Megumi Yasu Photoshoot - Nozomi Harasaki Cosplay | Dreamcast Magazine, March 2000

The March 2000 edition of Japan's Dreamcast Magazine featured cosplay by Megumi Yasu, the voice actress who portrayed Nozomi Harasaki in the Japanese version of Shenmue. Along with the photos, the feature included a brief Q&A section.

Megumi Yasu recreates one of the CG renders of Nozomi at her shop.

AI animation based on the magazine still.

Note: the photos in this post have been extracted from a pdf scan of the magazine, so quality is limited. Some of the photos have also been processed to remove overlaid text.

 -- The article translation begins below --

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14 More Tweeted Anecdotes from Former Shenmue Developer Morio Ashizuka

"Morio Ashizuka" is the pseudonym used on Twitter/X by a former developer who was deeply involved with development of the first two Shenmue games, in particular character animations and motion capture. He tweets prolifically about video games, SEGA and other topics - along with occasional fascinating insights and anecdotes from the day.

Last time, we introduced a selection of Shenmue inside stories and anecdotes from this former developer.

This time we continue on with a whole new batch of Shenmue-related tweets we'll be translating, again touching on his many experiences during the game's development:

• Revelation #15: A Stand-alone Forklift Racing Arcade Game Was Floated
• Revelation #16: The Scrapped Alternative Forklift Racing Start Scene
• Revelation #17: Actor Photos: Fujioka and Matsukaze Meet With Yu Suzuki
• Revelation #18: Notebooks Were Used for Cut Scene Management
• Revelation #19: Shenmue II's Motion Capture System
• Revelation #20: There Was a Slider Tool For Ryo's Facial Expression
• Revelation #21: Sleeping at the Office
• Revelation #22: "Open-Door" Policy
• Revelation #23: Ryo's Wooden Motorbike 
• Revelation #24: Suzuki Wanted to Make a Shenmue Alarm Clock
• Revelation #25: Questioning Why There's a Saturn at the Hazuki Residence
• Revelation #26: Shenmue II's Distinctive Characters
• Revelation #27: Yu Suzuki's Theme for Shenmue II
• Revelation #28: Ashizuka's Most Satisfying Animation
• Bonus Revelation: Fujioka at the Motion Capture Studio

Read on for details!

This topic was selected by the Phantom River Stone blog patrons via our monthly poll on the Phantom River Stone Patreon and was available for early access. Thank you for your support!

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Poll Result: Patrons' Choice Topic for June 2023

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:

"More tweeted anecdotes from former Shenmue developer Morio Ashizuka"

"Morio Ashizuka" is the pseudonym used on Twitter by a former developer who was deeply involved with development of the first two Shenmue games, in particular character animations and motion capture. He tweets prolifically about video games, SEGA and other topics - along with occasional fascinating insights and anecdotes from the day.

Last time, these were the topics we included in our original post:

• Revelation #1: Dyeing Yuan's Hair for Muecas
• Revelation #2: NPC Recycling in Shenmue II's Opening Scene
• Revelation #3: Ryo Hazuki The Walking Legend
• Revelation #4: Shenmue I's Opening Scene Polish
• Revelation #5: Character Skeleton Changes from Shenmue I to II
• Revelation #6: Round-the-Clock Debugging
• Revelation #7: Reuse of Ryo Hazuki's Bowing Motion
• Revelation #8: Shenmue I's Bad Ending Created In One Night
• Revelation #9: Ryo's "Cola Face"
• Revelation #10: Joy's Original Costume Design & Motorcycle Branding
• Revelation #11: Fuku-san Avoided a Kidnapping
• Revelation #12: A Comedic Version of What's Shenmue
• Bonus Revelation: Yu's Favorite Character in Shenmue I

This time we'll be translating a whole new batch of Shenmue-related tweets from Ashizuka, again touching on his many experiences during the game's development.

Hiroshi Fujioka (voice and motion capture actor for Iwao Hazuki in the Japanese version) at the SEGA motion capture studio (Tweet source)

To be published in an up-coming post on the blog. Early preview available on Patreon!

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12 Riveting Shenmue Development Revelations | Morio Ashizuka

Morio Ashizuka is the Twitter handle of a former senior developer who was deeply involved with development of the first two Shenmue games, in particular character animations and motion design. He tweets prolifically about video games, SEGA and other topics - along with occasional fascinating insights and anecdotes from the day.

Some of the amazing details from Morio Ashizuka's tweets that we have highlighted in the past here on the blog include:

• The revelation that the character of Izumi Takano was once a candidate for Ryo's love interest
• The reason Ryo's bicycle was dropped from the first Shenmue game
• Suzuki's comment about Takumi Hagiwara's motion capture as Ren
• What had been planned for the bicycle event by which Ryo travels to Miao Village
• A character model of Yu Suzuki was created during the development of Shenmue II

Cover of one of the "The Legend of Akira" script books (Chapter Four: Guilin) tweeted by Ashizuka. Source tweet

In this post we have selected 12 tweets that give revelations into Shenmue's development, which were tweeted by Morio Ashizuka between 2017 and 2019 (plus a final bonus entry!).

This topic was selected by the Phantom River Stone blog patrons via our monthly poll on the Phantom River Stone Patreon and was available for early access. Thank you for your support!

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Poll Result: Patrons' Choice Topic for October 2022

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:

"Tweeted anecdotes from former developer on the original Shenmue project, Morio Ashizuka"

"Morio Ashizuka" is the pseudonym used on Twitter by a former developer who was deeply involved with development of the first two Shenmue games, in particular character animations and motion capture. He tweets prolifically about video games, SEGA and other topics - along with occasional fascinating insights and anecdotes from the day.

Some of the amazing details from Morio Ashizuka's tweets that we have included here on the blog in the past include:

• The revelation that the character of Izumi Takano was once a candidate for Ryo's love interest
• The reason Ryo's bicycle was dropped from the first Shenmue game
• Suzuki's comment about Takumi Hagiwara's motion capture as Ren
• What had been planned for the bicycle event by which Ryo travels to Miao Village

Cover of one of the "The Legend of Akira" script books (Chapter Four: Guilin) tweeted by Ashizuka. Source tweet

In this upcoming post we'll be translating a selection of other Shenmue-related tweets from Ashizuka that shed further light on the game's development process.

Watch for it to come!

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