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.