Charmy Bee

"Oh, flower, pretty flower, show your face and I'll sting you!"

- Charmy

Charmy Bee (チャーミー・ビー) is a young, childish anthropomorphic bee and a member of Team Chaotix. He debuted in Knuckles' Chaotix, and was missing from the games for a few years until Sonic Heroes.

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 Robotnik, who is currently taking over the island. In the US version, he is a friend of Knuckles the Echidna who is visiting "Carnival Island" when Robotnik makes a surprise attack on the island.

In both cases, he is captured and placed in Robotnik'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 air 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 stinger. 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 cut-scene 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 collectible cards in Sonic Rivals.

Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games
Charmy makes a cameo appearance as a referee.

Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Winter Games
Charmy reappears as a more active referee again in the sequel.

Personality


Charmy is hyperactive and scatter brained, and not too bright. Being a child, he would rather play than work, as shown in the Chaotix' first level of Sonic Heroes, when the team is receiving their first mission at the beachy Seaside Hill, 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.

Archie Comics
In the Archie Comics series, Charmy Bee is the prince of bees of the Golden Hive Colony. He felt pressured by his upcoming royal responsibilities and ran away from home, making his way to Angel Island. He found himself becoming a member of the Chaotix and assisted the group on Angel Island for time before returning home. When Golden Hive Colony was destroyed by the Eggman Empire, Charmy survived along with his fiancée, Saffron, and the two fled to Knothole. Along with other members of Chaotix, Charmy was taken prisoner during an attack on Knothole by Dr. Eggman that resulted in the city's destruction, but was subsequently rescued. He was also briefly subjected to the effects of the Egg Grape Chamber before he was freed.

Sonic the Comic
In Sonic the Comic, he is a native of the Special Zone (as are the other members of Chaotix). 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!" While he acknowledges that they yell at him all the time, particularly Vector, he genuinely seems to believe that they only pretend he gets on their nerves, and doesn't want them to treat him any differently.

As in the Archie series, Charmy is the son of the Queen Bee and thus the prince of the Hive. However, in STC his teammates do not know this and he insists that they do not find out.

Both his own teammates and most villains consider Charmy little more than a pest, due to his apparent insanity. On one occasion, after systematically incapacitating Sonic and Mighty, Lightmare specifically said that Charmy was "not worth bothering with" before being taken down by Espio. Despite this, Charmy sometimes appears to be smarter than he acts, and it is occasionally suggested that he deliberately puts on his annoying air. Charmy 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.

Trivia

 * In "Total Chaotix", the first story to feature Charmy (Sonic the Comic #53 to #58), Charmy's name was spelled "Charmee".
 * Writer Nigel Kitching derived Charmy's unique speech pattern from a steam-driven robot character from an old 2000AD strip written by John Wagner.

Friends/Allies

 * Chaotix
 * Espio the Chameleon
 * Vector the Crocodile
 * Sonic the Hedgehog
 * Miles "Tails" Prower
 * Knuckles the Echidna
 * Amy Rose
 * Rouge the Bat
 * Big the Cat
 * Cream the Rabbit
 * Mighty the Armadillo
 * Shadow the Hedgehog (Role Model)
 * Heavy and Bomb

Rivals/Foes

 * Dr. Eggman
 * Black Arms
 * Metal Sonic

Theme Songs
Team Chaotix (this theme is shared with Espio the Chameleon and Vector the Crocodile, yet Charmy is mentioned in the two lines "Danger hides when the hyper bee flies" and "Charmy's thing is dishin' out first sting"

Voice acting

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

Memorable Quotes

 * "Yeah, let's go!" - When selecting Team Chaotix in Sonic Heroes.
 * "It's here it's here, we got work!" - When barging into the office of the Chaotix' detective agency in their opening cut-scene of Sonic Heroes.
 * "Yeah, you know our policy!" - After Vector reminds Espio of their policy in the Chaotix' opening cut-scene of Sonic Heroes.
 * "Oh flower, pretty flower, show your face and I'll sting you!" - When close to a mechanical flower in Sonic Heroes.
 * "Hey Shadow! I gotta ask you somethin'. Vector told me to find five top secret disks. But like, what's a top secret disk?" - In Shadow the Hedgehog.

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).
 * In his Season 2 appearance in Sonic X, Charmy is the only Chaotix member who doesn't get to introduce himself to the audience before the commercial break. The card shown for his character stats shows his reaction to this.
 * Charmy is the first (and currently only) anthropomorphic insect in the entire cast of the series (he has a family in the Comic series though).
 * Charmy's personality is similar to Marine the Raccoon and Chip.
 * During the cutscene that took place before the Egg Hawk battle in Sonic Heroes, Charmy acts as if he's never met Eggman before, which contradicts the events that took place in Knuckles' Chaotix.
 * So far, Charmy is the only member of the Chaotix not to appear playable without the rest of his team (Espio appeared in Sonic the Fighters and Sonic Rivals 2; Vector appeared in Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games and its sequel).
 * Charmy has proven despite his small size he is actually very strong because he can lift both Vector and Espio and remain in flight.