Shenmue Dojo Show - Episode 4: Those Burning Questions!

James Brown

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Jul 23, 2018
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England
Hey guys!

A little long overdue but we finally present to you Episode 4 of the Dojo Show with myself and @spud1897!

What are all those burning Shenmue questions that we all want to know answers to!? What are the Shenmue trees? Did Ryo's father murder Lan Di's? What are the mirrors? Who is Shenhua? What are her powers? How and why does she have them? Is she her own Grandma? :unsure:

We try to attempt to explain all of these plot points from the first 3 Shenmue games, and what exactly we want to see answered in the future of the series!

This episode has a video counterpart over on YouTube that I would recommend if you are able to sit and watch a big 3 hour show! :D, the extra footage to add context will hopefully keep you engaged!

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Of course every episode and also our Interview series is available to listen over on any of your favourite podcasting services, such as Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify etc. You can also listen over on Anchor: https://anchor.fm/shenmue-dojo

Please let us know your thoughts on the discussion, if we missed anything out (perhaps we could come back and do a part 2!), and if you agree or disagree about anything we spoke about. Hopefully we can get some interesting discussion going in this thread too :)

Thank you to all of the forums members that left questions and topics to think about for this show, we also go through your posts towards to the end of the episode!

Thanks so much everyone, please enjoy, it was a long one and a lot of work behind the scenes researching, recording, editing and the video editing was extremely time consuming, but worth it I hope :cool:!

 
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Wonderful episode guys, enjoyed watching the YouTube version of this and appreciate effort it took researching and editing this altogether.

I’ve always been a firm believer the ‘how’ and ‘why’ regarding Sunming Zhao death will be addressed near the end of the game, at least the truth of what happened since it’s the driving force behind the games.

For me watching this I feel Suzuki really has his work cut out with Shenmue 4. If the GDC cards are any indication there’s a lot of new characters that have yet to be seen (remaining two members of Chiyoumen who were in the original planning stages of Shenmue 3, 4 Grandmasters that @David De ville uncovered in interview with Suzuki, Tentei ect). So it’s going to be a really difficult balancing act trying to address outstanding questions and mysteries while having the plot drive the action forward. Some have speculated the next chapter should really focus on the Chiyoumen, budding civil war as that will give an opportunity to address many of those questions so I see that as one possible solution.

By the way your discussion highlighted how beautiful those optional scenes in Shenmue 1 with Xiuyu Xia, Keizo Oishi and Yamagishi are discussing the mirror. They are some of my favourite scenes from the games. By the way what was the last song you played in the episode?

Looking forward to your discussion with Esra.
 
Wonderful episode guys, enjoyed watching the YouTube version of this and appreciate effort it took researching and editing this altogether.

I’ve always been a firm believer the ‘how’ and ‘why’ regarding Sunming Zhao death will be addressed near the end of the game, at least the truth of what happened since it’s the driving force behind the games.

For me watching this I feel Suzuki really has his work cut out with Shenmue 4. If the GDC cards are any indication there’s a lot of new characters that have yet to be seen (remaining two members of Chiyoumen who were in the original planning stages of Shenmue 3, 4 Grandmasters that @David De ville uncovered in interview with Suzuki, Tentei ect). So it’s going to be a really difficult balancing act trying to address outstanding questions and mysteries while having the plot drive the action forward. Some have speculated the next chapter should really focus on the Chiyoumen, budding civil war as that will give an opportunity to address many of those questions so I see that as one possible solution.

By the way your discussion highlighted how beautiful those optional scenes in Shenmue 1 with Xiuyu Xia, Keizo Oishi and Yamagishi are discussing the mirror. They are some of my favourite scenes from the games. By the way what was the last song you played in the episode?

Looking forward to your discussion with Esra.
Glad you enjoyed it. James does a cracking job with the videos. With, presumably, two games left there is so much to cram in and I wonder how they will choose what goes in. I maintain that Shenmue III's systems aren't far off at all so if they really nail the story in the 4th and 5th games we could come to a really good finishing point.

That last song is an unused track in Shenmue III @James Brown should be able to find it or I will have a look on my PC.

The Esra interview should be out on May 4th :)
 
Thanks so much for the feedback and glad you enjoyed the episode! I wholeheartedly agree about those mirror cutscenes, considering they can be completely skipped / missed easily. So much background and lore crammed into each of them that on their own can create a whole topic of discussion! I particularly loved looking into the stars, and the story Oishi-san remembered reading about the emperor comissioning stone mirrors and he’s literally holding one of them, but the player doesn’t realise until the third game, and like I said, going into the series blind like that, the game doesn’t even make you think about all of these elements until probably the end of Shenmue 2. It’s insane, I really love the layering from one game to the next and back again! 😍
 
Yuanda Zhu is one of the most interesting parts imo. I think he's secretly one of the main villains, and like Palpatine, he's been playing both Ryo and Lan Di. He sends the letter to Iwao late on purpose, to draw Ryo into the fold, then he leaves him some breadcrumbs like the Chawan sign in the Wulinshu, from Hong Kong's Ma Mo Temple, and he gives Ryo a vague lead/clue to finding the map scroll. Him knowing so much is really suspicious. In 3's DLC Zhang's agents act like he has all this power, despite Ren in II saying "He was the big boss in Hong Kong, until he lost it all" I think that's because Zhang's agents work for the CYM, but they're a ghost organization, and not even Dou Niu knows they's connected to the CYM. Smoke and mirrors.

I guess Zhu/Zhang relaid information, to Lan Di to lure him to Iwao too, his proxy network informs Lan Di about Iwao's locking the dragon mirror in Yokosuka, but yeah he tells him he has just one mirror. Later, Chai reports to Lan Di in Old Castle, or whatever, that Ryo has the phoenix mirror, but Lan Di has been given conflicting information and doesn't trust what Chai has to say. Instead Lan Di orders Chai to hang out with the low rent thugs, and the blue spiders look for the mirrors in Bailu Village.

Zhu may be even one of the big bosses of the CYM, but Lan Di doesn't know, because he's used his network of agents, to create walls around himself, spread disinformation, and conceal his true role.

I don't think he's just after the mirror treasure and that's why he's been messing with them. He wants to see Chi You manifest itself, engineer a game of war.
 
Another interesting thing that I've picked up while rewatching this episode that may also add up to the mirrors connection with the Yin and Yang theory is the fact that the Phoenix mirror shows the constellation of the Dragon as being the Big Dipper and like you mentioned in the video it is logic and most likely that the Dragon mirror will reveal the constellation of Cassiopeiae that represents the Phoenix.
This reveals that the mirrors are indeed connected and also represent Yin and Yang because just like Yin and Yang both mirrors also contain in them the seed of the other wich in this case are represented by the constellations of the opposing Mythological creature in each mirror.
 
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