The Chapters and Locations Confirmed in a Concept Art Video

(Chapter 7 and beyond)

The Chapters and Locations Confirmed in a Concept Art Video

Postby yaochung » Thu Oct 13, 2011 11:59 am

Check out the "Shenmue Online: Concept Art" video. Although the video is related to Shenmue Online, it reveals a lot about the original series.

Between 0:27-0:32 of the video, Yu Suzuki showed a map annotated with the chapter numbers and their corresponding locations:
  • Chapter 1: Yokosuka.
  • Chapter 2: The Boat. This is not in Shenmue II, but is in the side story comics.
  • Chapter 3: Hong Kong.
  • Chapter 4: Kowloon City.
  • Chapter 5. The kanji is illegible (to me), but it suggests a river's name. It may be one of the rivers along which Ryo travelled by boat to Guilin. I think this chapter contains minor details to the game, so it was left out as was Chapter 2. [Updated: It is Li River. See the discussions below.]
  • Chapter 6: Bailu. This is Shenhua's home village, which Ryo never got to in the Guilin part of Shenmue II.

The map also has other locations which Ryo will likely visit, starting from the bottom:
  • The kanji is illegible (to me), but it is near Shanghai. [Updated: It is Suzhou. See the discussions below.]
  • Luoyang. The tapestry in Shenhua's house depicts the city.
  • Meng Cun. Lan Di said that Iwao killed Zhao there.
  • Beijing.

The map confirmed Shenmue's first 6 chapters and probably all of the relevant locations.
Last edited by yaochung on Mon Oct 17, 2011 11:33 am, edited 1 time in total.

yaochung has received a thanks from: SquallAdv
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Re: The Chapters and Locations Confirmed in a Concept Art Vi

Postby yaochung » Sun Oct 16, 2011 2:27 am

Here are the map's screenshots from the video to clarify the first post:
Image
Image
As you can see, some of the kanji in the video are too blurry to be identified. [Updated: All of the locations are now identified with Kiyuu's help.]

To reinforce that the concept art is indeed from the original series rather than Shenmue Online, at least one of the artworks already appeared in Shenmue Premiere 1998. Please compare the artwork in the following two videos:

There are more of the interesting artworks in the "Shenmue Online: Concept Art" video:
Image
Image
Last edited by yaochung on Mon Oct 17, 2011 11:35 am, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: The Chapters and Locations Confirmed in a Concept Art Vi

Postby ThyDarkAngel » Sun Oct 16, 2011 12:38 pm

Wow, awesome topic, yaochung.

Sooner or later hopw we end of visiting all those locations.

Many thanks for the hard work.
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Re: The Chapters and Locations Confirmed in a Concept Art Vi

Postby Ziming » Sun Oct 16, 2011 2:35 pm

Nice catch! This will be added to the Shenmue 3 research topic.
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Re: The Chapters and Locations Confirmed in a Concept Art Vi

Postby Schiff » Sun Oct 16, 2011 3:07 pm

I had never seen these pics.... thanks!
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Re: The Chapters and Locations Confirmed in a Concept Art Vi

Postby DreamcastPast » Sun Oct 16, 2011 5:26 pm

Great work yaochung, always good to uncover something new in the Shenmue Universe... =D>
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Re: The Chapters and Locations Confirmed in a Concept Art Vi

Postby shengoro86 » Sun Oct 16, 2011 5:57 pm

That is really cool. Great find!
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Re: The Chapters and Locations Confirmed in a Concept Art Vi

Postby KiD » Mon Oct 17, 2011 2:49 am

Just thinking that, location wise, we have only really been to half the locations is amazing. The thing I really like about Shenmue is that the entire story was planned from the beginning, so going to Meng Cun and uncovering a mystery from the very beginning of the game is great. I really hope Shenmue 3 is released in the not too distant future, so we can finally witness the entirety of this grand adventure.
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Re: The Chapters and Locations Confirmed in a Concept Art Vi

Postby Kiyuu » Mon Oct 17, 2011 4:07 am

yaochung wrote:Chapter 5. The kanji is illegible (to me), but it suggests a river's name. It may be one of the rivers along which Ryo travelled by boat to Guilin. I think this chapter contains minor details to the game, so it was left out as was Chapter 2.

It looks like Li River (漓江) to me. Yes. It's said that there used to be a considerable length of journey between Hong Kong and Guilin.

As for the "someplace near Shanghai," it has to be Suzhou (蘇州) as you see in this map.

Image

Thank you for the topic. Interesting speculations.
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Re: The Chapters and Locations Confirmed in a Concept Art Vi

Postby yaochung » Mon Oct 17, 2011 11:34 am

Kiyuu wrote:It looks like Li River (漓江) to me. Yes. It's said that there used to be a considerable length of journey between Hong Kong and Guilin.

Since You have mentioned it, I can now be sure that it is Li River (or Lijiang) which flows through Guilin.
Image
Kiyuu wrote:As for the "someplace near Shanghai," it has to be Suzhou (蘇州) as you see in this map.

I think you are spot on. I have updated the images of the map with all of the identified locations.

Thanks, Kiyuu.
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Re: The Chapters and Locations Confirmed in a Concept Art Vi

Postby Peter » Mon Oct 17, 2011 7:05 pm

Not too sure about that map dude, but Guilin is in Southern China, not too far from the Thailand/Vietnam border.
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Re: The Chapters and Locations Confirmed in a Concept Art Vi

Postby Spokane » Mon Oct 17, 2011 7:18 pm

You are slightly mistaken, its northwest of Hong Kong about 300 miles, and the Vietnam border is also about 300 miles from it. So the map is right. It reflects any other accurate map.
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Re: The Chapters and Locations Confirmed in a Concept Art Vi

Postby yaochung » Mon Oct 17, 2011 8:17 pm

Peter wrote:Not too sure about that map dude, but Guilin is in Southern China, not too far from the Thailand/Vietnam border.

The map looks alright, like Spokane said.
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Re: The Chapters and Locations Confirmed in a Concept Art Vi

Postby Peter » Tue Oct 18, 2011 5:53 pm

Think just agree to disagree on that one
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Re: The Chapters and Locations Confirmed in a Concept Art Vi

Postby yaochung » Tue Oct 18, 2011 9:26 pm

This is Guilin on Google Maps.
Image
Those maps look about the same.
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