Unused character model (Mai Sawano)

[Switch]

During yesterday's Shenmue I & II livestream, two of the original developers of Shenmue revealed the following image of an unused character model.



It turns out that this was originally proposed to be the character for Mai Sawano, the younger daughter of the owner of Hokuhoku Lunches (and who later becomes engaged with Goro), whose look is very different in the actual release!


According to one of the original developers, Yu Suzuki rejected the original proposal, saying that it looked like someone who works at a hostess club.

Has anyone seen this first model before? As far as I know, it was shown for the first time. @shengoro86 is also having a look in the game files.

Here are some other images & anecdotes from the discussion:
https://www.phantomriverstone.com/2018/11/shenmue-i-ii-two-hour-talk-panel-with.html

 

[ShenGCH]

Never seen this before. I wouldn't say the former looks like someone who works at a hostess club - a frazzled cat lady, on the other hand... She certainly fits the bill for someone who would be hanging around with those PMT schoolgirls, but as for a young teen on the brink of going astray? The redesign is a much better fit.

 

[9dragons]

Never seen this model before. I am not sure which one I like better. The first model matches the looks of the other sukeban Girls better but considering that Mai is not a part of the gang yet, the normal school girl look is mabye more apropriate. She has not fallen into the delinquent life after all.

Anyway thanks for sharing. Switch.

 

[Zoyous]

She looks like she would rule Goro with an iron fist.

 

[KiddMarine]

She looks more in Goro's league, no offence to him.

 

[BlueMue]

This is very interesting new info!

It was a good choice to redesign Mai to make her look a lot more casual and friendly. If she kept that bratty look of the girls she started to hang out with the whole deal abot her unusal bad behavoir and character developement wouldn't have work nearly as well as it does now.

 

[GYO6161]

I'm impressed SEGA still has such clean and HD images of a random unused NPC. Gives me a bit hope there could still be something from the Saturn version on their vaults.

 

[RyoHazuki84]

Heh. She does look like a delinquent, but not a teenage one. She needs to be in tune with the sukeban, or female delinquent image of that time period, and long skirted sailor uniforms are it.

 

[24Nathan]

Thanks as always!

 

[shengoro86]

I dissected the HUMANS index from the ShenDream beta release and I confirm she does NOT exist in the humans files.
I still need to check whats shenmue but i dont have a working CDI release to rip the files from.