SPOILERS Shenmue The Animation: Episode 2 - Daybreak - Thread

Tomato Convenience Store said:
Great work, man! I would probably say something that's more of a solid color would work better as the background, or if there's some sort of processing you can do on the current pic to desaturate it somehow.
Click to expand...

Yeah no probs, I still have it saved in Premiere and open so I'll play around a bit.
 
Loved this episode. Like how they are covering the first disc and love the ED song. Hope we can get a full release for both the OP and ED.
 
bcdcdude said:
OK! Literally just finished episode 2! I'm really enjoying this even if the pace is a little too fast for me. I'm writing my comments now, then will read everyone's in a little while :)

It is fascinating to see how the story is intertwined in a way we've not expected before, but also some gentle little nuggets of info I don't believe we were privy to before. For example, Yamagashi-san saying that Iwao-san didn't always live here (which we know of course, but I don't think it was said as explicitly). It's lovely to see Nozomi play a big part in the show too. Litlte things like seeing her bedroom above Aida florists was nice!

It was also great to see Shenmue III characters right at the beginning of the episode too - i'll be very interested to see how a potential series 2 will do things. Perhaps when Ryo reaches Bailu, there will be flashbacks for bits in Shenmue I & II in a similar vein?

I think the Charlie investigation was a *little* too quick - literally seconds. I think some investigation on looking for a tattoo would've been nice, but appreciate that some things have to be streamlined. The fight scenes are brilliant in their brevity and impact. You can *feel* the impact of some of the blows.

I think the opening and ending themes are fine, but they're not lingering in the memory. I do have to say how BEAUTIFUL the ending paintings are. There was one of Ryo and Nozomi with the cat which is a lovely little bit. I would love to have the final one of Ryo and Nozomi on a bench as a framed photo. Utterly stunning. I hope some screenshots will be saved as they will also make a good desktop background.

I think we're on to a winner here folks.

Bonus - Did Yamagashi-san get his jumper from the same shop as Nozomi when he went to pay respects to Iwao?!
Click to expand...
Occurs to me now that the "University conversations" in this episode between Ryo and Nozomi, and Nozomi worrying about whether Ryo will go to uni (and with her), are kind of the anime version of the cutscene after the tattoo parlor in S1
 
The Heart-beats scene leading up to the meet up with Charlie. Really feeling the serious vibe of the music they used here.

Hopefully that’s enough to make others take the story seriously and keep watching. Its a sneaky tactic, putting that music there I mean. We get the campy dialogue with the milk but the music sorta hides it too. It worked for me so far, though not gonna lie it was a bit jarring at first. I know some people might be put off by the campy stuff.
 
Amazing episode. Loved it.

The first 2 minutes blew my mind. That dream sequence and the Shenmue 3 stuff was outstanding.

Really love how they're fleshing out the other characters. Anime Nozomi is the stand out star. She's way better in the anime than the video game. Yamagishi-san getting his own little subplot was excellent and Chai being a stalker works very well.

The music. Whoever remixed the soundtrack deserves a gold medal. The music is epic as is the music placement.

The easter eggs in this episode are incredible. So much so that you have to go back and rewatch the episode a couple of times just in case you missed anything.

it felt a little fast paced at times, but i think that's to be expected from fans of the series as we're used to spending days/hours gathering these clues. I've seen casual fans say it's paced perfectly. And to be fair, we can't beat around the bush with a slower pace as we have the monster known as Shenmue 2 to cover. The prophecy appears to be used a bit too much, but again I don't know if that's because we've heard it a million times for 20+ years. New fans would have only heard it twice at this point.

Overall solid episode. I loved it. The team really knows what they're doing.
 
danielmann861 said:
Also, do you think there is a chance we get the missing boat sequence?
Click to expand...
Hope so. If they use the mom and the kid further in Hong Kong we might at least get a flashback of what happened in the boat.

RetroLord120 said:
I feel like Chai is studying Ryo's moves so that he can defeat him in a second fight. Ryo is going to get complacent and overconfident because he beat him once before. >:)
Click to expand...
Ooooh. You might be onto something here.
 
Just read everyone's comments and i'm happy to see everyone else enjoying it too :) That said, I love anime Nozomi, but i'll always defend original Nozomi; there's a gentle melancholy about her that I adore (a sort of gentle shyness) that doesn't come across in the anime, but I'm really enjoying seeing more of her and being a bit more perky. I'm weird in that the original English voiceover for Nozomi pretty much nailed it in a way that the Shenmue III one failed miserably at. I've yet to hear the anime dub yet, but i'm not getting my hopes up.

Also, does Adult Swim France know something we don't....Shenmue Season 1?? Wishful thinking, but you never know!

1644749274720.png

Loving all the easter eggs; so many i've missed out on!
 
If the manga is anything to go by I hope the boat chapter continues its tradition of being cut from the Shenmue canon. You guys are tripping if you think they’re going to include that segment. Unless they completely rewrote it to be more consequential to the story I’d be shocked to see anything more than a line or two mentioning it.

Episode 2 was good though. Slower pace than ep 1(although still quite fast for Shenmue). Like everyone has been saying seeing Shenmue 3 stuff covered in the anime is something I’m really excited about. Anything that takes the show outside of the story beats we’ve all memorized is the real fun stuff and episode two had plenty of that so I rate it.
 
I loved this second episode! If all episodes are like this I bet this anime will have much audience than we think!

Music, scenes, dialogs... everything fits perfectly! It's a quality anime. Looking fordward to the next one!
 
danielmann861 said:
My one request for Shenmue IV if we get it? Get these writers on board to help Yu! They get it!
Click to expand...
giphy.webp
 
1644752983593.png

Very cool of the team to decide that the original game had one too many black guys in it.

Episode was solid enough. Pacing was way too fast, but I welcomed most of the added scenes and details.
 
24Nathan said:
In the altar room...what do the plaques say? I seem to recall one has Iwao's name on it...in the first game, I believe the other is too blurry to read, but was suspected to be of his mother's. Does the one in the anime say Akane?
Click to expand...
Yes, the first plaque starts "Father, Iwao..." and the other has "Mother, Akane..." The rest of the characters are rather hard to read and are likely to have special Buddhist meanings. (Although the writing on the plaques in the game isn't very clear, I just went back to have another look and these same kanji characters can also be seen there).

Edit: correction, only the plaque in the game version has "Mother, Akane...". The anime has "Mother" followed by other kanji that appear to have special Buddhist meaning, but are not her name. (This doesn't necessarily mean that her name has been changed though, as the deceased's earthly name is not always written on the front of a Buddhist plaque).
 
Last edited:
Tonk post incoming so I apologise lol.

Amazing second episode! I think I actually prefer it to the first, and I didn't think it could get much better than that tbh.
As a lot of people expected, the pacing of the first episode was breakneck, mainly as it was the first episode and they need to set the stage for the story, but also need to include a satisfying story arc all within 23 minutes. Adding the Chai fight was necessary to complete the first arc, but ended up making the episode feel slightly rushed, but it was the right call to make new viewers understand/get excited etc. This episode has much better pacing overall, and although there was a load of information handed to the viewer, it didn't feel like an overload.

Notable things that I stood out:-
Dream Sequence:
Their take on the dream sequence is just awesome. They've used it to add additional questions to what happened that day with the focus point of Ryo asking why & what his father did wrong. The animation seems to be focusing not just solely on revenge, but more on the fact that Ryo believes/trusts that Iwao was a good person, and would never kill. It seems he is more hellbent on the fact of learning/proving that, more than revenge itself which is very interesting.

Bailu – This scene was fucking awesome!
I am SO happy that they are continuing down the route of showing Bailu early, and it was my wish that they would spend enough time there to flesh out the characters from Shenmue III. As the camera follows Shenhua walking through the village square past Zixiong, Mingyang and to the Lin & the kids with Elder Yeh, I was hoping so much that we would learn something extra that we didn't know from SIII. The fact that the village kids are all taught about the poem is just a nice little touch, and feels like it adds even more importance to the prophecy. Love that Lin makes Shenhua have a sudden realisation too. (Also awesome that the lamb is just casually following her everywhere :p).
I have my fingers crossed that Shenhua will walk back over the verdant bridge and take that rice wine to Yuan, where we can learn more about him in a future episode!

The boombox, the Tails and the Binsbein 2 on Ryos desk! Love these little details that literally mean nothing to general watchers, but are a nice nod to the fans! Makes me really pay attention looking for the references!

I really like how they are keeping Chai in the story, lurking from the shadows. This really builds on the games as it adds to the shadowy/stealthy aspects of his character, but also just general shows us what he gets up in-between the instances we see him confront Ryo. @RetroLord420 said something sick which makes a hell of a lot of sense:
“I feel like Chai is studying Ryo's moves so that he can defeat him in a second fight. Ryo is going to get complacent and overconfident because he beat him once before. >:) “
Click to expand...
I would love that!

Yamagishi-San:-
For me, this is the main dish for this episode :D! The extra stuff that they have added to Yamagishi-san is pure gold. This mini arc just adds detail to every character involved, and fills out backstory to them too. At the same time, it makes me question something very obvious from the games, that I've never questioned before. This has happened a number of times in the animation for me already.

Since watching the anime, I feel like I've kinda just been on autopilot when playing the games. I've played them at least once a year since 2000, and feel as if I've just been going through the motions. I don't really think about or question anything anymore. These 2 episodes of the anime (and Shenmue III to some extent), have made me start to question the small things, and I think this is one of my favourite things about the anime tbh.

Episode 1 made me really think about the route that Lan Di drove in the black car for some reason, and also about what he did when he turned up at the Hazuki Dojo (how did the Hazuki sign get snapped in half? Did Lan Di order the thugs to break it? Was the storm so bad that the wind knocked it down etc?). These are minor things that we don't see, but because we don't see them, I'd never really thought about them.

In Episode 2, when Ryo asked Yamagishi-san “do you happen to know where my father lived before that?” I started to wonder why I'd never thought about it before lol. Obviously we know that Iwao spent some time in Bailu, but I'd never spent time to think about it. I really hope they do show us more flashbacks of Iwao!

As per last week, I could go on for hours lol. I just loved this episode so much. Really happy with the way they dealt with the detective scenes, and the liberties that they are taking with telling their version of the story! They are doing a fantastic job of making everything connected and make sense, and as a fan of the games, it is SO interesting to see what they chop and change in their adaption! I love it!
  • Seeing inside extra rooms and places is a fucking blast too, Nozomi's room etc.
  • That camera pan that reveals Tony and Smith when Ryo is walking down to Heartbeats looks incredible (the POV camera).
  • All the fight scenes, animation and music is just A++ again like last week!
OK, that's enough now! :D

Bring on episode 3! Yin Yang!!

TL:DR:- So sick!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top