SPOILERS Shenmue The Animation: Episode 2 - Daybreak - Thread

Predicting that we'll be getting a lot more Shenmue 3 nods in the future and if this is the case... it could be evidence that Ryo's time in Bailu will be completely re-written (for the better).

If we're already gonna meet the S3 characters and get dialogue about the prophecy then what's to stop them from giving us a quick verdant bridge lesson (taught to the children)?
Could we not also justify Shenhua's father giving a crumb of context to the mirrors when she delivers rice wine to him?

This is all very exciting.
 
spud1897 said:
So we have the next 2 episode names in this link

Shackles and Equal

Don't click the link unless you want major spoilers!

www.rottentomatoes.com

Shenmue

Synopsis:Rotten Tomatoes, home of the Tomatometer, is the most trusted measurement of quality for Movies & TV. The definitive site for Reviews, Trailers, Showtimes, and Tickets
www.rottentomatoes.com www.rottentomatoes.com
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Nice.. ending S1 at 'THAT' episode would give S2 a lot of room to breathe without having to rush things to implement Guilin.
 
The anime is a perfect opportunity for Yu-san and the team to make Shenmue III story even better, is the perfect opportunity to put places like Suzhou, Miao Village, Baisha and many other places, was beautiful to see Shenmue III characters in this episode and i hope we can get a second season someday. I really think we will see Shenhua and Bailu Village in all the episodes, well... i hope so, i love this route for the anime version.


So far the anime is wonderful in my opinion, i will watch episode 1 and 2 more times before the next episode.
 
Disappointed the YMCA looking guy never asked Ryo if he was 'some sort of TV detective or something'.

Also no 'charlie he loves his hog'
 
Btw I know this will be unpopular but if the shenmue story is fully told by anime I wouldn't mind at this point. The story is perfect for this rather than a game. Enjoyed watching this more than playing shenmue 3.
 
I hope we get a Shenmue manga someday, the more Shenmue in more media the better. I prefer to think that we will get the conclusion in the games and in the anime as well, this is what i dream for the future of the Shenmue franchise.
 
Just watched the 2nd episode and really liking this anime. I also hope they finish this story in the anime as we have already waited over 20 years. If we need to wait for the games, it will be at least another 5-10 years.
 
Brilliant! I'm all caught up now with both episodes! And what a delight!

Favourite points so far:
- Extras scenes: Seeing Ryo's school life before the day when the snow fell was brilliant, it makes the Anime itself stand strong as part of the Shnemue experience - with unique content worth watching.
- The expansion of some NPC's: They're not forgetting the town's folk of Doubita! The expansion of Yamagishi is brilliant! I also expect we'll see Tom again in t he next few episodes too.
- Shenmue 3 / Bailu Village content: I wasn't expecting this! It's great that they're already setting the familar location for future ideas or jsut to lead into Shenmue 3 the game for now.
- Fight scenes: Oomph!! Every hit strikes hard and the movement is very well animated!
- Chai: He's just as creepy as I'd hope!
- Hearbeats: They nailed the Heartnbeats scene!
 
This anime is WONDERFUL (so far :-))

I was floored by seeing the Bailu content. I guess, when the season is over, the way Bailu is introduced might end up being the biggest change from the games narrative.

In the games, Bailu (and Shenhua herself) was used as a gigantic (and marvelous) tease during years. Even in the Guilin section of Shenmue II, Bailu was only orally described to us by Shenhua, as some kind of ideal place we were going towards. That worked wonderfully in that context, in fact I'd say it was one of the major drives for the community to endure almost 20 years of waiting for a sequel.

In the anime, it looks like they will give us much more information, much directly, and much earlier. That is working really well so far for us, previous fans. And, while I accept that could make the anime lose some of the impact to the moment Ryo reaches Shenhua, it kind of makes sense. Because new viewers could feel alienated if the show turned full mystical rural China, with the focus on "yet another unknown girl", after the urban events of Shenmue 1&2.
 
I'm really enjoying watching this.

One thing that's really apparent is just how cinematic the original games were. That's not to say the anime is poor, it's just that the games were so good!
 
Shenmue III characters appeared in this episode so what if Niao Sun appear in the first season as well? if we get a second season Niao Sun will probably appear but... but what if Niao Sun appear in the first season? maybe talking with Lan Di or something like this, this way adding more about Niao Sun in the story, it is not impossible.

In the Guilin chapter of the VFRPG cards we can see Niao Sun, in that chapter card it looks like Niao Sun is in Guilin doing something but in the shadows so no one could find her, i imagine that Niao Sun was looking for the Phoenix mirror in Guilin, so what if this happen in the first season?

And in the beginning of the Niaowu part in Shenmue III we can see that Niao Sun was in the same boat that Ryo and Shenhua was, so Niao Sun was probably in Bailu Village as well

i think is a nice opportunity to show this or what Niao Sun is doing in The Chi You Men in this part of the story, would be nice to see more about Ziming as well.

It is more possible for Niao Sun to appear in the second season but we even saw Shenmue III characters in this episode, so i think is not impossible for Niao Sun to appear at least in one scene in this season.

All i know is that seeing Shenhua with other Shenmue III characters is one of my favorite moments of the second episode, Shenmue III have many interesting NPCs in my opinion, so i love to see them getting more attention in the story, and i hope we will see more Bailu Village in the third episode. 💚
 
Finally watched this on stream and I have to say this episode is better than the first.

Seeing Bailu Village and the Shenmue 3 source material get treated with some care and respect was great. The characters looked great and it builds more of that lore. I'd also love the Anime team to fill in the gaps in Shenmue 3 if they get the chance to.

The rest of the show was perfectly balanced with Easter Eggs, story and lore. Paced very quickly but that's needed.

The bar is set incredibly high with this Anime. We should take this opportunity, buy all the merch and hammer this all the way into getting Shenmue 4.
 
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I've never ever thought about this before but didn't the 'a man from the east' will arrive in the village part of the prophecy already technically come true before Ryo set foot in the village? I mean, Iwao was there earlier and the prophecy has been told (as far as I know) before even Shenhua was born.

I have a little theory, here. Maybe it's a tad convoluted. In the prophecy poem, I think most of us would agree that Lan Di is the 'dragon' and Ryo is the 'morning star' but I have always wondered who the phoenix could represent. I've thought Iwao in the past but I couldn't back it up with reasons why. Now I'm starting to think that the prophecy tells a tale of two young men from the east, Ryo and Iwao. The part of the prophecy that always made me feel gloomy was the part that states that the young man will fulfil his wishes but at the expense of his own destruction. The prophecy seems to imply that Ryo will get his revenge but at a huge price. What if we flipped this and thought of Iwao as the young man from the east in the poem? He fulfilled his wishes (preventing the mirrors from falling into the wrong hands) at the expense of his destruction (death). In the poem, he represents the phoenix, a symbol of rebirth. While he is not physically reborn, perhaps his will stays alive in Ryo, who retraces his father's footsteps in China and brings a conclusion to the situation with the mirrors. Idk, just a wild thought.

I just want Ryo to have a happy ending.
 
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chaikilla said:
I've never ever thought about this before but didn't the 'a man from the east' will arrive in the village part of the prophecy already technically come true before Ryo set foot in the village? I mean, Iwao was there earlier and the prophecy has been told (as far as I know) before even Shenhua was born.
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I don't think this part of the prophecy is about Iwao. I always thought that this is about Ryo and Shenhua and it makes sense that the prophecy is about them in this parts, about Ryo arriving in Bailu Village and meeting Shenhua, Shenhua going with Ryo and much more.

"When he is ready, he shall seek me out. And we shall brave together the rocky path."

"This encounter has been my destiny since ancient times"
 
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chaikilla said:
I've never ever thought about this before but didn't the 'a man from the east' will arrive in the village part of the prophecy already technically come true before Ryo set foot in the village? I mean, Iwao was there earlier and the prophecy has been told (as far as I know) before even Shenhua was born.

I have a little theory, here. Maybe it's a tad convoluted. In the prophecy poem, I think most of us would agree that Lan Di is the 'dragon' and Ryo is the 'morning star' but I have always wondered who the phoenix could represent. I've thought Iwao in the past but I couldn't back it up with reasons why. Now I'm starting to think that the prophecy tells a tale of two young men from the east, Ryo and Iwao. The part of the prophecy that always made me feel gloomy was the part that states that the young man will fulfil his wishes but at the expense of his own destruction. The prophecy seems to imply that Ryo will get his revenge but at a huge price. What if we flipped this and thought of Iwao as the young man from the east in the poem? He fulfilled his wishes (preventing the mirrors from falling into the wrong hands) at the expense of his destruction (death). In the poem, he represents the phoenix, a symbol of rebirth. While he is not physically reborn, perhaps his will stays alive in Ryo, who retraces his father's footsteps in China and brings a conclusion to the situation with the mirrors. Idk, just a wild thought.

I just want Ryo to have a happy ending.
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Personally I have always thought that the "Dragon" is Chi You, and we would see a literal summoning of some fucking mental demon in the final showdown. That's how I interpreted the Master Chen scene in Shenmue 1 as a kid, and that interpretation has always stuck with me.

I've always thought the leaders of the Chi You Men were going to turn out to be sub-bosses, even Lan Di and Tentei, and that the story is far grander and much more mystical than we've anticipated.
 
You can read my recap/review of this week's episode here!
shenmusings.wordpress.com

Shenmue The Animation Ep #2 ‘Daybreak’ recap and review

NOTE: This is a recap/review of the Japanese audio & English subtitled version of the episode, viewed via Crunchyroll. It is currently not possible to view the English dub where I am, in the UK…
shenmusings.wordpress.com shenmusings.wordpress.com

To surmise - while this episode did feel in danger of being a bit overstuffed to me, I really liked how Yamagishi-san was used, this is the sort of thing I was not expecting from the anime but its very welcome!

Also - yes I was so happy to see the Tails capsule toy! And of course I've now made the close-up shot my avatar :p
 
Well, they actually did it exactly as i thought they would do it.
It was always clear to me that they wont show all of the game scenes
with Ryo talking to 20 people over several days and walking everywhere in full length.
Its cool in the games but in a anime on a budget its probably not a good idea
to animate dozens of full length walking, talking, interaction and background scenes
only to get a tiny new story information from it. They have to cut some corners.
This is probably going to be the pace for every episode, so better get used to it now.
 
DarksideHazuki said:
Personally I have always thought that the "Dragon" is Chi You, and we would see a literal summoning of some fucking mental demon in the final showdown. That's how I interpreted the Master Chen scene in Shenmue 1 as a kid, and that interpretation has always stuck with me.

I've always thought the leaders of the Chi You Men were going to turn out to be sub-bosses, even Lan Di and Tentei, and that the story is far grander and much more mystical than we've anticipated.
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I can definitely see from both sides. Shenmue online's trailer hinted at the game taking that path.

Then I look at the bad ending for Shenmue 2 and I could see how 'dragon', 'phoenix' and 'morning star' could metaphors for Lan Di, Iwao and Ryo. When Lan Di kills Ryo, Shenhua speaks about how the 'dragon hides the morning star', thus closing any chance for her and Ryo to meet. In Shenmue 3
Elder Yeh refers to Lan Di as the 'dragon' in the bad ending

I find this side of the story really interesting. IIRC, Yuanda Zhu told Chen that the gates of heaven and earth would open when the mirrors were paired and chiyou would appear and then he told Ryo and co that the mirrors lead to treasure. It's very confusing!
 
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