Shenmue Characters Based on Actual People: Susumu Aketagawa, Takeshi Hirai, Akira Nagai, Yoshihito Nishii, Hiroaki Takeuchi, Manabu Takimoto, Hiroshi Tamura, Yoshihiko Tashiro, Hidekaze Yukawa, Kenta Shimizu, Jin Xin Nan, Takashi Matsuda

Several characters that appear in the Shenmue games have in-game models based on real-life people.  This is not surprising in the case of Shenmue III, where several higher-tier backers were included in the game as a reward for their pledges. What may not be so readily realized is that several of the people Ryo meets in the first game of the series, as workers or residents of Yokosuka, were also modeled on actual people, including but not limited to members of the project development staff and people associated with Sega.

Today's post presents the findings of research to identify and gather together as many of these characters from the early games in the series as possible.

Let's get started!

Characters Based on Actual People: Shenmue I

Susumu Aketagawa

In the game: He is the hard-working owner of Yamaji Soba Noodles in Dobuita who is now considering retirement.

In real life: The name and model of this character are those of the voice & recording director for Shenmue I and II, Susumu Aketagawa. He was invited to provide his own voice for the game, but  declined, commenting with a laugh in a 2019 interview that "I wasn't willing to go that far".

When he worked on the Shenmue project, he was approximately the same age as his character in the game, although they do not share the same birthday date. It is unknown whether he is a big fan of soba noodles, although he did mention in the interview that he used to enjoy going for a lunch of boiled whitebait on rice at a restaurant near the Sega offices.

Left: Susumu Aketagawa in the game is the owner of Yamaji Soba Noodles in Dobuita. Right: directing a recording session for Shenmue around 1998 (top-right) and in a 2019 interview (bottom-right).

Aketagawa-san's profile: retirement from the noodle business beckons.

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Poll Result: Patrons' Choice Topic for April 2021

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 for April 2021 is...

"Characters in Shenmue Based on Real People"

Several characters that appear in Shenmue have models that were based on real-life people such as members of the development staff.

One of these, and perhaps the most well-known among fans, is Manabu Takimoto. He appears as a beleaguered architect who can often be found in Sakuragaoka, working on a construction project for a friend. In real life, he runs an architectural company and was also the environment designer for the three Shenmue games released to date.

Manabu Takimoto: top-left: at the construction site in Sakuragaoka, top-right: character model, bottom-left: Shenmue III interview video, bottom-right: from a 2000 magazine interview.

Sadly, it would seem Lan Di's speeding car took away Manabu Takimoto's closest companion...
[Official profile, from the Suka Pass app]

There are several other characters in the game who are based on real-life SEGA staff, some less-well-known than others. We'll be covering them all in our up-coming post.

Watch for it on the blog in the near future!

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Seven Interesting Details from the Shenmue III Teaser | Gamescom

The Shenmue III teaser video that was unveiled at Gamescom contains several scenes and images, many of which flash pass by in an instant.

In this post we'll pause and take a closer look at seven points within the teaser which hint at promising depths beneath the surface of the game.

1. Masks on Display

Shortly before the camera sweeps down through the main road of the riverside town of Choubu, a line of colorful and distinctive masks is shown -  presumably merchandise for sale at one of the shops Ryo will be able to visit. Masks of other designs can be observed in the background.

Masks on display in Choubu.

It turns out that the design of these particular masks, which are carved from wood, originates from the Indonesian island of Bali.

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"Gachinko Fishing" & "Washing Place" | Shenmue Document Translations

Following our look at the Tile Breaking job design document that was revealed by Yu Suzuki in a recent interview, we now turn our attention to two more of the documents he brought along with him, annotated in English: "Ganchinko" Fishing and Washing Place.

Let's take a look at each in turn.

Document 1: "Gachinko" Fishing

Fishing document detail.

Fishing is an activity that Yu Suzuki has confirmed will be part of the upcoming Shenmue III. An obvious hint to this also lay in the in-game fishing rod and bait that were part of one of the Kickstarter reward tiers.

At the 2016 MAGIC Monaco conference. Yu talked about the ability to fish in various places such as Bailu village, He also stated that fishing was something that the development team had wanted to include in Shenmue II, but it had to be left out as there was no room to fit it.

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