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:
"Character profile comparison: Shiro the dog English vs Japanese versions differ!"
The original Shenmue Passport provided detailed character profile descriptions for every character in the first game. These profiles (or abbreviated versions) were also published in various strategy guides and magazine features at the time. Until now it had been widely assumed that these profiles were identical between Japanese and English versions, but recently an exception has been discovered.
In the English profile for the white dog, whose name is given as Shiro, we are told that she is to be found wandering around the streets of the residential area of Dobuita.
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| Bio for the white dog (screenshot from the Suka Pass app) |
However this profile raises a couple of small but puzzling points. One is that the background graphic for the dog in the Shenmue Passport shows New Yokosuka Harbor, despite her location being described as Dobuita. The second is that, in the game itself, this white dog can indeed be found wandering around the docks at the harbor.
Some light can be shed on this by inspecting the equivalent profile description for the Japanese version - it is in fact completely different from the English description, and gives Shiro's home as being at the harbor in Amihama.
In this post we will be translating the information presented in Shiro's Japanese profile, for comparison with the English version.
Coming soon to the blog!
