Thanks to the efforts of not only Shenmue Dojo but also David De Ville, Chao Yu, and Nathan Gargus, we are proud to present over 100 newly discovered, unseen renders of characters and areas from Shenmue’s development!
Following our recent purchase of the design artwork, active members of the Shenmue community set out to trace the original owner of these books and artworks. Their search led them to Hideki Kawabata, a former SEGA AM2 employee. While such rabbit holes often lead nowhere, this one uncovered a treasure trove of unseen images and artwork that had been hidden in plain sight for over 25 years.
Yanglang DC model and Shenmue 3 Final Comparision
On his own personal page https://web.archive.org/web/20220225231107/http://shinjuwankougeki.web.fc2.com/sinyazangyou/img/sega/sega.html lie hidden an amazing amount of renders, artworks, design documents and more, undiscovered by the Shenmue community until now!
We have preserved these on our website for the entire Shenmue Community to enjoy and we hope you take the time to marvel at a huge piece of Shenmue history!
Gallery Links
Character Renders: https://shenmuedojo.com/media/early-character-renders/
Area Renders: https://shenmuedojo.com/media/early-area-renders/
Shenmue Dojo Show – Bonus – Checking out the images!
Join James and Matt as they go through ALL of the images and go on a deep dive discussion on things never seen before!
