Shenmue The Animation Episode 5: Equal SPOILERS thread

24Nathan said:
We've also seen a lot of flashbacks in some of these episodes, so we may get one of the Nozomi photograph? Remember in episode 2 we got a flashback of Ryo asking Lan Di why he did this?
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That is true I totally forgot that and the next episode may cover the boat chapter and he could be thinking about the photo or looking at it. I just don't get why it wasn't shown but it is what it is. I wonder when it'll be if it's shown as a flashback in terms of timeline in the anime?
 
Jesse said:
One of them is the Nozomi photo from what I remember if you start fresh without playing one and just dive into 2. If I'm not mistaken it's the close one of the two that Ryo has with him.
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Iirc, the list of key carry over items included the introductory letter, photographs of Ryo and Nozomi and Iwao and Sunming, a white leaf, Nozomi’s amulet, a mysterious poetry scroll and obviously the Phoenix mirror. What I was trying to establish was which of these (and any other key items that I may have forgotten about) have been omitted in the anime.

By my count, Ryo is missing the white leaf, the mysterious poetry scroll and the photograph of him and Nozomi.
 
tomboz said:
By my count, Ryo is missing the white leaf, the mysterious poetry scroll and the photograph of him and Nozomi.
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The white leaf is an interesting one. It must be significant given that you start Shenmue II and Shenmue III with it. Perhaps they wanted to defer Ryo finding it so they could dedicate the basement scene entirely to the Phoenix Mirror. I could maybe see him finding it in the Man Mo Temple library instead.
 
Miles Prower said:
One disappointment I had was that we didn't get a rendition of this beautiful track in the anime for the Ryo/Gui Zhang dawn scene - but guess you can't have everything...

Nozomi's tears at the end really moved me as well @bcdcdude , I think it was all the more effective not showing her face.
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I had the exact same thought, I could even hear the music in my head while they were speaking when there was no music at all. Eventually a slow, pretty song kicked in but this was the first time in the anime I was really wishing they incorporated more tracks straight from the game. The "Leaving Chen/Xuiying" theme would have been epic in the final harbor scene and I'm already dreading a wee bit not having that in the Hong Kong arc, along with some of the sweeping Guilin cut scene tracks.

I am enjoying all the love the main theme and its variations are getting, so there's that at least.

This one would have been nice too:

 
24Nathan said:
We've also seen a lot of flashbacks in some of these episodes, so we may get one of the Nozomi photograph? Remember in episode 2 we got a flashback of Ryo asking Lan Di why he did this?
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Yeah, this is possible. Maybe in one scene in Hong Kong Ryo will see the picture with him and Nozomi and a flashback will happen. Same thing about the Tornado Kick, maybe something will happen in Hong Kong and Ryo will remember Tom and we will see a flashback about that, the anime team can fit a lot of things in the anime with Ryo's dreams and flashbacks this way.

One photo of the game we saw in the anime, the photo of Ryo with Nozomi, Naoyuki and Ichiro. I love the photos in the game so would be nice if other photos appear in some way in the anime.
 
Was not able to watch this live last night so just caught the episode myself. Overall pretty happy with what they did, I thought the way they incorporated Mai, Goro and Mark was well done and it was nice, albeit too short seeing actual animation associated with some of the fighting. Special shout out to the animation, colours and scenery to the shot of Lan Di overlooking HK harbour.
 
Just finished it. I loved the addition of Goro, Mai and Mark being involved with the rescue of Nozomi.

I'm kind of sad that Nozomi didn't tell Ryo she was going to Canada. Unless this happened off screen but I don't believe she did. Very emotional to see she made her decision when hearing Ryo say he would continue on to Hong Kong.

No Tom again. :(

Has it now been retconned that Guizhang will stay with Chen and not "catch up" later?

Looking forward to Hong Kong!

Theres still a chance the boat chapter occurs next week. Even if the Chai fight itself doesn't occur, just showing Ryo on the boat for a bit before arriving to Hong Kong would be a treat.
 
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I think it suffered from not having another episode, where they could have included more of Tom, or included some memorable characters like Shozo.

I found Chai a bit menacing in the game, when I defeated him as the last boss as a rematch, it was satisfying, and in the anime he's a total push over.


Even his music is quite threatening, and he made a decent final boss of the first chapter. So far shenmue the Animation is not the worst adaptation, but something has been lost in translation imo.
 
When Mai had an idea to help Ryo when Goro first alerted her did anyone else think she was going to try and find the homeless guy? In the end it makes more sense to just have Guizhang and Ryo but thought we were about to get a cameo.

Tomato Convenience Store said:
or Tomato Convenience Store or Bob's Pizza! 0/10, not faithful enough to the games.
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I think the lack of Tomato Convenience Store is really egregious. Thus far it's been my biggest disappointment with the show. Could've at least shown it in one of his investigation montages in town. Considering it's been in every game its kind of like a supporting character as much as anyone.
 
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I actually agree with the fact they omitted Tom. Him being Ryo's "best friend" came out of the left field and honestly didn't make a whole lot of sense given his input and help through the main quest.

While I am sad Shozo was omitted, the game has so many small characters and with the limited run time unless they could fill them out (Like Goro, Gui Zhang, Mai to an extent) I can see why they ended up on the cutting room floor.

On the topic of revenge and vengence, I will be keenly watching how they handle this in Shenmue 2.
 
I feel like I'm the outlier here and surprised by some of the comments. Now don't get me wrong, I am LOVING the anime so far and this episode was no different; I did really enjoy it. That said, I did also find it a little bit disappointing. Nozomi not moving to Canada and Ryo not saying bye to Tom (or learning the tornado kick) I can live with. In fact, I expected those cuts. I always figured Tom was only in the first episode as a nod to fans and that he wouldn't be a major component following that. However, there were three areas that I was not so impressed with.

1. Everything to do with Goro, Mai and Mark helping and rescuing Nozomi.
It was very anime... and kinda cringe and very cheesy. I didn't hate it per se, but it was predictable and I felt it was unnecessary. I mean, they barged through the warehouse with a forklift? Really? I'd rather they had kept that segment a little more down to earth and Mark and Goro had helped in a more subtle and smarter way. I also wish they had kept that part shorter, because I felt the 70 man battle could have been both longer and handled better.

2. The 70 man battle.
It was kinda weak. The chorography could have been better, it could have been more cinematic, they should have kept the bosses from the game. It wasn't bad or anything, I just felt it could have been done better, regardless of the budget. It felt rushed to me.

3. The Chai fight
It's really started to get to me that Ryo just kicks everyone's ass and is a martial arts god. I mean at this rate, regardless of people like Terry warning Ryo how much of a badass Lan Di is, Ryo's still going to have him straight up murdered by episode 7 :rolleyes:
What was even the point of Chai in this series? Of course it was to be expected, because Ryo defeated him with ease in episode 1, but still... I really don't think they will add in the boat scene and at this point I hope they don't. We've seen enough Chai now, thanks. He's been pointless the whole series.

4. This is going to sound super woke to an almost parodic level to some here, but I wasn't really a fan of the very anime tropey relationship between Mai and Goro, specifically how she's constantly slapping/punching and beating on him, and treating him like an idiot. Talk about a toxic relationship.

These are mostly minor quibbles though. Overall, I would rate episode 1-5 and this first arc as an 8.5/10 and I'm really looking forward to the Shenmue 2 portion. They have done incredible work in streamlining the plot (in many cases improving it and fleshing out characters). I prefer anime Nozomi and Goro, like others have also said. Mark, I appreciate the differences they made, so whilst I don't know if I prefer the anime version, I do appreciate what they were doing. I also like what they did with Guizhang and Master Chen, creating a mini-arc on their relationship, whilst also making their role in the story a little more suspicious.
 
Demon's Triangle said:
I think it suffered from not having another episode, where they could have included more of Tom, or included some memorable characters like Shozo.
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I would prefer if the Yokosuka arc ended in episode 6, some things that were introduced in the other episodes like Mark's brother were simply forgotten, in the game we don't get to know if his brother is alive or if he died, the anime is perfect opportunity to expand this part but this did not happen.

In the anime we saw the photo of Ryo with Nozomi, Naoyuki and Ichiro but no sign of Naoyuki and Ichiro in the anime talking with Ryo and Nozomi, no build about their friendship with Naoyuki and Ichiro like that, the photo appeared some times so it would have been even more emotional in my opinion if this things happened in the anime, people that never played the games still don't know Naoyuki and Ichiro.

More screen time for Tom, Shozo Mizuki in the anime and much more but the anime is 13 episodes so i really understand this cuts and changes they had to do with the anime.

Like i said in my review of the previous episode, we lose in some areas but we win in others like more screen time for Lan Di and Shenhua, Shenmue III characters, more development for Goro and Mark, the ChiYou plate and many other things.

Now we will have 8 episodes for Hong Kong/Kowloon and possibly Guilin, i have a feeling we will see many things getting add to the story.
 
Tomato Convenience Store said:
or Tomato Convenience Store or Bob's Pizza! 0/10, not faithful enough to the games.
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The lack of Tomato is really disappointing since it effectively means we won't get Izumi in the Hong Kong arc.

And that we missed out on a potential cameo of (former) senior managing director Hidekazu Yukawa:
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Jibby said:
Hmm, now that you mention it, no Nozomi photograph is a bit unfortunate.

I always liked how much emphasis Shenmue put on photography. It was a nice touch that Ryo kept photos on him of his father, his friends from Yokosuka, Nozomi, Joy, Fangmei, and Xiuying. Definitely rang true to the 'keep those you love close to you' mantra.

I wonder if they'll also cut the photo ops for everyone else.
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The photo is present in the end credits, and it looks like in the anime canon Nozomi got the one of them together :relaxed:

Nozomi Ryo.jpg

It's nice how even with the time constraints of the anime, the credits manage to make reference to these lost scenes - Mimi the kitten and the scene with Ryo and Nozomi on the bench in the park are also depicted there. I wish we could have had a 24-episode anime, but I love how many hints and references they've packed in for the true fans :relaxed:
 
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