other Sonic characters, but far larger than previously proportioned).