Shenmue The Animation: Episode 6 Review
The following article contains spoilers for Shenmue: The Animation.
Traveling is always an exciting prospect and Ryo Hazuki’s Hong Kong arrival will meet most expectations as the Shenmue anime begins a new journey into the franchise's second title, whose more expansive world and setting already starts to show its effects on the animated series.
That is because as one of the Dreamcast’s last games, Shenmue 2 really raised the bar from its predecessor by refining nearly every gameplay aspect in it, plus having the added advantage of taking place in a massive city like Hong Kong. All in all, episode six encompasses events from roughly the first three and half hours of the Shenmue sequel, and though some corners are cut the outcome should still satisfy most fans.
Related: What Does It Take To Make A Good Live-Action Anime Adaptation?
The episode starts off with a small recap of what went down in the first five entries with an unchanged opening, so essentially Shenmue 1, but things do get going quite fast as Ryo meets Joy without any of the prior arm wrestling and vending machine fun he goes through in the game. This can be considered the pivotal moment for the episode since Ryo’s encounter with Joy greatly defines his journey Hong Kong, however, there are some noticeable changes.
Unlike their video game story, Ryo and Joy don’t exchange names the first time they see each other, and this version of Joy seems a bit more mysterious, simply telling Ryo to watch out for himself while in the city. Small changes like these can be seen throughout the episode, and they’re complemented by Joy clearly having one of the most detailed character designs in the anime so far.
Regardless of everyone making a smooth and flawless transition from
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