Shenmue is a strange choice for an anime. Yu Suzuki's Dreamcast classic tells a great story, but at such an intentionally glacial pace, it doesn't seem like it would translate well to an episodic TV series. Most of the game is spent wandering the streets of Yokosuka asking people questions, with an occasional, usually brief, eruption of violence. So as a Shenmue fan who loves it for its idiosyncratic slowness, I was curious how this new series, the first episode of which is available to watch now on Crunchyroll, would tackle the source material.
The first episode, titled Thunderclap, sets the story in motion with the brutal murder of Iwao Hazuki at the hands of the mysterious Lan Di. Devastated by the loss of his father and sensei, and hungry for retribution, teenage martial arts prodigy Ryo Hazuki embarks on a quest for vengeance, ignoring the advice of his family and friends. Pretty similar to the beginning of the game, then. But what I love about the anime is how it gives us a previously unseen insight into what Ryo's life was like before this traumatic event changed it forever.
Explore Ryo's bedroom in the game and you'll find a cupboard filled with trophies. In the anime we see Ryo taking part in a high school martial arts tournament, where he defeats a cocky rival with a single punch. This is one of many examples of the show's attention to detail, taking something from the game and expanding on it. We learn that Ryo is a promising student with a bright future, about to leave high school and go to college. But then he returns home on that fateful, snowy evening to find his world has been torn apart.
Ryo is a lot more human here. In the game he's incredibly stoic, rarely expressing any emotion. But there's a beautiful little moment in the show where his friend Nozomi Harasaki makes him laugh—even though, moments later, he's staring into space again daydreaming about hunting down Lan Di. The important thing is that, despite these added glimmers of humanity, he's still very much the Ryo we know and love. He's quiet, good-natured, and polite—but utterly driven by revenge and hilariously oblivious to how much Nozomi likes him.
As for how the anime handles the game's focus on chasing leads and asking questions, Ryo discovers key information in a much more natural way. Rather than walking around asking anyone who'll listen if they saw a strange black car on 'the day the snow turned to rain', Ryo and Nozomi stop at Tom's for a hot dog and he tells them he's closed for the day because the car in question slammed into his truck. Later, Ryo learns Lan Di has connections to organised crime when a customer in a ramen restaurant overhears him saying the name.
It's a neat solution to making the freeform investigative aspect of the game fit into a more traditional, linear narrative. The show also makes use of flashbacks to Ryo's youth, which were hidden in the game when you interacted with certain objects. There are even a few glimpses of Shenhua in Bailu Village, giving us an idea of where Ryo's journey will eventually take him. A huge amount is squeezed into the episode's 23-minute runtime, but it doesn't feel rushed. Ample time is given to important story beats—particularly the murder of Iwao.
It looks fantastic too. Locations like Dobuita Street, Sakuragaoka, and the Hazuki dojo are instantly recognisable, capturing the distinctive atmosphere of the game's understated depiction of 1980s Japan. The fights are well choreographed, the backgrounds are richly detailed, and it's clear the creators have paid a lot of attention to the game's art. As someone who has spent hundreds of hours in Shenmue's vision of Yokosuka (and even a few hours in the real place), I was impressed by how deftly it captures some of the finer details.
I don't watch much anime, so connoisseurs of the medium might find flaws in Shenmue: The Animation that I'm not picking up on. But as someone who loves the game, I'm a fan—and will eagerly be watching the rest of the series. I also appreciate how, whenever the anime shows us something that wasn't in the game, it stays true to the tone and style of the source material. Shenmue is a game like no other, and while I will still always prefer playing it, the anime has nicely translated some of its singular magic into a TV series.
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