Every month Phantom River Stone holds a poll among our patrons to choose a topic for the blog in the coming month. After tallying the votes (including accumulated votes from previous months), the winning topic that has been voted this time is:
"Translation of an early 'Muecas Dan' edition"What Was Muecas Dan?
The "Muecas Dan" (ムーキャス団, meaning Muecas Club) page was a regularly-published online section of Japanese-language Shenmue content which ran from early 2001 to 2004.
It was introduced in the March 2001 (Vol. 62) edition of the Weekly AM2 online magazine, inside a section called 'Shenmue Cast Fan' - with 'Shenmue' of course referring to the game, and 'Cast' referring to the voice and motion actors/actresses. The name "Muecas" (ムーキャス) was formed from an abbreviation of the words "Shenmue" and "Cast".
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| Logo for the "Shenmue Cast FAN" series which ran for only a few weeks before being replaced. |
Muecas Dan was presented as a shadowy, elite organization with members known only by a code number or alias.
Two members gave their own tongue-in-cheek introductions:
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| "T.C." (which stood for "Top Cat") |
T.C: "I'm T.C, Code Number 001 of the Muecas Club. I've got the vigor of a Wednesday morning and no one can beat my hourly voice dubbing output! My special skill is imitating Ryo's voice!"
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| "Giwara" |
Giwara: "Hic. I can't drink anymore... Oh, it's my turn? I'm a sabotage specialist, Code Number 00... hic, 002. I'm also known as 'Giwara.' I can destroy everything from a chicken coop to a satellite - except for twelve things."
Although never stated outright, the more perceptive readers may have realized from the humorous hints that these two members were, in fact, the genuine Masaya Matsukaze (the Japanese voice/actor for Ryo Hazuki) and Takumi Hagiwara (the Japanese voice/actor for Wuying Ren) themselves. Together with other members of the Shenmue project team, they would go on to write humorous responses to fan submissions each week.
Before long, the new Muecas Dan page would grow in size and become the main place for Shenmue-related content, replacing the earlier Shenmue Cast FAN page and branding, and finding a new home on the official Shenmue.com website.
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| Muecas Dan logo and slogan ("We are the Muecas Club!! ~I Love Shenmue Deeply~") |
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In the near future we will be translating into English one of the first editions of Muecas from 2001. Watch for it to come!
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