A Gamer's Journey (Shenmue Documentary) goes to Kickstarter

Adam0 said:
Will be available to the masses soon - both digitally and physically. Just about to start shipping to backers first to keep things fair and after that it'll be available for everyone.
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Announce it in tiktok Adam. So it gets into the kids minds and turn the series into another sudden superhit.
 
Sergeynest said:
I believe many of us have been mistaking the Chapter 8 Card as portraying the Four Chiyoumen Leaders and Tentei; wich I believe is not the case. I recall Yu Suzuki giving an interview in wich he explains that the four figures in the Chapter 8 Card are not the Four Chiyoumen Leaders and that they are in fact the Four Grandmasters that Ryo will encounter along his journey through China.
As for the character described by fans as Tentei; I do not recall if he explained who he was; but I think it is related with the Grandmaster called Ryu from Luoyang.

View attachment 17999
As for the other Grandmasters; I do not know who they might be with the exception of one.
I believe that the Character in the bottom left is in fact Xiuying; because if we compare it with the depiction it is given of her character in Chapter Card 11; we will see that they are identical.
View attachment 18000
What further enhances that these are in fact the depictions of the Four Grandmasters is Ryo's "Transformation" or "Evolution" portrayed by his change of outfit from Green to Blue & Red in Chapter Card 8 that we can also see in Chapter Card 11.

Another thing we can uncover in Chapter Card 8 is its location; this clue is given by the Statue we see at the bottom center of the Chapter Card. This Statue is Called the Iron Lion of Cangzhou.
View attachment 18001
Cangzhou is also known as Lion City because of the Statue. The most interesting thing about this location is the fact that it is very neard to a place where one of the most important events in the Shenmue Story happened. If you take a look at the map shown in the next picture you will understand why.
View attachment 18002
That's right Mengcun; the place where Iwao supposedly killed Zhao Sunming "Lan Di's Father".
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Great analysis and I also could see resemblance to Xuixing. I’ve posted this a few times but here is the quote from Suzuki in relation to that chapter card-

Yu Suzuki: I cannot say too much about this artwork because this is quite far from where Shenmue II stopped. All I can say is that those characters are not Chiyoumen, they are Grand Masters.
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code l name said:
I’ve posted this a few times but here is the quote from Suzuki in relation to that chapter card-
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That's important to be re posted because answers both questions: Yu Suzuki is concerned about spoilers and, indeed S4 could be heavily focused in Ryo's training with multiple - not just the ultimate one - martial art masters. And that opens the window to a possible S5.
 
Sergeynest said:
I believe many of us have been mistaking the Chapter 8 Card as portraying the Four Chiyoumen Leaders and Tentei; wich I believe is not the case. I recall Yu Suzuki giving an interview in wich he explains that the four figures in the Chapter 8 Card are not the Four Chiyoumen Leaders and that they are in fact the Four Grandmasters that Ryo will encounter along his journey through China.
As for the character described by fans as Tentei; I do not recall if he explained who he was; but I think it is related with the Grandmaster called Ryu from Luoyang.

View attachment 17999
As for the other Grandmasters; I do not know who they might be with the exception of one.
I believe that the Character in the bottom left is in fact Xiuying; because if we compare it with the depiction it is given of her character in Chapter Card 11; we will see that they are identical.
View attachment 18000
What further enhances that these are in fact the depictions of the Four Grandmasters is Ryo's "Transformation" or "Evolution" portrayed by his change of outfit from Green to Blue & Red in Chapter Card 8 that we can also see in Chapter Card 11.

Another thing we can uncover in Chapter Card 8 is its location; this clue is given by the Statue we see at the bottom center of the Chapter Card. This Statue is Called the Iron Lion of Cangzhou.
View attachment 18001
Cangzhou is also known as Lion City because of the Statue. The most interesting thing about this location is the fact that it is very neard to a place where one of the most important events in the Shenmue Story happened. If you take a look at the map shown in the next picture you will understand why.
View attachment 18002
That's right Mengcun; the place where Iwao supposedly killed Zhao Sunming "Lan Di's Father".
Click to expand...

Beautiful analysis, it's interesting that Yu Suzuki confirmed that these characters are not Chi You Men leaders, that these characters are Grand Masters, i never knew that Yu Suzuki said this about chapter 8 art.

One is probably Xiuying then and it makes sense her comeback in the story, but how about the others Grand Masters? who are the others Grand Masters and what is happening in this scene? the 4 Grand Masters looking at Ryo improving even more as a martial artist? i'm not sure but right now this is my only guess about the situation.

The other Grand Master that probably is in this art is the Grand Master that Ryo will probably meet in Mengcun, Mengcun is the birthplace of Bajiquan, Bajiquan is Akira's fighting style, i think this master is the master that wrote the mysterious scroll and will be the last master of Ryo in the journey.

With your post i reminded about this CG artwork of Akira/Ryo arriving in Cangzhou.


1681160680989.png

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Cangzhou and Mengcun will probably be really important for the story, i can't wait to see all about these contents, it looks really beautiful and interesting, Pagoda Forest and Cangzhou are even stages in Virtua Fighter II.

img_1094-1-1.jpg
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Everytime i think about what will happen next in the story i remember about the places Yu Suzuki went in that trip he did to China, and i look Virtua Fighter games and the chapters arts too. In that trip he went to Shaolin Temple, Luoyang, Mengcun and many other places.

This trip he did to China was the trip that influenced Yu Suzuki in the creation of Virtua Fighter II and Shenmue, so i think this trip to China and Virtua Fighter games have important clues about the future of the Shenmue story.

When Yu Suzuki changed from Virtua Fighter RPG to Shenmue in my opinion he did not changed the main journey of the protagonist, this is one of the reasons why Ryo have so much in common with Akira, this is why it feels to me that Ryo is like a younger version of Akira. Ryo is learning important Bajiquan moves, in a way Ryo's journey is about how Ryo/Akira became knowledgeable and skilled in the Bajiquan fighting style, this is how i view the situation.

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The character that many fans think is Tentei looks like is wearing a suit, i think this design would be nice for Tentei but now i'm even more confused about who is this character.

1681161428936.png​


All i know is... LetsGetShenmue4
 
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They really are the best postal service, IMO: even stuff in Winnipeg or QC, I get next day almost every time (and if it isn't next day, I've never had it more than the 2nd day).

Poster is in great shape! Just have to find a frame for it ;)

The booklet is awesome! :D Gotanda is a great neighbourhood, my wife and I spent a good 7 hours walking those streets that day (between there and Togoshi-Ginza) and the people, shops, etc. were awesome.

Did I spot Joel? :LOL: And I'm still super jealous about you guys seeing the GDC cards: I know all of us have been huge fans of deciphering them and the like, but they are easily my favourite piece of media/art from every bit of material ever released outside the game.

Also love the notebook style of the booklet, it is a wonderful little nod to the games :)

And lastly, I found myself (multiple times!) on the front collage :D

All in all, Adam, you guys did a phenomenal job, I can't wait to watch it again during some downtime in the next week or so (would do so today, but headed down to the Jays game).

So many thanks again! :D
 
Amazing stuff! I love that Yu-san looks like he's holding a Pokéball haha.

Yu-san I CHOOSE YOU!
 
Doing a shameless self plug of my twitter handle @adamMsipione that I've had forever but never really used until now....

If anyone wants to follow along I'll be going through all my old hard drives and posting behind the scenes content from the early days of filming that I never really shared before. I'll also be using it for any future videogame documentary projects which I hope there is more of as I have some cool ideas and a renewed boost of motivation.

P.S Canadian backers should all receive their copies by end of week. The first round of UK orders will be going out in the next 2 weeks I think unless there are delays (first batch has been sent out to distributor) US to follow. As always please stay tuned for updates on getting leftover physical copies and online streaming 👀
 
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I'm so happy this project is finally nearing its end. It sure took a long time, but no matter. Quality like this is worth waiting for!

Very happy being a backer of this, and I can't wait to get my hands on this beautiful thing.
 
code l name said:
Can you please link or provide this because this is first I’ve heard of this.

I do recall David’s Shenmuemaster with Suzuki back in 2015 I believe where he saw sketches or artwork for 2 other Chiyoumen leaders; Gentei and Koutei but he never elaborated on their design or appearance.
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I'll dig around for the video. It's been a very long time since I've watched it. But it's an audio recording of Suzuki talking while showing the uploader some sketches from Shenmue and I distinctly remember YS showing some character and then he says "Tentei". I'll go and search for this video because now I wanna see it again
 
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