Here's my recap/review of the finale
NOTE: This is a recap/review of the Japanese audio & English subtitled version of the episode, viewed via Crunchyroll. It is currently not possible to view the English dub where I am, in the UK…
shenmusings.wordpress.com
My final thoughts from the blog post:
Wow, what a ride this has been. I was generally satisfied with the final episode overall, with my only real issue being how rapid the first part of the Guilin chapter was dashed through – many fans will agree that it’s one of the seminal parts of the game, the long trek through the countryside as Ryo and Shenhua get to know one another -so it’s perhaps slightly disappointing to see this entirely skipped here. In an ideal world, we would have had a 24 episode season that would have been able to spare the time for this to be an entire episode – but given that we only had 13 to work with, perhaps this was an unfortunate but necessary cut.
However – I would like to think that, if we do get a Season 2, then a lot of the development of Ryo and Shenhua’s relationship would simply be moved there, adding some much needed meat to the admittedly bare bones of Shenmue III’s story (their night-time chats in fact are widely considered one of the better points of the game). It may not yet be too late for us to see the two discuss Ryo’s friends, their differing ways of life and Shenhua’s affinity with nature. I also understand why they perhaps chose the two’s first meeting to unfold this way – Shenhua is kept just enough of a mystery to ensure that there is still a hook for a potential second season, which perhaps excuses the rushed feel of her proper introduction in this episode. And really, given the tease flashforward of the infamous cave scene back at the beginning of the series, we really did need to reach that point by the end of the season.
One of the biggest changes from
Shenmue II’s version of events was of course the Lan Di battle – with him actually setting foot off the helicopter and engaging with Ryo’s misguided attempts to fight him. In the game, it felt effective for Ryo’s nemesis to simply be watching everything from the helicopter, being just that slight frustrating bit out of reach. Here, they effectively opted to move the confrontation between the two from the end of
Shenmue III to far earlier- and I think this actually works better for the medium of an anime. I think any new viewers who had never played the games would have been disappointed for there not to be some sort of Ryo/Lan Di fight by this point, so this kind of forced their hand here. If there is a Season 2, I’m unsure of how they’ll adjust their meeting in Niaowu given this – it surely won’t feel as effective done a second time – but given the sheer amount of reworking/re-ordering of things this anime has done already I’m confident this would be handled smoothly.
Other characters got their time to shine in this episode well – and I particularly liked Ren’s added dimension of wanting to pull Ryo out of his blind rage – cementing his role as a clear-headed tactician, as opposed to Ryo’s often irrational head-first approach. Joy’s character arc was given a subtle, yet satisfying ending, and Wong seems to have been inspired to take steps to improve his lot in life. The farewell to Xiuying was also well done, her character absolutely done justice in this anime.
Overall, despite the slightly rushed feeling, I really enjoyed this final episode. It of course leaves me with an overwhelming appetite for a second season – the idea of
Shenmue III’s story being able to be fleshed out and given a bit more much needed development sounds very intriguing to me. Of course, it still remains to be seen if we will get a
Shenmue IV, or if this anime will end up overtaking the source material and complete the story should it be given more seasons – but honestly, I would be more than happy if the latter ended up being the case. Of course, in my absolute heart of hearts I wish for more games, but given the quality of this first season I would be willing to compromise. This episode did a great job of tying all the lessons Ryo has learned together, and I hope any newcomers are intrigued enough to want to check out the games. I will gladly give this one a
4/5.