Phoenix & Dragon Mirrors: Lore at a Glance | Mind Map

In our recent lore-related posts, we carried out a detailed examination of the lore surrounding the Mirrors, and all the various events, beliefs, clues and motivations surrounding them that we as players have learned (along with Ryo) during the first three Shenmue games. These were also covered in depth by SkillJim in his stream for the Shenmue Dojo channel (which are linked at the end of each post).

• Mirror Lore & Celestial Connections in Shenmue | Part One
• Mirror Lore & Celestial Connections in Shenmue | Part Two

Mind Map:

As a summary of what was covered in these posts, and to make it easier to visualize how the various pieces of the puzzle fit together, here is the complete "mind map" diagram illustrating how these concepts relate to each other.

The diagram can be seen as a preview below.

There is also this direct link to the image for easier viewing and zooming. It has been saved as a high resolution image to retain the text detail, and will require zooming in close!

Mirror Lore Mind Map

A few elements have been highlighted in yellow on the diagram as they represent some of the core recurring themes seen in Shenmue: the Prophecy that Shenhua recites, the symbolism of the Dragon and the Phoenix together with the Mirrors, and the mysterious "Treasure" they may point to whose nature is unknown.

Hopefully it will not be long before we can see how the mystery of the Dragon and Phoenix mirrors and the lore surrounding them plays out in the rest of the Shenmue story.

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Mystery Location in Photo at Shenhua's House Identified? | Shenmue II

Last year, we posted an article about an unidentified photo that can be glimpsed at Shenhua's house in Shenmue II.

The photo can be partially seen on the desk in Shenhua's father's room, in the pile where Ryo finds the plans for the Phoenix and Dragon mirrors. But there is no way for the player to move the other papers aside to examine it, and Ryo makes no comment about it.

It is, however, possible to view the full photo by accessing the game files directly, which looks as below. It appears to be some kind of outdoor scene with arches, trees, and some kind of structure in the center:

The mystery photo uncovered

In our post about this photo, we posed the question of why this photo would have been present among the design documents (albeit largely obscured), whether it had any significance and - most of all - whether such a location exists or existed in real life.

Well now, a possible candidate for this mystery location has been identified!

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Mirror Lore & Celestial Connections in Shenmue | Part Two

In this post we complete our investigation into the secrets of the Dragon and Phoenix mirrors and related lore surrounding them as revealed throughout the Shenmue games.

In Part One, we looked at the following topics:

• Ancient Beliefs: the Guardians of the North Star
• The Xing Xiu and People's Fates
• Five Stars Corp.
• Sword of Seven Stars
• I Smell Treasure
• The Chi You
• The Mirrors & the Qing Dynasty

This time, we will go deeper into the mysteries with the following topics:

• The Prophecy
• Shenmue's Bad Ending
• The Origin of the Mirrors
• Photo of the Imperial Envoy
• The Last Emperor: Pu Yi
• The Purpose of the Verdant Bridge
• The Envoy's Mission
• The Scroll
• The Cliff Temple

Spoiler Warning: This post covers story-related aspects from the first three games.

The Prophecy

A reference to the Dragon and Phoenix together also occurs outside of gameplay, in the prologue of each of the games in the series, in which Shenhua is heard reciting the prophecy (see also our comparison of the various versions of the prophecy to date).

This wording is from the Shenmue II version:

Shenhua: A Dragon shall emerge from the earth, and dark clouds shall obscure the heavens. A Phoenix shall descend from above, its wings will create a purple wind. In the midst of the pitch-black night, a morning star shall glisten, alone...

These words paint imagery of a conflict or dramatic event involving a Dragon and Phoenix in some form.

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