@matana @LukeAlmighty The lack of sincerity is probably because they are aware that normalfags cannot comprehend the idea of a serious story being told with anthropomorphic characters. Even though the Sonic series is very flexible and works with in-depth plots (this could be my bias coming out since I was a mega Sonic autist). They have serious empathy problems and can't relate to characters that aren't exactly like them, thus the whole "representation" movement recently.

A normalfag sees a grown man in spandex shooting lasers out of his eyes and they say "wow, so cool". But a hedgehog talking about his feelings? "lol wtffff is this, chat? *fake shocked face* Why are the *twerks* talking animals *checks phone notifications* acting like all serious and shit? Only le Marvel movies can do that!" And so to cater to this audience, who will spend money on pretty much anything as long as it's socially accepted, they hedge (pun intended) their bets by putting in lots of moments of "oh no it's not that serious, it's all in good fun, just wacky antics here!" That way they don't feel like they're watching "cringe."

That's my theory.