Shenmuecreator Yu Suzuki will get to see the fruits of his labor as executive producer inShenmue: The Animationsoon enough, as a couple of freshly released trailers revealed the anime will be out by the first week of February.
Since it was first announced in 2020 and then confirmed to be an early 2022 release, thus quelling fans fears that theShenmueanime could take as much to put together asShenmue 3. However, with the latter being the Epic Games store’s first free mystery game these past holidays and the first two entries in the franchise usually going up for sale on steam, it’s possibleShenmuecould have picked up a few more fans since thefirst trailer was dropped by Adult Swimthree months ago.
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Contrary to that first preview, the new English trailer posted by Adult Swim solely focuses on events that take place in the firstShenmuegame, with the murder of Iwao Hazuki in front of his son Ryo setting up the entire plot for the show. TheShenmueanime will premiere on February 5 and will run for 13 episodes, at least for now, since Suzuki has hinted in the past animation could be a proper outlet to finish theShenmuestory.
While Adult Swim will handle the anime’s distribution for its English dubbed version, Crunchyroll will do the same on a worldwide basis, except for Japan, meaning its own YouTube channel uploaded the Japanese version of the trailer. Unlike the English preview, the Japanese trailer features plenty of forklift action and even Ryo at the arcade,a couple of open world game tropesthat will undoubtedly ring a bell for fans of the games.
It’s entirely possible theShenmueanime could extend itself beyond just one season, especially because neither Suzuki nor its director Chikara Sakurai (One-Punch Man) has confirmed how much of the story will be developed on this first run. The first trailer did show Ryo traveling in what could be his journey to China to find Ling Shenhua and solve the mystery that surrounds the dragon and phoenix mirrors, and it’s possibly easier to make more seasons of this than getting a fourth game off the ground.
Luckily, the wait for theShenmueanime is almost over so fans of the franchise and the passionateShenmuecommunity will be pass judgment of wellthe games’ mysterious and immersive story translatesto anime format, though at least, Suzuki feels confident about it.
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