Shenmue The Animation Episode 5: Equal SPOILERS thread

24Nathan

24Nathan

Joined: Fri Apr 09, 2004 11:13 pm
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Here is Toonami's teaser:


My thoughts: this will end Shenmue I. I bet what little we see of the boat will be included in a short intro in episode 6, before Ryo gets off the boat for Hong Kong.
 
I'll be intrigued to see if this does indeed end the Yokosuka arc - I'm kinda hoping Episode 6 will be a 'breather' episode for Ryo to say goodbye to everyone etc, but realise time may not allow for that - they clearly want to devote as many episodes to Shenmue II as possible. We'll see!

Given Ryo changed the number on the chalk outline to '17' - who reckons Goro will see this and help out somehow? (he already knows who Nozomi is after all, that may have been the whole point of the Aida Florist scene) Will Ryo still fight Chai at the the harbour, and will Gui Zhang still be injured the same way?
 
I assume there will be a short Chai fight as well...maybe he won't be injured at all and chai will just be chased off and not even reappear on the boat?
 
24Nathan said:
I assume there will be a short Chai fight as well...maybe he won't be injured at all and chai will just be chased off and not even reappear on the boat?
Click to expand...
Chai will definitely appear again before the end of the arc, maybe they’ll manage to put the boat chapter in the second half of the episode and have Ryo fight him there?
 
Has Pedro been cut? I think he was the most menacing enemy boss in Shenmue 1. Would have liked to see him adapted. Hopefully the 70 man battle lives up to the game.
 
I hope they make the 70 man battle feel epic and exhausting as it should be and I want one more episode or at least half an episode more to wrap the first chapter so the travel to China truly feels like leaving our home town. The second half of episode 6 could be the boat chapter that everyone is missing so in 7 it's Hong Kong, full throttle.
 
Got to say, I'm gonna miss these Sunday afternoons on the forum (well Sunday where I am) waiting and posting during the episode when this is all said and done.
 
Real nice conclusion to Shenmue 1.
Found an interesting use for a lot of the side characters in the final battle and managed to bring home the Guizhang/Chen relationship.

The battle animations.. pretty damn good too.
 
Pretty good...pretty good.

My only complaints? No Tom so no Roundhouse Kick and no Swallow Flip technique being taught. I get it, time constraints and all but still, I would have at least liked to have seen the Swallow Flip be taught.

Man, from here on out its all fresh. Everything we've seen thus far in promotional material has been from Yokosuka. So its all fresh from here on out. Can't wait! I can't wait to see how they handle Shenmue II now.
 
Definitely a huge pay-off with all the time spent developing the supporting characters around Yokosuka. I admit that I never expecting them all to go and rescue Nozomi by themselves, with Mark driving the forklift! Absolutely thrilled by this new twist on the Shenmue story.

We also got plenty of good fight choreography this episode. A fight on the scale of the 70 man brawl was always going to be tricky to realise but I think the anime delivers. You get a sense that the fight is still a huge challenge for Ryo and Guizhang, even if the individual martial skills of each Mad Angels mook was obviously vastly weaker. It's a nice touch that the story shows a few of the Mad Angels freaking out after the first wave of their buddies got beaten to a pulp. My only issue is that they couldn't work in a new remix of 'Earth and Sea' for the battle music but that's a minor complaint.

Unfortunately, I imagine that sterner criticism will be leveled at the Chai fight. Chai was the final boss of Shenmue 1 and still probably the hardest fight in all of Shenmue; next to Baihu who has certain gameplay parallels with Chai. So to have Chai defeated so quickly in the anime does seem a little anti-climatic. All that suffering we the players have gone through against Chai and then anime Ryo makes us all look like chumps in comparison. With that said, I understand why the anime went in this direction, it does show good character growth from Ryo that he managed to defeat Chai so easily in this rematch.
 
Dug this episode yet again. Very good fight animation. Loved the usage of the supporting characters during the episode. Tom is nowhere to be seen at the end. Interesting that Ryo has no idea that Nozomi is leaving for Canada. Mai is pretty awesome. And wow Chai got nerfed in this series.

Though Chen didn't say the name, obviously Lishao Tao is in play and I'm super pumped for Xiuying.
 
Loved it! I think the cliffhanger from Episode 4 into the 70 man battle in Episode 5 paid off pretty well. I do like the subtle changes like Guizhang going along with the plan to "fake" being knocked out. It makes more sense that they're able to continue on with the 70 man battle afterwards.

Mark driving the forklift through the hideout was a bit cheesy but I definitely embrace that stuff every now and then. Agreed with the sentiment that they did a great job narrowing the focus to a few side characters so that it would pay off this episode.

I think the very end of the episode shows that Ryo's focus is starting to turn towards revenge ("Lan Di!"). Perhaps he was keeping those thoughts hidden this whole time and finding out the "truth" was a way he reframed his intentions to his loved ones. Or it's possible both are true and his need for revenge started to bubble to the surface once the reality hit that he's getting closer to finding Lan Di.

And Ryo's last sentence to Master Chen shows (again) that he can speak Chinese, so that's the way to resolve Shenmue II's plot hole.

Poor Nozomi :crying: EDIT: I also meant to mention that it seems that Nozomi planned to stay in Yokosuka, but she decided against it once she overheard that Ryo was headed to Hong Kong.
 
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I'm curious about how Ryo's relationship with Xuiying will play out when so much of it revolved around Ryo's desire for revenge clouding his judgment. I'd love to see the entire Wude arc in play. But after 5 episodes, Ryo hasn't mentioned revenge once. This is a pretty significant change to the core of the story. Perhaps the second arc will touch on this more.
 
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