SPOILERS Shenmue The Animation Episode 3: Yin - Yang Thread

Really enjoying the storytelling in this episode. They expanded on the concepts of the criminal underworld to a very fascinating degree and how they connect the characters to it all is incredible.

There's this cohesive narrative that is just slowly unraveling and everything you had to assume or infer from the games is directly implemented into the mystery here in the anime.

Aside from even the story itself, the characters are shining bright as well. Enjoying Ryo's expanded personality, Guizhang's explored relationship with Chen and hooked on every second that Lan Di makes an appearance.
 
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gladias9 said:
Aside from even the story itself, the characters are pretty shining bright as well. Enjoying Ryo's expanded personality, Guizhang's explored relationship with Chen and hooked on every second that Lan Di makes an appearance.
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This is another important aspect of the story that I've probably overlooked until now. Lan Di might not be getting any character development (yet) but he still has a great presence in the story. Compared to the game we had no idea what Lan Di was up to until he left for Hong Kong. With the anime we now get a sense for the understated violence that Lan Di commits in the background and why half the underworld in two countries is scared to death of him.
 
This is making me REALLY want to go through the games again. I kind of did a playthrough of all three, but got distracted in the middle of III and had to finish it months later. So, I've never had a true I - III playthrough. This is making me really want to do that.
 
Not a knock, but Lan Di has a more satisfying presence in 90 minutes worth of anime than he did in Shenmue 1. Loving the extra Lan Di & Guizhang stuff as well as the Bailu village scenes. Surprised we haven't seen Tom in 2 episodes. Feel like his friendship with Ryo is about to be as underdeveloped as in the game lol.

With the good work they're doing with the supporting characters, I legitimately cannot wait for Ren & Xiuying.
 
I Got Sriracha In My DNA said:
Not a knock, but Lan Di has a more satisfying presence in 90 minutes worth of anime than he did in Shenmue 1. Loving the extra Lan Di & Guizhang stuff as well as the Bailu village scenes. Surprised we haven't seen Tom in 2 episodes. Feel like his friendship with Ryo is about to be as underdeveloped as in the game lol.

With the good work they're doing with the supporting characters, I legitimately cannot wait for Ren & Xiuying.
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Yeah, since the story is being told in a different medium it allows for more of these cutaway moments. It's definitely been a huge benefit to the story and gives more opportunity to flesh out the side characters, as you mentioned. I especially can't wait for Xiuying.

I think Tom/Ryo's friendship is one of the things that's essentially cut or downplayed in the anime, given their interaction in the first episode.
 
code l name said:
Lan Di speaking Mandarin! He was raised by the Chi You Men at a young age so this makes sense
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I love that we see them speaking Mandarin however this calls to attention a problem for current and future episodes. Why is Shenhua speaking Japanese? How are they going to handle Ryo going to China speaking Japanese when they've established in the show we can see them speaking different languages.

Not a dealbreaker for me but curious how the show will handle it.
 
If I had one nitpicky thing, I would have loved for a bit more discovery in the basement. Such as finding the youth elixir, Chinese comb, White leaf*, and the Phoenix mirror not being in a hugely obvious place, though I suppose you can say it was hidden well enough.

Edit: and perhaps it would've been a nice touch if he even came across the letter Iwao left on his desk, but I understand there are going to be some things left out.
 
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Fantastic episode, great to see Goro, Russiya, the antique shop, some of the Lan Di backside content, only thing is I wish the basement scene was longer showing Ryo in awe of the hidden place and the collecting items from China further building this mysterious connection his dad had over there.

Harbor scene was good including some of the rework with Master Chen and Guizhang and somehow managing to make Chai even creepier in the anime. Looking forward to ep 4
 
24Nathan said:
This is making me REALLY want to go through the games again. I kind of did a playthrough of all three, but got distracted in the middle of III and had to finish it months later. So, I've never had a true I - III playthrough. This is making me really want to do that.
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hopefully it will be enough to get people interested in the remasters and play them. I remember when I was hooked on Outlaw Star I was obsessively looking for games based on it at the time so it could peak where people want to experience Dobuita or the harbor or these characters in a game and from the comments, many new people are being exposed.
 
This week’s episode was a bit weak when compared to the last one (I’d give it a 7/10, maybe), but it did raise some interesting talking points.

For one, the Chens are very up front about their connection to the underworld in the anime, which I found to be very interesting. It’s obviously heavily implied in the games, but the implications of it play nicely into show Ryo’s “I want to learn the truth about my father” motivation and forces him to accept that his father seems to have associated with members of the underworld prior to his death.

The episode also seems to rule out the possibility of Yuanda Zhu being Tentei, which I’m actually a little disappointed about. It would have made for an awesome twist and is how I’d have like to have imagined the story ending in the event that we never get a Shenmue 4 and beyond. It doesn’t explain why Lan Di didn’t even think to ask Iwao about the Phoenix mirror before killing him either, though does at least justify his immediate return to HK. I just wish we knew who the man he interrogated to find out about Zhu was (this seems to have taken place in Japan, so I’m curious who there would know).

As for the rest of the changes, they were a mixture of hit and miss. It was nice to get a chance to see Guizang square off against Chai, but I hated how they handled Ryo finding the mirror. We see him searching the dojo, yet he fails to find the two wall-slots despite them seemingly being exposed every time the dojo gets cleaned. The conversation with Nozomi also felt incredibly forced. I’m guessing the producers just wanted to shoehorn her in somewhere for all of the waifu-loving viewers, but asking her where she’d hide a mirror and her secret room answer were just downright ridiculous.
 
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tomboz said:
This week’s episode was a bit weak when compared to the last one (I’d give it a 7/10, maybe), but it did raise some interesting talking points.

For one, the Chen’s are very up front about their connection to the underworld in the anime, which I found to be very interesting. It’s obviously heavily implied in the games, but the implications of it play nicely into show Ryo’s “I want to learn the truth about my father” motivation and forces him to accept that his father seems to have associated with members of the underworld prior to his death.

The episode also seems to rule out the possibility of Yuanda Zhu being Tentei, which I’m actually a little disappointed about. It would have made for an awesome twist and is how I’d have like to have imagined the story ending in the event that we never get a Shenmue 4 and beyond. It doesn’t explain why Lan Di didn’t even think to ask Iwao about the Phoenix mirror before killing him either, though does at least justify his immediate return to HK. I just wish we knew who the man he interrogated to find out about Zhu was (this seems to have taken place in Japan, so I’m curious who there would know).

As for the rest of the changes, they were a mixture of hit and miss. It was nice to get a chance to see Guizang square off against Chai, but I hated how they handled Ryo finding the mirror. We see him searching the dojo, yet he fails to find the two wall-slots despite them seemingly being exposed every time the dojo gets cleaned. The conversation with Nozomi also felt incredibly forced. I’m guessing the producers just wanted to shoehorn her in somewhere for all of the waifu-loving viewers, but asking her where she’d hide a mirror and her secret room answer were just downright ridiculous.
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I kinda agree with this, this was the weakest episode for me, although i still cant pinpoint why exactly.

Maybe its the way the game’s scenes were presented that i found kind of poor.

I’ll definitely need to rewatch before forming final thoughts.
 
Shenhua-Nani? said:
I kinda agree with this, this was the weakest episode for me, although i still cant pinpoint why exactly.

Maybe its the way the game’s scenes were presented that i found kind of poor.

I’ll definitely need to rewatch before forming final thoughts.
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I liked it as much as the first two, but I think it's an episode that serves as more of a set-up to next weeks episode since there wasn't really any big conflict or resolution in this one (at least comparatively). So in that case I can see how it wasn't as exciting or memorable.
 
Great episode again, I really liked the part where the background of Master Chen was explained. When playing the first game as a kid, I never really considered him to be a shady character, but now I can see the underground connections.
Also, it is not that surprising that some of us may have considered this a weaker episode, because if you think about it, Disc 2 is kind of a bridge between the disc 1 and 3 content.

What happens on disc 1:
- The story gets established, we get to know some characters
- Ryo does a lot of investigation to find Charlie
- Confrontation with Charlie
- The letter gets introduced
- Ryo translates the letter and gets to Amihama
All this was covered in 2.5 episodes

Compared to that, what happens on disc 2:
- Ryo finds Warehouse No. 8
- The phoenix mirror is tracked down
- Ryo wants to travel to Hong Kong
This part has much more gameplay and only the key cutscenes can be told through the anime (as it was done in this episode). In the game, Yamagashi-san talks about Guilin (in one of the optional cutscenes) and the antique shop guy also explains the Chinese mythology behind the mirrors, but apart from that, there is very little extra to tell from disc 2. So based on what we saw so far, I'm sure that the Shenmue 1 story won't be longer than 5 (or 5.5) episodes.
 
You guys are high. Episode 3 was the best episode so far imo. The expansion of the Chens as a criminal organisation, exploring Guizhang's motivations, the introduction of Terry and the Mad Angels in the MJQ Jazz bar, that scene with Lan Di, Master Chen going over the lore of the mirrors, Goro!

So many little scenes and details were one-to-one with the games, too. Ryo bashing his head and grabbing the flashlight, Ryo using the tobacco shop phone, the bus, the Sega saturn on top of the telly, Ryo using the stool to reach up to the banner in the dojo. I was smiling ear-to-ear the entire time, man.
 
Excellent episode, moves the story along and again excells in introducing new characters. GuiZhang was awesome.

Agree with @I Got Sriracha In My DNA about the languages, that was an interesting decision to have Lan-Di and the interrogation happen in Mandarin. Adds to the realism but kind of hurts the consistency.

This is easily a threepeat for me though, each episode is also different enough that I don't really have a favorite yet.
 
Yeah, riding quite high on this episode personally. Think they're doing a great job tying familiar scenes from the games together in new and interesting ways, but the inclusion of *new* lore and surfacing elements that were only really undercurrents in the games is a real enhancement to the experience as a long time fan.

Glad they're going in the direction I expected with Shenhua; which is her questioning the origin and meaning of the prophecy in the same way Ryo is questioning his father's past. They mirror each other and are tied together through the theme of discovery as you reach adulthood, despite so far having only had one scene together in the very opening of the anime.
 
Damn good episode overall. I think key for me is expanding on the Guizhang/master Chen relationship, and the more explicit framing of the Chens' "illicit organisation" compared to the games.

The way in which "underworld" is used in this episode also kind of feels symbolic of the Guizhang/master Chen relationship here, if we consider the meaning of "underworld" also as "land of the dead": Guizhang is trapped in a place he cannot leave, as a "subordinate" instead of a son, and the father/son relationship can only be restored on the day, "we leave the underworld" which is the "day we die" (the symbolic underworld becomes real.)

It's a difficult distancing strategy from Chen, presumably to keep Guizhang on the level with the dangerous nature of their organisation - to try to protect Guizhang from being emotionally compromised. It works nicely later on however when Ryo's commitment to Iwao inadvertently exposes Guizhang's suppressed feelings towards his father: Guizhang deep down honours his father in the same way but isn't allowed to show it, but clearly Ryo is pushing him to break with this distancing somewhat.

Again, I think it really adds some more depth to the Chen and Guizhang relationship that was arguably a bit less explored in the games: Guizhang now has more overt incentive to ultimately side with Ryo as we have a clearer understanding of why he would be empathetic towards Ryo's desire to honor his father. Another example for me that the writers have really put some thought into adapting and developing these characters.
 
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