The story is simple. 1986, Japan. Ryo Hazaki is a teenage martial artist who's father is attacked and murdered in the family dojo by a Chinese man named Lan Di. The motive is revenge and for an ancient mirror. Lan Di easily defeats the capable Ryo and then leaves, and the journey is now set as Ryo swears revenge. Simple, even cliched plot. The story then continues much as the video games did, perhaps even too much. Ryo finds clues left behind as to who and why this happened, he asks characters questions, which leads to more items, and checkpoint discoveries are made as the bigger picture starts to slowly come into focus. I even laughed as I recalled some of the scenes from the games- "There's a guy named Charlie..."- and enjoyed the faithful adaptation before me in a sense of nostalgia. Thankfully, the voice acting has improved, but I still sense a lean towards the poor dialogue of the game. Ryo is a very dry hero. He asks questions, gets answers, and then often repeats the answers in the form of a question. "You'll need a tea cup." "A tea cup?" Yes, Ryo- did the lady stutter? These fetch quests and less than enthralling dialogue exchanges are made up for in the case of some decent fight scenes. The settings are loaded with street toughs, gangs, and martial artists looking for a sparing partner so exchanging blows is common as it was in game. Thankfully, less clunky.
The meat of the show itself would really make for a poor show in it's bland story, almost cookie cutter characters, and the mediocre animation that is provided by the normally good studio of Telecom Animation Film. But what keeps the show from being anything but skippable or just a niche product for fans of the game is it's message. Concepts of honor and perseverance are highly spoken of, Ryo is not without his faults (he gets his ass handed to him many times) but the lessons he learns are not just new moves to fight with but lessons for life. It is almost Saturday morning cartoony in it's messages, but it's not something touched on enough in my opinion. To experience the learning portion of a journey, to question one's self and motives, and not just out to make the world a better place by off-ing a bad guy, but making yourself better by doing what is right. Even if the latter means not doing the former. Ryo's journey in Japan and then Hong Kong changes many lives for the better, even helping take down some mafia syndicates, which was made easier by the fact he seems to live in a world where guns don't exist. I kept waiting for a gangster to draw a pistol on him, but the worst that ever came his way was a chainsaw.
Overall, I can say this made for some decent casual viewing. Enjoyable enough for anyone who's never heard of the game, but faithful enough for game fans to enjoy, too. Thankfully more the former than the latter, as to be too loyal would've featured an entire episode of forklift shenanigans and difficulties for 20 mins straight. And as Shenmue the game certainly wasn't bad, neither is the animated adaption here. I give this show a solid 6/10. And if the creators want to be as accurate as possible to the game, they can wait 18 years before releasing the next season. Cheers!
