Segata Sanshiro Theme Song at SEGA Fes 2019

Last year at the annual SEGAFes event in Tokyo, Shenmue fans were delighted with the announcement of the Shenmue I & II re-release for PS4 and PC (rewatch a captioned video of the 2018 announcement). After Day One of this year's event, has there been anything so far for Shenmue fans? In fact there were a couple of things - if only small references.

During the opening "SEGA Fan Meet-Up" stage event, the SEGA's CEO, Hajime Satomi, briefly brought up a slide of games that are celebrating their 20th anniversary since release in 2019. One of those was Shenmue, which was released for the Dreamcast in Japan at the end of 1999.

At a later event, SEGA also brought on stage their lovable mascot character for the Saturn console, Segata Sanshiro, played by actor Hiroshi Fujioka who has several links to Shenmue.

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Rotary Phones & Milk Delivery | Shenmue Realism

In previous posts we looked at some of the details in Shenmue that reflected life in 1980s Japan, such as the washing machines sitting outside the apartments and the heating arrangements during winter.

Today we check out some more typical items from Japan during the '80s, that Ryo encounters as he wanders through the suburbs near his home... starting with telephones.

Phones of Many Colors

There are a few different styles of phones that Ryo can interact with in Shenmue, all of which would have been commonly seen in Japan during the time in which Shenmue was set.

The first telephone the player encounters is the domestic-use one at Ryo's home. In addition there are a couple of different types of public phone in Ryo's neighborhood.

Public phones in Japan generally have an easily-distinguishable color, which helps identify the features a phone offers (as technology advanced models were released that offered international calling, push-button "dialing", accepted phone cards as well as coins and so on). Of course, with the ubiquity of mobile phones, public phones are harder to find in Japan these days.

Let's see how their in-game appearance stacks up compared to images of the real thing.

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Shenmue Comic: Training in Guilin

Today we take a look at a Shenmue-themed comic strip that was published on the official Shenmue.com website around the time of the release of the Shenmue games, to which I've added an English translation.

The comic strip in Japanese only. (Read on for the translated version.)

First, a few background notes that tie in to the comic.

Muecas and Shenmue.com

This comic strip was part of a section of Shenmue.com called "Muecas" (a word that was formed from "Shenmue and Dreamcast" Cast Fans" - thanks to Kiyuu for the clarification! Trust me, it sounds less weird in Japanese). Contributors to those section were called the "Muecas team", and consisted of a group of actual Sega staff who had been working on Shenmue, as well as a number of fans from the general public.

The logo of the Muecas Team.
"We love Shenmue deeply"

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