I suppose I should do full thoughts. Since I've now watched it like 5 or 6 times
The Good:
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- The English Dub; gotta say I thought it was actually pretty decent. Kind of weird to hear Shenmue with a competent English dub for a change. Yeah, I kind of miss Corey, but I thought the dub was fine and very welcoming to newcomers.
- The Japanese Dub; my preferred way of watching it. Masaya is MY Ryo. I really can't hear him voiced by anyone else anymore. He is my Ryo through and through and I thought Masaya was right on game here.
- I welcome the fact that we're not gonna be so locked into Ryo's perspective. As much as I love the games and even kind of appreciate just how far they go in making you feel like you are role playing as Ryo I have to say that I kind of welcome the chance to see other character perspectives. The anime allows us to finally learn a little more about Lan Di as we finally have access to him as a character. That's potentially very interesting.
- The look of the show is quite nice. I really love what we've seen of Yokosuka so far.
- The soundtrack. The new arrangements I've heard so far are really nice and I can't wait to hear more.
- The pacing. Yeah, it's much faster than the game, but I feel it kind of needs to be. The game and its leisurely pace will always be there. But this is an anime and you want to get people hooked in from the get-go. That and we only have 13 episodes. Not to mention we have a LOT to cover. Namely Shenmue II and everything it covers. So I'm okay with the pacing. It was jarring at first, but when you consider the fact that we only have 13 episodes it kind of has to get going and move along.
- Ryo having a bit of a personality doesn't bother me as much as it seems to bother some others. I liked seeing a more human side to Ryo in Shenmue III and I welcome him having a bit more of a human side in general.
- Tom and Nozomi. I welcome the new take on Nozomi. I've always said I wasn't much of a Nozomi fan so I welcome her having a bit more life and personality. Tom was spot on though! Absolutely spot on perfect.
- That scene with Ryo reflecting on his father in Sakuragaoka Park was beautiful. Loved it.
- I really loved the small touch of having Iwao talking to Yamagishi-san at home. Nice little touches like that were greatly appreciated.
- I kind of loved how 90's anime this felt!
- I like the idea of Lan Di giving Ryo his scar. That's something I kind of wish we had back in the game. That's a cool little touch to me. Serves as Ryo's mental and physical scarring at the hands of Lan Di.
The "I'm Not So Sure":
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- The Chai fight being that early and having Ryo overcome him so quickly was a bit jarring. Granted, we will see how this plays out but yeah, it was just jarring to see him that early on. I didn't expect that fight to come until after Ryo met Master Chen. But we will see how that plays out.
- The action itself got a bit of a mixed reaction from me. Some of it looked okay, other bits of it looked a bit cheap and rushed.
- The Iwao/Lan Di scene. For my money, it was just a bit too rushed. I really love the opening scene of the original game and feel its perfectly timed out in the way it plays out. The anime's take on that scene felt a bit rushed to me. A bit too cliff notes. It just lacked that same impact I get whenever I see the original game and its take on that same scene. It was okay for the most part but just a bit too rushed.