Well, you can kind of see what they were going for here...
With Tomy's latest small size Sonic plush. They are trying to make a doll of the classic "Laughin' Sonic" stock art. To capitalize on stock art is nothing new, the Japan plushes of the 90s attempted this as well with stuff like 'hand on hip' posed plushes and the (notorious?) "big finger" plush where he was 'pointing' or 'finger waving'. This one does much better in the finger department, and may be among one of the best with a posed hand.
However...the face, especially the mouth leaves design to be desired. It's giant, it flattens the whole front of his face & just looks kind of odd with that red 'lip line' that's going on. And yes...he's "closing his pupils" with those lines in the eye-white like that, but you can't blame the doll because it's that way in the classic art. However, in a 3D actual object, it looks a little wierd. So this plush really is a struggle for any designer "make it just like the art!" but then, it comes off as a bit odd because not everything in art translates well into an actual item. Still, this is fairly interesting to see.

In the gallary is a look at the final product of Tomy's pose-plush "Laughin' Sonic".
To wring more out of their classic license, Tomy is making poses based on character stock art. This one is based on the laughing one...and....it's ok-ish? Art doesn't always translate well into a 3 dimensional product so there's some oddity going on like are his eyelids white? Is he literally closing his pupils? And then the mouth is positively gigantic because the art is 'toony and exaggerated' for a silly/funny effect. He's also mostly missing his ear borders. The hand on hip/bent arm & pointing finger work out ok because they bothered to sculpt the pattern. The shoes also look quality with good attention to shape & an embroidered buckle.
Given the stock art, there's not much of another way this plush could have turned out, but that doesn't mean it was a 100% fantastic idea to do, either. It's a bit odd. Photo by Taaron.