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 this time is:
"Shenmue II pre-release interview with the Japanese voice actors for Ryo, Ren and Shenhua"
Coming soon to the blog!
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| A mysterious scene from the CG movie on the Project Berkley bonus disc |
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| Magazine page images kindly provided by SkillJim. |
In the late 1990s, SEGA's AM2 division, led by Yu Suzuki, embarked on an ambitious venture known internally as Project Guppy. Initially conceived with the title of Virtua Fighter RPG for the SEGA Saturn, the project subsequently transitioned to the SEGA Dreamcast and was renamed Shenmue and the associated code name changed to Project Berkley. Code names were used to maintain confidentiality during development, adding an aura of mystery to the undertaking.
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| At his GDC 2014 post-mortem talk, Yu Suzuki reveals how the code name changed during development together with the game's title. |
In recent years, Yu Suzuki has revealed the inspiration for the name "Project Berkley":
Q: At the beginning the game was given the codename “Project Berkley”, is there any special meaning behind this name?
YS: It’s actually like this [laughs]: because we realized at the start that this would be a completely different game to anything else on the market at the time, and its scale was unprecedented, we wanted to keep the project very confidential. Because of this we wanted to give it a very cool sounding name, like something from a spy movie. In Japan there’s this phrase bakkureru (ばっくれる) meaning to “pretend not to know” or “feign ignorance”, and by coincidence that there is a place in America with a similar sounding name, so we chose this “Project Berkley” codename.
A special feature of approximately 30 minutes, with the same name of Project Berkley, was included with the Japanese version of Virtua Fighter 3tb, released on Dreamcast in November 1998. Containing a CGI trailer, an extended interview with Yu Suzuki and various concept art, it provided gamers with an early glimpse into the project's innovative vision, highlighting its potential to revolutionize gaming.
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| The Virtua Fighter 3tb release included a bonus disc |
Continuing on with the topic of Hazuki Ishigaki (check out the Interview with Hazuki Ishigaki in Yokosuka), who played Shenhua in the Japanese versions of the first two games in the series, here is a post she made on her online diary at the time. It contains a small selection of photos and comments about her attendance at a release event, held in Akihabara on Shenmue's release date in Japan: December 29, 1999.
Below this we've translated her official profile from 2004, showing other TV and radio shows she had been involved in at the time.
So let's get started with the diary photos she posted, with a translation of her comment under each.
--- Hazuki Ishigaki's diary post (29 December 1999) ---
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| Today, a Shenmue Release Event was held at Yamagiwa Soft in Akihabara. We were lucky to have a warm and refreshing day under a broad blue sky, unusual for this time of year. |
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| Everyone who had been looking forward to this day gathered here along with a large number of reporters. There was wide coverage from radio, television, magazines, and on the internet. Remarkably, there was even a representative from a French gaming magazine (their business card said 'Journalist, Japan Representative') who had traveled all the way to cover the event! |
In this post, we will be translating a feature about Hazuki Ishigaki, the voice actress for Shenhua in the Japanese version of the first two Shenmue games, from a magazine at the time.
Ishigaki was 21 years old at the time, and her acting and voicing career had started a couple of years earlier, with appearances on Japanese TV and radio prior to her work for the Shenmue games. Online information suggests that she retired from acting around March 2004.
The magazine feature was published in the Japanese Dreamcast Magazine's October 1999 edition, and contains a series of Q&A as well as Shenhua cosplay photos taken on location around Dobuita St, Yokosuka.
Although this was still a few months before the release of the first Shenmue game at the end of that year - and well before Shenhua would be properly seen in-game in the second game - the character of Shenhua would already have been a familiar sight to gaming enthusiasts from promotional material and magazine articles.
The introduction to the interview article states:
"Thank you for waiting, Hazuki-chan fans. Shenhua couldn't wait any longer for her turn to come, so she has come to the streets of Yokosuka! What discoveries await her in this foreign land?"
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:
"Interview with Shenhua actress Hazuki Ishigaki in Dobuita"
In this post, we will be translating a feature about Hazuki Ishigaki, the voice actress for Shenhua in the Japanese version of the first two Shenmue games, from a magazine at the time.
Ishigaki was 21 years old at the time, and whose acting and voicing career started a couple of years earlier, with appearances on Japanese TV and radio prior to her work for the Shenmue games. Online information suggests that she retired from acting around March 2004.
The magazine feature was published in the Japanese Dreamcast Magazine of October 1999, and contains a series of Q&A as well as Shenhua cosplay photos taken on location around Dobuita St, Yokosuka.
Although this was still a few months before the release of the first Shenmue game at the end of that year - and well before Shenhua would be properly seen in-game in the second game - the character of Shenhua would already have been a familiar sight to gaming enthusiasts from promotional material and magazine articles.
The introduction states:
"Thank you for waiting, Hazuki-chan fans. Shenhua couldn't wait any longer for her turn to come, so she has come to the streets of Yokosuka! What discoveries await her in this foreign land?"
In early 1999, to mark the upcoming release of Shenhua's Theme as a CD single, Japan's Dreamcast Magazine featured this interview with IOLI (derived from her surname 伊織 Iori), the singer who performed the moving vocals on the track. She also sang live at the Shenmue Premiere in Yokohama in December of 1998.
There is not a great deal of information to be found about this singer online, even on Japanese-language sites, so this is a short but rare snippet of history.
Shenmue
In this series we translate Shenmue content from Weekly AM2, the official online magazine published by Sega's AM2 development team back in the day. News and information about the Shenmue series could be found regularly within these pages from the end of 1999 through to 2001 with the release of Shenmue II.
Vol. 4 was a fairly brief update posted at the start of the new millennium, shortly after the official release of Shenmue in Japan on December 28th. While not much news is contained, we do learn the nickname of Megumi Yasu, the actress playing Nozomi (read on to find out!). A lucky draw is announced for Shenmue-themed New Year Cards - of which only two were available. Let's hope they were kept and treasured by the winners.
In this series we translate Shenmue content from Weekly AM2, the official online magazine published by Sega's AM2 development team back in the day. News and information about the Shenmue series could be found regularly within these pages from the end of 1999 through to 2001 with the release of Shenmue II.
Vol. 2 was released on 21st December 1999, a few days before the official release of Shenmue in Japan on the 29th, and includes a mini-interview with the game's director Keiji Okayasu. Okayasu also directed Shenmue II and returned to Shenmue once again many years later to work with Yu Suzuki on Shenmue III.
