Updated Chi You Men Leaders Photo

[shengoro86]

Hello friends.

A long long time ago, a photo was released of the Chi You Men leaders (minus Tentei of course).
Lan Di was fully visible, Niao Sun was half visible, Gentei and Koutei were blacked out in shadows.

Now, here is an image where Niao Sun is fully visible since she was introduced in Shenmue 3.

Hopefully one day we will have the final image.

(Her artwork was released in the Pix N Love Shenmue 3 artbook so I photoshopped it in. I'll do a few more edits to it to match everything up.)

 

[~ ひかり ~]

Really nice, thanks.

 

[ShenGCH]

Did you not see the leak this morning?

 

[Machsi]

That is a really well done fan mod of the famous boss shadow pic. Awesome work! I recall Yu bluntly said that Ziming Hong was not a CYM exec, but that shadow on the right has gotta be him without a doubt, so this is probably a retcon. This also questions the current validity of the other shadow, and even the CYM structure as well - Does Tentai even exist anymore?

 

[Miles Prower]

That is a really well done fan mod of the famous boss shadow pic. Awesome work! I recall Yu bluntly said that Ziming Hong was not a CYM exec, but that shadow on the right has gotta be him without a doubt, so this is probably a retcon. This also questions the current validity of the other shadow, and even the CYM structure as well - Does Tentai even exist anymore?

Yeah the Ziming thing is vexing, because that figure clearly matches the present-day Ziming we see in that sidestory comic. Guess we'll have to wait and see...

 

[Truck_1_0_1_]

That is a really well done fan mod of the famous boss shadow pic. Awesome work! I recall Yu bluntly said that Ziming Hong was not a CYM exec, but that shadow on the right has gotta be him without a doubt, so this is probably a retcon. This also questions the current validity of the other shadow, and even the CYM structure as well - Does Tentai even exist anymore?

Not a retcon.

In the interview where he is mentioned, IIRC, Suzuki stated that he's never been a boss and, more of an underling for Niao Sun.

 

[hyo_razuki]

Yes, even the 4 "SVPs" and 1 "CEO" structure seems uncertain now. After S3 we know it is possible there is only Niao Sun and good ol' Lanny D.

We'll have to wait and see. Maybe Yu had to cut the other leaders because it would have taken like 8 games to include all of them?

 

[hyo_razuki]

Not a retcon.

In the interview where he is mentioned, IIRC, Suzuki stated that he's never been a boss and, more of an underling for Niao Sun.

This got me thinking... If Ziming was always gonna be a sidekick/henchman for Niao Sun...

Iirc, the only source we have for this "4 regional leaders and one global leader on top" theory is a Japanese guide book from the 90s/2000s.

Maybe they were wrong all along. Maybe there was never was a Tian Di. Maybe it was always only gonna be Lan and Niao.

And if the person standing next to (also kind of behind) Niao Sun, is indeed her underling, then maybe the person standing next to/behind Lan Di is his underling.

But then again, if Lan Di has a right-hand man, why wasn't he at Hazuki Dojo or at Niaowu Castle or Yellow Head Building? Or in the bad endings for any of the 3 games?

Sigh... I love Shenmue theories.

 

[code l name]

The only source we have for this "4 regional leaders and one global leader on top" theory is a Japanese guide book from the 90s/2000s.

That’s not true. I don’t have time stamp but if you watch Kenji’s 2012 and 2013 interview with Yu Suzuki he confirms both existence of 4 leaders and Tentei.

Obviously this interview was before Shenmue 3 went into production so it’s unclear if this is still true for future entries but that was clearly original intention.

 

[hyo_razuki]

Yeah, now that you mention it, I remember the 2013 interview.

Hmmm. But still, maybe this picture was never the 4 Chiyoumen leaders but Lan & Niao and their respective henchmen.

Or maybe Lan's right-hand man was in S3 after all and his role was cut down because of certain realities. Maybe he was one of the jokers in Niaowu Castle who got their butts kicked by Ryo in those one-button QTEs or got kicked in the face by Ren.

So as you said, it may have changed along the way.

 

[hmjohnny]

Do we know where that image came from? Is it even legit?

I agree that the silhouette of the right leader looks like Ziming from the S2x comics but that could just be a coincidence. That or it's meant to be Ziming and the image is bogus.

As far as I know the western and northern leaders haven't been revealed in any way(aside from their alias'). Although I'm not certain if the the four "bosses" Suzuki spoke about during S3 development, including the strategist, were meant to be the 4 CYM leaders or just sub-bosses Ryo would face in S3.

 

[ShenSun]

Hello friends.

A long long time ago, a photo was released of the Chi You Men leaders (minus Tentei of course).
Lan Di was fully visible, Niao Sun was half visible, Gentei and Koutei were blacked out in shadows.

Now, here is an image where Niao Sun is fully visible since she was introduced in Shenmue 3.

Hopefully one day we will have the final image.

(Her artwork was released in the Pix N Love Shenmue 3 artbook so I photoshopped it in. I'll do a few more edits to it to match everything up.)

Great job james.

Where do the names Goutei and Koutei come from? I vaguely remember those names from back in the day

 

[ShenGCH]

Great job james.

Where do the names Goutei and Koutei come from? I vaguely remember those names from back in the day

The suffix "tei" means "emperor," (of a particular division of the Chi You Men, in this context) while the prefixes refer to a characteristic unique to that particular leader.

There was a topic on the old Dojo that delved into this very subject: https://www.shenmuedojo.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=48&t=47274

 

[ShenSun]

The suffix "tei" means "emperor," (of a particular division of the Chi You Men, in this context) while the prefixes refer to a characteristic unique to that particular leader.

There was a topic on the old Dojo that delved into this very subject: https://www.shenmuedojo.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=48&t=47274

Thanks for that. Ill have a read through it later tonight

 

[code l name]

The suffix "tei" means "emperor," (of a particular division of the Chi You Men, in this context) while the prefixes refer to a characteristic unique to that particular leader.

There was a topic on the old Dojo that delved into this very subject: https://www.shenmuedojo.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=48&t=47274

Unfortunately that link is dead, is there any reposting of that interview?

In the topic @David De ville made some cryptic references on things he couldn’t talk about regarding Grandmasters and Baihu, I hope he sees this topic and is now able to elaborate.

 

[ShenGCH]

Unfortunately that link is dead, is there any reposting of that interview?

In the topic @David De ville made some cryptic references on things he couldn’t talk about regarding Grandmasters and Baihu, I hope he sees this topic and is now able to elaborate.

Got you, fam: https://segaretro.org/Interview:_Yu_Suzuki_(2014-09-18)_by_Shenmue_Dojo

 

[Machsi]

Never really considered the henchman theory on the image, but the White haired Bruce Lee guy seemed like Lan Di’s right hand man. I feel like he was likely intended to be much more than a glorified comedy cutscene

 

[code l name]

Got you, fam: https://segaretro.org/Interview:_Yu_Suzuki_(2014-09-18)_by_Shenmue_Dojo

Many thanks. A couple of choice quotes-

(Yu Suzuki wants to talk about Lan Di and Iwao again. He told me that Iwao might have met Lan Di while he was a young boy, but he is not entirely sure mainly because he hasn't read the story in details for a while, but he's not sure at all).

I wonder how this is going to fit as we learn Lan Di was an orphan taken in by the Chiyoumen after his fathers death.

Now, regarding the last 2 bosses, no one has seen them yet. One of them is Koutei (昊帝) and leads the West part and is represented by a Tiger. The last one is Gentei (玄帝), covers the North part and is represented by a Turtle.

I saw them and know how they look like and Yu Suzuki has done a fantastic work.

I would love to hear more of a description about their characteristics and looks from David.

Q: Earlier this year at the GDC, during the Shenmue postmortem conference, people got the chance to see artworks of your previous RPG based on the character of Akira from Virtua Fighter. One of those artworks got Shenmue fans curious, here is the artwork:


Since then, fans brought up theories about who those characters could be. Could you tell us if they are right or wrong?

Yu Suzuki: I cannot say too much about this artwork because this is quite far from where Shenmue II stopped. All I can say is that those characters are not Chiyoumen, they are Grand Masters.

I only saw this reference about Grand Masters from David’s post right after completing the game, I’m curious which panel or artwork he is specifically referring to and if those elements still remain.

 

[Peter]

Here is the interview:

Yu Suzuki InterviewShenmue: From Prototypes to Today

​

While I was staying in Japan I had the pleasure to meet with Yu Suzuki, known as Shenmue creator and of course, many other games such as Hang On, Space Harrier, OutRun, etc.

On September 18th 2014, I met and interviewed Yu Suzuki-san. The interview lasted for one hour and Shenmue was it's main topic.

What you will read below are details regarding how difficult Shenmue's development was at first, never reveled Chiyoumen boss names and some shorts stories!

(Yu Suzuki and myself during the interview)

Interview :​

Q: At first, Shenmue was supposed to be released on the Saturn. But it has been ported to the Dreamcast. Is there somewhere a playable version of the Sega Saturn version?

Yu Suzuki : Yes, indeed. At first, Shenmue development started on the Sega Saturn. Regarding a playable version, since archives are stored at Sega, I guess if we look for it, we should be able to find one.

Now about prototypes. Everything started with "The Old Man and the Peach Tree" where players were controlling Taro as main character. He was looking for a Kung Fu master named Ryu. You had no access to most of the areas but by going through the story and clearing quests, you had access to those areas.

To get back to the Saturn's development discussion, we mostly worked on the open world and checked characters movements.

We also worked on rendering quality, polygons and number of polygons etc.

Q: Have you ever imagined what kind of result you'd have gotten if Shenmue and Shenmue II had been completely developed on Sega Saturn?

Yu Suzuki : Dreamcast hardware was way more powerful than what Sega Saturn could provide. In fact, the game had a better quality on it. And I really think that moving the project to the Dreamcast was a great idea because the Sega Saturn, at that time, had reached its limits.

(Details shared about the prototype "The old man and the peach tree" by Yu Suzuki at the GDC postmortem conference)

Q: Regarding your previous project "The old man and the Peach Tree", if you had the opportunity, with the actual technology, to release it as a game, would you consider releasing it to the public?

Yu Suzuki : It was in fact, a prototype. It was also a short story so I do not think about making a game out of it. It was only meant to be a prototype and will remain as is.

Q: Beside the bicycle, are there other elements that you wanted to add the game but sadly, never had the chance to?

Yu Suzuki : Instead of seeing all of this as elements that did not make it, Id rather see it as abandoned elements and that's the case for the bicycle. Many things never made it to the final product and I have an example : ramens.

I'm getting off topic real quick to explain how it would have worked. My ambition was to create Shenmue based on real world standards and not as a video game. In real life, when you cook, ramens size change, they get larger. When the player ordered, ramens were quite small, but they'd get larger and as time goes by. As you can see, that is how far I wanted details to be, however, this part of gameplay never made it.

Q:) What were the reasons that made it not possible to add such gameplay to Shenmue?

Yu Suzuki : It was not possible due to the amount of various things we had to add. We had to choose and pick up what gameplay we would add or not the final game. And to be honest, technically, it was very difficult.

(Hazuki Ryo riding the bicycle while it was still in development)​

Q: Is there anything related to the gameplay or content that made it to the game but just in time?

Yu Suzuki : Not really. That being said, I will talk about NPC. Having control over NPC's daily life was not something we were supposed to add during the first stages of the development. It was decided afterwards and adding such feature was a difficult task for the development team.

Adding up all Shenmue and Shenmue II NPC, we reached a number of 450, maybe more. For each NPC, we created a background : name, how old the NPC is, weight, how tall, its partner, its location etc.

Let's see how it worked for one character. A shop owner or someone working at the post office. In Japan, during the 80's, we had our day off on sunday. We used to work from monday to friday and on saturday, work was usually done during the morning. That said, we had companies where you'd have to work on weekends too!

This is how everything has been programmed. At what time the character is going to wake up, leave its home, go to work, stop at a conbini convenience store to buy some food, goes outside again to catch a bus etc.

At noon, there was a lunch break and the NPC usually brought its lunch and ate it at the park. Also, the NPC's behavior would change depending if it was a week day or weekend.

This intelligent process contained a lot of data. This is explained by the fact that even if you were not even close the NPC, it was still leading its own life, like working.

During NPC's daily life development, on regular basis, I often checked how NPC were reacting. I was waiting in front of a door to see if it would come out, where it would go, what it planned to do etc.

But we had many other things to focus on. Let's say an NPC is walking while holding a bag and it starts raining and he had to use its umbrella. We had to think about which hand was going to hold the umbrella and which hand holds the bag.

To compare with games of the current generation, most NPC are standing and do not move. With a system like that, players don't get an immersive experience and to avoid that, I wanted to detail the game so much that gamers would feel like being in a real world while playing.

To summarize, working on the daily life of each NPC was definitely one of the most difficult process during Shenmue's development.

Q: Speaking of it, there was a problem with NPC that occured during the development. They were all stuck in the same spot and couldn't get out, is this right ?

Yu Suzuki : Yes, that's right. We had to widen the area's entrance, extend automatic doors space and set a limit to the number of characters that were allowed to enter the said area. When the number was reached, left characters were waiting outside for their turn. Sometimes, some characters that waited too long often arrived late at work. (laughs)

Something else we had to work on was the streets space. 2 characters going into each other was a real problem so we had to make them move and make sure that they wouldn't stomp on each other again. Without doing such tests over and over, it wouldn't have been possible to fix such issues.

Q: While you were working on Shenmue, you never have thought that they were too many NPC in the game?

Yu Suzuki : If you count how many people are walking around Dobuita, you can easily reach 100 people. As I've already said, I've build Shenmue based on real world standards, meaning if 500 people would have walked around Dobuita, I would probably have added 500 characters.

What I did not want players to experience while having a conversation with an NPC is repetition. Getting the same answer to your question over and over is boring. And that is what happens in some games. In Shenmue, the conversation system has been adjusted accordingly. To be specific, if an NPC was replying with long sentences, the amount of data we had to use was excessive. We optimized our system in order to lower the amount of data being used.

(My personnal comment to Yu Suzuki while doing the interview) :

Even today's games do not provide such deep conversations with NPC, atleast, that is what I think.

Yu Suzuki : That is true, conversations tend to not be so deep. To get back to the data part, while we were working on the Sega Saturn, CD-ROM were used. From our estimation, around 50 CD-ROM were needed for the full version. But since we ported everything to the Dreamcast and its GD-ROM, we had no other choice but to release on 3, 4 GD-ROM maximum.

Q: Let's talk about Shenmue's Story. In the opening scene, when Iwao is facing Lan Di in the Dojo, he says : It can't be... you?!
Is there any meaning behind this sentence? Like Iwao was already aware of Lan Di's existence, he already knew who he was?

(Iwao Hazuki fighting Lan Di during Shenmue's opening scene)

Yu Suzuki : Iwao was a friend of Lan Di's father (Zhao Sunming) since they both trained together in China in their youth. However, Iwao never met Lan Di before, even when he was a child.

(I had to comment and asked him a second time if Iwao really never met Lan Di before and this is what Yu Suzuki san said)

I think that Iwao's reaction comes from the fact that a son often looks like his father. Like : "That face... could he be Zhao's son?!", that kind of reaction.

Q: Since we're still talking about the introduction of the game. I guess you won't be able to answer my next question but I will still ask : Has Iwao really killed Zhao Sunming?

Yu Suzuki : That's right, I cannot tell you if he did or not (laughs). It would be like revealing a movie's ending before you even saw it. That's why i cannot answer.

(Yu Suzuki wants to talk about Lan Di and Iwao again. He told me that Iwao might have met Lan Di while he was a young boy, but he is not entirely sure mainly because he hasn't read the story in details for a while, but he's not sure at all).

(Iwao Hazuki on the left, as for the character on the right, even though his identity remains a mystery, we can pretty much say that he's Zhao Sunming)​

Q: Let's get back to Zhao Sunming. There is something fans would like to know : Is he really dead?

Yu Suzuki : Yes he is.

(Something that could interest Shenmue fans. I asked him a second time if he was really dead and his answer was a bit different. If I had to translate, you could read it as follow) :

- For now, he's dead

- In fact, he's dead

He laughed a bit when I've asked him the second time. Is Zhao Sunming really dead? No one really knows but Suzuki-san. He could be dead, or not.

Q: There are 4 Chiyoumen bosses. Among them, fans are aware of 3 characters : Lan Di, Niao Sun and Hong Xiuying's brother : Ziming. Could you provide some details about the last one?

(Artwork of the 4 Chiyoumen Boss)​

(Commentary : I was not even done asking the question that Yu Suzuki wanted to answer, here is what he said) :

Yu Suzuki : Lan Di (Rantei-Souryu/藍帝(蒼龍)) is the east leader. His name also means Blue Dragon. About Niao Sun, she also has another name : 炎帝 (Entei), and rules over the South part and is represented by a Phoenix.

Now, regarding the last 2 boss, no one has saw them yet. One of them is Koutei (昊帝) and leads the West part and is represented by a Tiger. The last one is Gentei (玄帝), covers the North part and is represented by a Turtle.

Oh and, Ziming Hong is not one of the 4th leaders.

(Commentary : Here is the world exclusivity of this interview. You finally get to know that Ziming is not one of the boss and you get to know the last 2 boss names! I saw them and know how they look like and Yu Suzuki has done a fantastic work. Please keep supporting Shenmue, it's really worth it !)

Q: Earlier this year at the GDC, during the Shenmue post mortem conference, people got the chance to see artworks of your previous RPG based on the character of Akira from Virtua Fighter. One of those artworks got Shenmue fans curious, here is the artwork :

(Artwork shown during the postmortem conference, including fans theories)​

Since then, fans brought up theories about who those characters could be. Could you tell us if they are right or wrong?

Yu Suzuki : I cannot say too much about this artwork because this is quite far from where Shenmue II stopped. All I can say is that those characters are not Chiyoumen, they are Grand Masters.

Q: Shenmue III has yet to be developed but could you tell us how you would like it to begin from? Are we going to start playing from the where we left or... ?

Yu Suzuki : I haven't decided yet how Shenmue III will begin, but if that's possible, I would like players to start from Shenhua's house.

Q: Fans keep providing their support on internet and even after a decade, they are still here. However, they would like to know what they could do to help you start Shenmue III's development?

Yu Suzuki : Fans from all around the world have kept providing me support and I can't thank them enough. About Shenmue, Sega is not a problem at all. For Shenmue III, we need to define a specific budget and if I can gather enough for it, Sega will allow me to do it.

I am pretty sure that Sega doesn't want to take any financial risks regarding Shenmue. That's why I have to gather the necessary budget for it. Anyway, even if I would like to work on other projects beside Shenmue, if I ever get the opportunity to work on the 3rd part, I will do it. And to be honest, I do not think that anyone else can properly accomplish Shenmue III the way I'd like to do it.

If Shenmue III's budget isn't sufficent, quality will suffer from it.

Q: Budget and money are the main problems... If you ever reach your goal and gather enough money to create Shenmue III, do you think that you will be able to conclude the story? Knowing that Shenmue's story is very deep and seems to be far away from its conclusion.

Yu Suzuki : Yes indeed, the story is far away from being completed and to be honest, I do not think that it's possible to end it during Shenmue III. If I had to do it my way, players would experience the ending during Shenmue V. But that seems to be a lot so I'm going to try to finish it within the next 2 games.

(Yu Suzuki once the interview was done)

This last question ends Yu Suzuki's interview and I would like to thank him for providing enough time, even though he's busy, to answer my questions. It was a great pleasure to discuss with him. I really appreciated his kindness and his love for his own work, even more than 10 years later is something amazing.

As you can see, Shenmue's development wasn't an easy task. It has been developed on the Sega Saturn, ported to the Dreamcast and was an ambitious project. Even today, it still remains one of the most beautiful game ever created and its deep story has yet to to be

Until then... "The Story goes on..."

 

[Rydeen]

Where do the names Goutei and Koutei come from? I vaguely remember those names from back in the day

I was thinking they might come from the Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors, since Yan Di / En Tei is represented there, and one of the sovereigns is Ten Kou (which isn't really the same as Ten Tei, but it's kind of similar-ish). That Kou Tei is the Yellow Emperor, though.

For the Chiyoumen bosses, as you know now, they are :

Zhao Longsun / Rantei / 藍帝
Niao Sun / Entei / 炎帝
???? / Koutei / 昊帝
???? / Gentei / 玄帝

And of course, ???? / Tentei / 天帝

According to this section of one of DEVILLE_David's posts, the 'kou' in Kou Tei, here, represents the sky, though (the kun-yomi is actually 'sora'). It's also the character for "Sun" on top of the character for "Heaven." I don't know if that's all that important, but it does sort of suggest that Kou Tei would be close with Ten Tei. Although I was under the impression that the northern boss was the one Ten Tei relied on most. Anyway, the Yellow Emperor was said to have a son, Shaohao ( 少昊 - "hao" being the same character as "kou") who was made the "tentei" of the western region, and called the "White Emperor" ('Haku Tei'). Confused yet? Me too.

The "Gen" in "Gentei" is the same as in "Genbu" (玄武), so there's your northern leader. "Gen" tends to represent darkness; In this case, the darkness of the north. Apparently a grandson of the Yellow Emperor, Zhuanxu, was also referred to as "Gen Tei."

Can't find any sort of connection with Ran Tei, though.

On a side note, if you wanted to keeping everything "Di"-consistent, you have (I believe):
Lan Di
Yan Di
Hao Di
Xuan Di
Tian Di