I watched on Crunchyroll (no subs). I had my expectations set pretty low going in, but so far I'm not a fan of the anime. It pretty much reaffirmed the concerns I had with an anime adaptation (I still stand by my feelings that a manga adaptation would be much better for Shenmue). The production values are fairly impressive, but that's not really my secondary, or even tertiary concern when it comes to the story.
A couple notes to get out of the way:
-Most of the lines during the adaptation of the intro sequence at the dojo are word for word the same as the Japanese dialog from the original game.
-Looks like Shenhua might be talking with our famous white deer during the cut-away sequence in Bailu.
I can't stand this sort of pacing. It's not even strictly an anime thing. Older shows like the original Gundam or Zeta Gundam, for instance, don't have these sorts of pacing issues. It was something I started to notice when Futurama was brought back on Comedy Central, after originally being cancelled, for a Western animation example. Part of it is ever expanding ad-break windows bringing down run-times for TV shows, but this is still up at 23 minutes, and not the 21 minutes that's become more customary in the last decade or so.
Ultimately I don't find the main story component in Shenmue I to be all that consequential, so I'm somewhat reserving judgement for when it hits the Hong Kong portion of the games. Still, I find the storyboarding to be on the poorer side for this first episode. I see really disparate quality in story presentation between the game's intro with the dojo, and everything else shown in episode 1.
My biggest issue is with Ryo's presentation. I had understood that he would have more emotion than in the games, and wouldn't be the step up from a silent protagonist that we're used to, since it's not the viewer controlling Ryo's actions for the majority of the time. My main interest in Ryo in the games is the way he's portrayed in his journey, though. This first episode seems to completely unravel that, and it's jarring. I got whiplash going through the arc of all three games at this point in only 20 minutes. Ryo in the games is stubborn, closed off, driven, and singularly focused, but here he's already reaching acceptance and open-mindedness about the future. His arc is essentially complete in only 20 minutes. I'm not sure how to care as much at this point, because that is the point of the games, for me.
I really feel like the first episode should have focused more on the emotional turmoil for Ryo after his father's death, but with more of the nuance of the games (dream sequences, and concern from Ine-san). I remember thinking at some point after Iwao's death in this episode that I knew they would have to conclude with some sort of crescendo, because that's just how these sorts of TV shows go, but stepping back for a moment, I think it would have been better to work in more of Ryo's life before Lan Di for the first half, then finish with the Iwao's death, and make the screaming up at the thunder, or Ine-san pulling the letter from Shu Gentatsu out of the mailbox the end of the episode. Then episode 2 could begin with dream sequences of fighting Lan Di, and potentially into the Phoenix Mirror dream with Shenhua (maybe cutting into the scene they added with Shenhua and the deer). At that point I think they could have gotten into Ryo falling out with friends and family, to conclude the episode with a fight with Chai--where he doesn't just wax him with the power of introspection.
All said, I feel like this sort of sterilizes Shenmue's story, so far. It succumbs to too many anime tropes, and I sort of didn't expect that to this extent. Trimming the fat is one thing; It's the organization of the plot that has me so nonplussed.
I'm also not sure how to interpret Suzuki's (lack of) crediting. We know he was involved as a creative producer during production, but in the credits, he's only listed as "Original Concept By," which is really only crediting his original work on the games, and says nothing about his involvement with the anime. My pessimism almost makes me think it could be an "Alan Smithee" situation.