Ryo & Ren Reunited! Eric Kelso and Corey Marshall Twitch Livestream Announced

Voice talent Eric Kelso (English voice of Fuku-san, Guizhang, Ren as well as additional minor characters in Shenmue I and II) will be joining Corey Marshall on his Twitch stream as he plays Shenmue II!

Eric and Corey worked together in Japan recording their lines for SEGA for the original Shenmue - and following that, again for Shenmue II - more than twenty years ago. (You can read about this in our earlier interview with Eric Kelso on the blog).

And now they will be back together to chat and interact with fans on this special stream. Get your questions ready!

In Corey's announcement tweet, he says: "Eric and I will reminisce about our (mis)adventures working together and will take questions from Shenmue fans.  Don't miss this very special livestream!"

• Time: Friday, March 5th at 8pm Los Angeles time [= Saturday 1pm JST]

• Stream link: https://www.twitch.tv/coreymarshallvoiceoverpro

At the Sega studio, during the recording of Shenmue II: Eric Kelso, Lisle Wilkerson [voice of Joy / Xiuying / Yuan] & Corey Marshall

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Commentary on "English Voice Recording Report" | Kickstarter Update #96

A new update (officially Kickstarter Update #96) has been released by the Shenmue III project team, introducing the English voice actors for two of the lead characters in the game. The update contains several photographs from the studio and a "behind the scenes" video clip in which cut scenes from the game can be briefly seen.

In this post, we'll recap the update and pick out some points of interest, particularly the game images that appear on the screens in the video.

Earlier posts relating to voice actors for the Japanese version of the game:

• Image of a Day's Worth of Shenmue 3 Script
• Commentary: Shenhua's new voice actress | Kickstarter Update #82

Note: minor spoilers, in the form of a small number of lines of script from the game.

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Shenmue III English Voice Recording Now Underway

English voice recording for Shenmue III is now underway! Voice actor Corey Marshall, who is reprising his role as Ryo Hazuki for the game, recently revealed via Twitter that he has started recording, sharing a photo of himself in the recording studio together with Yu Suzuki. This follows the news earlier in the year in the June Kickstarter Update of the start of the Japanese voice recording.

• Related post: Commentary: Shenhua's new voice actress | Kickstarter Update #82

Corey's tweet contained a warm message expressing his feeling of honor at Yu's visit:

Link to tweet

Thanks to the studio lights, Corey's stance in the photo was given a super-worldly glow, to which Corey jokingly remarked, "You’d think the other name for Shenmue 3 is ‘Ryo Hazuki: The Immortal Iron Fist’."

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"What is Shenmue" SEGA Video Series | Parts 1 & 2: Storyline and Characters

SEGA Europe has released two videos narrated by Corey Marshall, the voice of Ryo Hazuki in the English version of Shenmue. The first part details the storyline of Shenmue and what makes it so compelling. The second part delves deeper into the characters encountered during the journey.

The videos showcase footage from the soon-to-be released Shemue I & II (its release date is August 21st for most regions outside of Japan).

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Ryo Hazuki Interviews Attendees at E3 | Video

Some interviewees were flustered, some had witty replies... but Ryo Hazuki's cool demeanor never changes.

In June, YouTuber Adam Koralik managed to get together with two Shenmue voice actors, Corey Marshall (the voice of Ryo Hazuki in the first two games, and confirmed for Shenmue III) and Lisle Wilkerson (who voiced Yuan, Joy and Xiuying in Shenmue II) at the E3 event in Los Angeles.

They recorded a hilarious video of Corey interviewing various attendees in character as Ryo. He does a magnificent job of keeping a straight face the entire time. Lisle also reacts as Joy when the three chat at the end.

Watch the video below, hosted on Adam's channel.

• Check out Adam's YouTube channel here.

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Masaya Matsukaze Prepares to Reprise Role as Ryo Hazuki

Another hint has been received that voice recording for Shenmue III may be set to commence in the near future.

This morning, the voice actor for the Japanese versions of Shenmue, Masaya Matsukaze, tweeted out an image of the Shenmue: The Movie DVD cover on a stand, accompanied by the message (my translation):

"Right!
Time to prepare for my part (^_^)"

よし！
役ずくり(^-^) pic.twitter.com/TgVWFFLCnR

— 松風雅也LINEスタンプ発売中 (@matsukazest) April 16, 2018

In the first two Shenmue games the Japanese voice actors themselves performed the actions for their own characters in the game, however at this point it has not been revealed to what extent this will be the case for the third game.

This morning's tweet follows the news from Corey Marshall, the English voice actor for Ryo, in response to a fan's query on Facebook in March that his recording was scheduled to start at the end of May (with the recording location to be in the U.S., as of the end of last year).

We will continue to keep our eyes peeled for further updates regarding voice recording.

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Eric Kelso Answers Your Questions! | Interview with the Voice Actor for Ren, Guizhang & Fuku-san

The characters of Fukuhara-san, Guizhang and Ren are certainly some of the most memorable characters in the first two Shenmue games.

I had the pleasure of interviewing the actor behind the English-language voices of all three of these Shenmue characters, voice talent Eric Kelso.

As well as voicing [from left] Guizhang, Ren and Fuku-san, Eric also voiced a number of minor characters in Shenmue. One of his other lesser-known characters is Nagashima, one of the pair of thugs that Ryo runs into on Dobuita Street. *Correction: Nagashima was voiced by Dario Toda; Eric also voiced some of the fishermen at the harbor (as best we can determine from their voices: Kim Shihan, Susumu Kodo, Shigeru Kojima and Kazuomi Narasaki).

Questions for Eric were gathered beforehand from all over the Shenmue community, including through blogs, fan sites, Facebook and Twitter. Although not every question could be covered, the majority of them were able to be asked. The name of the person / people who suggested the question is noted above alongside each question.

The full interview transcription starts below. As you will see, Eric is a fan of the Shenmue series and very supportive of the fan community, and it was a really fun interview to do.

Plus, following the transcript, listen to an audio compilation of a selection of Eric's answers from the interview.

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