Shenmue Story - Ryo's Mother

In the Shenmue games we have a lot of characters, many NPCs with backstories and information, especially in the first game, but there is one character that remains mysterious for me, this character is Ryo's mother. It is curious to notice that we don't even know how her character was designed and anything about her background, even in the Passport disc the only information about her is that she died.


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We only know 2 pieces of information about Ryo's mother, we know that she died of an mysterious illness when Ryo was 3 years old and that her name is Akane, did she really die? Why would Yu Suzuki make this character so mysterious? Maybe because she will appear at some point in the story?


Some people even have a theory for this, the theory that Niao Sun will be revealed as Ryo's mother. Is this plot twist possible? It is possible depending on Niao Sun's age, we don't know how old Niao Sun is. Lan Di is 31 years old, it is possible that Niao Sun is older than Lan Di, Niao Sun doesn't look like she is young like Nozomi for example.


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The name of Ryo's Mother is Akane but it is possible as well that she has changed her name for some reason, it is not impossible for example that Akane joined The Chi You Men for some reason. I saw similar things happening in other stories so is not impossible.


We don't know more information about Akane so it is really hard to know about her personality, the things she loved, her dreams and much more so these things again are not impossible to happen in the story, plot twists like this.


It was in Shenmue III that we learned that her name is Akane, Iwao did an Ema in Bailu Village, the Ema says... "Akane... i promise to return. Wait for me..."


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This can mean 2 things in my opinion, that Akane was in Bailu Village when Iwao did the Ema, Iwao did the Ema for Akane to see, for Akane to see that he will return someday and saying for Akane to wait for him. The other possibility and the one that probably happened is that Akane was in Yokosuka Japan when Iwao did the Ema, Akane didn't see the Ema but Iwao wanted to express his feelings, so Iwao did this.

These theories about Ryo's mother are really interesting but I found an important clue about this subject. At TGS 2011 Kenji of the Shenmue Master site did an interview with Yu Suzuki, one of the questions Kenji asked was if Ryo's mother has an importance in the future events of the story, this was Yu Suzuki response to this question:

Yu Suzuki: About Ryo's mother, in the future, she will not have much to do with the story. She is an emotional support. Her memory always comes in the heart of Ryo, she supports him emotionally.

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This can mean 2 things, this can mean that Yu Suzuki decided to say it like this because he doesn't want to share important details about the future events in the story, the other thing is that Yu Suzuki really said the truth when he answered about this and that Akane has no larger role to play in the Shenmue story.


Yu Suzuki said that Akane is an emotional support for Ryo, that her memory always comes in his heart, that she supports him emotionally, it is interesting to remember that in the games we didn't see this type of support in relation to Akane, Akane supporting Ryo emotionally.


In Shenmue III in one of the conversations with Shenhua, Ryo talked about his mother but Ryo only said that his mother died, and that Ine-san is the closest he's ever come to having a mother, so we still haven’t seen Akane supporting Ryo emotionally. Ryo remembering her with more details and things like that, like i said we don't even know how her character design is, she still is a mysterious character for me.


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Did Akane really die? If she didn't die then what happened to her? Will we see and learn more about Ryo's mother? I really want to see and learn more about Akane. It would be really nice if one day we see Akane's character design, and one day we learn about her personality, feelings and much more.

It would be beautiful to see Ryo's mother helping Ryo in the journey, Akane giving emotional support for Ryo in difficult times in his journey like Yu Suzuki said, it would be lovely and sweet if this happens, this subject is really interesting.

What do you think about all of this? Share your opinions with us below.
 
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yu said in an interview (at 7:28) that ryo's mother won't have much to do with the story so I doubt that she's niao sun. He also said that she provides ryo with emotional support which is kinda weird considering that in 3's conversations he didn't really same to care about her that much....that's what I know about her
 
yu said in an interview (at 7:28) that ryo's mother won't have much to do with the story so I doubt that she's niao sun. He also said that she provides ryo with emotional support which is kinda weird considering that in 3's conversations he didn't really same to care about her that much....that's what I know about her

Yes, this is the inteview, i talked about this interview in this post in the blog. Maybe what Yu Suzuki said about emotional support for Ryo will happen in Shenmue IV.
 
yu said in an interview (at 7:28) that ryo's mother won't have much to do with the story so I doubt that she's niao sun. He also said that she provides ryo with emotional support which is kinda weird considering that in 3's conversations he didn't really same to care about her that much....that's what I know about her
This 100%.Ryo didn't seem to care much, so I wouldn't expect Akane to play a role in the story going forward.
 
I think will be like Yu Suzuki said, that Akane will not have much to do with the story, that Akane will support Ryo emotionally. Maybe in Shenmue IV something will happen and we will see Akane giving emotional support in some way for Ryo, it is possible. I hope one day we can see Akane character design.
 
I believe it was a deliberate decision to not have Ryo’s mother as a main or pivotal character in the story which strengthens the loss Ryo feels when he looses Iwao.

In a way it’s really Ryo’s journey to understand his father and some of the decisions he made.
 
I believe it was a deliberate decision to not have Ryo’s mother as a main or pivotal character in the story which strengthens the loss Ryo feels when he looses Iwao.

In a way it’s really Ryo’s journey to understand his father and some of the decisions he made.

I agree but i hope one day we can at least see Akane character design and more informations about Akane, and would be nice if what Yu Suzuki said in the interview happen in Shenmue IV.

Yu Suzuki: She is an emotional support. Her memory always comes in the heart of Ryo, she supports him emotionally.

We haven't seen that happening yet, Akane supporting Ryo emotionally in his journey so it would be nice to see that in Shenmue IV.
 
Maybe we'll have more informations with the anime. How they will inform viewers that Ine San is not Ryo's mother? Maybe Ryo will go to the graveyard or something like that? Wait and see...

Yeah, maybe we will see more informations about Akane in the anime, i really hope this happen in the anime.
 
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