Hideki Kawabata's Renders, Part 3 - Unused and Future Characters

Welcome to Part Three of our review of the art renders shared by AM2 developer Hideki Kawabata (previous parts can be found here: Part One and Part Two).

In today's post, we will finish our coverage of character renders with a selection of some particularly interesting ones, including some who may even be potentially included in upcoming chapters of the story.

Unused Opponent for the S2 Duck Racing Event?

This character render is simply named "Female Martial Artist". She is dressed in a sleeveless red tunic-style dress that features a high collar with decorative fastenings down the chest. A gold hairclip or comb holds back her hair on one side, and she has a green sash around her waist.

"Female Martial Artist" (29 March 2000)

This character was unused in the games, but the text does hold a clue about her development background: part of the description reads "Okabayashi Special-Order Hidden Character".

It is probable that "Okabayashi" refers to Yoshihiro Okabayashi, who managed the Event Planning team responsible for creating in-game events - in fact, he was responsible for secretly creating and including duck racing in Shenmue II if the player follows an intricate set of steps to unlock it.

Okabayashi's name has cropped up elsewhere in past posts too, when it was hinted (many years later) by a fellow project member that he was fond of ponytails on female characters:

"The reason the rejected Izumi Takano appeared in Shenmue II was due to strong campaigning by Mr. O from the Planning team. He is a big fan of ponytails!"

The description indicates that Okabayashi may have made a special request to Kawabata to create a 3D model of a martial artist, with the words "hidden character" suggesting that she was planned as an unlockable character rather than featuring as a main storyline character.

It would seem likely that this female martial artist model was created as a candidate for one of the opponents Ryo needs to fight to access the duck racing in Shenmue II (in the released game, Ryo fights the characters of Izumi Takano and Eileen Edelweiss instead).

Shenmue II: Ryo needs to defeat Eileen in order to access the secret duck racing event

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Former Developer Anecdote: Shenmue II's Duck Racing Was Created In Secret

A former Shenmue developer has shared a brief but amusing anecdote in response to a tweet from Shenmue Forever that praised Shenmue II's intricate duck racing Easter Egg.

In his tweet, the developer that revealed that the entire duck race event was in fact created secretly by the Game Director* and staff without Yu Suzuki's knowledge!

An image of the original tweet is shown below.

Source tweet

About Satoru Tsuji

Satoru Tsuji (Twitter account mame_XPERIA) was one of the member of SEGA's 7-person Event Planning team on the Shenmue II project. He mentions that he was in charge of the fortune tellers in the game.

* Note: Tsuji's tweet about the duck race partially censors the Game Director's name as "Oka***". At first I assumed this might be (Keiji) Okayasu, however the Shenmue II end credits confirm this refers to Yoshihiro Okabayashi, who both headed the Event Planning team and was one of Shenmue II's two Game Directors.

Shenmue II End Credits: Event Planning team

 

Guide to Duck Racing in Shenmue II

Video: Shenmue Fans channel

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Izumi Takano Was Once Considered for Ryo's Love Interest

Izumi Takano, who can be found working at the Tomato Convenience Store in Wan Chai in Shenmue II, was once a candidate character model for the role of Nozomi Harasaki in the first game.

Izumi Takano at the Tomato Convenience Store in Shenmue II

This was confirmed in a tweet last year by one of the former developers on the original Shenmue project team, who goes by the name of Morio Ashizuka. He wrote:

"I recall that the high school girl you fight in Shenmue II, Izumi Takano, was a rejected candidate character for Nozomi (if I remember correctly...). Which may be why Ryo looked at her so dreamily, lol. The reason the rejected Izumi Takano appeared in Shenmue II was due to strong campaigning by Mr. O from the Planning team. He is a big fan of ponytails!"

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