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
).
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 would love that!
Yamagishi-San:-
For me, this is the main dish for this episode
! 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!
Bring on episode 3! Yin Yang!!
TL
R:- So sick!
