Why I think Ryo and Shenhua are brother and sister

[JMan]

I have reason to believe that Shenhua and Ryo are brother and sister either in current form or in a past life. I have organised my thoughts into a list of 9 reasons why I believe I could be right.

(1) Iwao Hazuki coincidentally had a life in China and managed to snag a mirror made from a specific material only found in Shenhua’s village. It wouldn’t be much of a stretch to think Iwao was acquainted with the Ling family in some way – maybe Ryo and Shenhua are related in their current lifetime and their parents have been decoys. Shenhua remembering her birth in flashbacks appear too ancient also; she may have mistaken her birth for an ancestor of herself, meaning that her real birth memory has some significance to be hidden from the plot.

(2) Trees are featured a lot in Shenmue. The fact that Ryo and Shenhua both own a cherry blossom tree where they live could represent some kind of duality, that they are mirror images of each other and are linked. There is also duality in that both of them have other forms of themselves. Shenhua’s ancestral forms can be seen in concept art yet Ryo also has other forms as well as seen in the Shenmue Postmortem chapter concept art in which his attire shifts to more traditional outfits as the game progresses.

(3) Ryo and Shenhua have strong feelings for each other which manifests in Ryo’s dreams. Ryo sees Shenhua often and Shenhua is in anticipation for a man who will seek her out and help her combat a great evil. I’ll propose the theory that perhaps Shenhua and Ryo are one soul that has been split into two twin forms. When they are apart and their minds are in the subconscious, their souls call for one another to be united. Otherwise it could also just be brother and sister intuition, especially if they both have powers. Speaking of which…

(4) Shenhua and Ryo BOTH have supernatural abilities. Following on from my theory of Ryo and Shenhua being a split form of one soul in a past life, both of these characters posses some amount of supernatural ability that defies explanation. Shenhua can see images of Luoyang in her mind when she closes her eyes, can blow out dandelions just by willing it, not to mention in the Project Berkley trailer she goes all Super Saiyan. Ryo does have some amount of power which isn’t explained. He has the ability of predestination where he can see events of the future unravel in his dreams (whether this is channelling because of the mirror remains to be seen, though I’ll contend that Shenhua and Ryo communicate in their dreams which would mean Shenhua would probably need a mirror of her own which she doesn’t have). He can also communicate with Shenhua in his dreams (bad ending warning dream in Shenmue 2) and is spiritually aware to sense that the Shenmue tree has a spirit, to which Shenhua agrees. Could Shenhua and Ryo be two lost parts of a soul that has powerful abilities? It would certainly explain why both Ryo and Shenhua are destined to meet and fight the great evil together as opposed to just on their own.

(5) Mega64 when making their “How Shenmue was meant to end” spoof originally meant for the script to be “Ryo bones Ling Shenhua in the cave.” Sega apparently took issue with this part asking for it to be changed to instead “Ryo explains the meaning of love to Shenhua.” On the day of filming, Mega64 asked Yu Suzuki about this section to which Suzuki explained that Ryo and Shenhua could fool around a little bit, but they absolutely must not have sex. This to me is a big sign of the two being related and Sega/Suzuki trying to steer away from jokes which later on might be deemed incestuous.

(6) Why exactly are Shenhua and Ryo destined to meet? What is so special about getting those two people in particular to be together? Why not just call Ryo and Xiuying – she seems competent enough as a fighter. The only reason Ryo and Shenhua should have to be destined to fight the great evil together is because they share something that can overcome it. Might not be a stretch to assume it involves a relation to each other.

(7) Shenhua would not fit the role of a love interest and would instead need to have a specific role for Ryo personally. Every woman Ryo has met means something different to him and the role of love interest has already been taken by Nozomi.
• Xiuying is Ryo’s instructor who trains him to become a better martial artist. She happens to be the most beautiful woman in the series, but there is no implied chemistry between her and Ryo featured at any time.
• Joy is attracted to Ryo at first but by the end of Shenmue 2 their relationship develops into more of a Best Friend/Brother-Sister type. She never had a random outburst of her feelings like Nozomi and no romantic words were ever said between her and Ryo. Safe to say she is only meant as a friend.
• Nozomi fits the purpose of being the central love interest in the series. The first game makes this pretty clear what with her being madly in love with him and Ryo in denial (“To me…you’re…” gives it away) denial being a common cliché in cinema of two characters who end up falling in love. And if all of this plus the awkward soap opera conversations they have with soft music playing isn’t enough they share a friggin bike ride with a woman singing about love.
• Fangmei is too young and unimportant to the main plot to be a central love option for Ryo, instead just fulfilling the role of a minor who has a crush on him and admires him as a sort of role model.
Since we already have a central love interest, what exact purpose does Shenhua serve? To have a second central love interest just feels crowded. However she is marketed as somebody very important to Ryo: a sister would make a lot of sense.

(8) Ryo feels strangely connected to the Shenmue tree, almost as if he knows it very well. This would imply that he might have been in Guilin before, though since he has no recollection of it in his current life he might have been there in another lifetime and his soul is now channelling that memory to him. This would imply that not only is Ryo connected to China but also to the exact place Shenhua and her ancestors lived. That’s a big coincidence.

(9) There are many hints to suggest that Shenhua is attracted to Ryo, the biggest being when she tries to kiss him. This is understandable seeing how Ryo is this mysterious, exotic, handsome and strong character who just saved her life and her village guardian. At first this may seem like a contradiction, but I believe this is here to try and throw the player off from suspecting similarly to how George Lucas wrote the attraction between Luke and Princess Leia in Star Wars, even going so far as a kiss. Brothers and sisters who have been separated at birth all of their lives and are then re-acquainted without them knowing of their relation can at times foster romantic feelings because they find they are strangely drawn to one another for having so many similarities. This has been the case in many great works of literature such as Les Miserables and is a phenomenon that even happens today. For Shenhua to be drawn to Ryo so strongly could be a manifestation of this phenomenon.

[Fenix]

And her fathers in the flashback?

[JMan]

I don’t think he is her father. The setting just looks too old for 16 years ago. I think that Shenhua is instead remembering an ancestor of herself by mistake who also was called ‘Shenhua.’ Also, Shenhua has two flashbacks in that scene: one where she is a baby and the other where she is a small child playing on a swing. If you look at the surroundings they look extremely different in both memories.

[tomboz]

What if Lan Di is the third sibling?

(1) Iwao Hazuki coincidentally had a life in China. Lan Di is from China. He also has a connection to a mirror made from a specific material only found in Shenhua’s village.

(2) Trees are featured a lot in Shenmue. Lan Di's mirror was found buried by the Cherry Blossom tree in the Hazuki residence.

(3) Ryo and Shenhua have strong feelings for each other which manifests in Ryo’s dreams. Lan Di also features in Ryo's dreams.

(4) Shenhua, Ryo and Lan Di ALL have supernatural abilities. Lan Di is able to invade Ryo's dreams. He knows of Shenhua's existence (see bad ending of Shenmue 2) without having actually met her.

(5) Why exactly are Lan Di and Ryo destined to meet? What is so special about getting those two people in particular to be together? Why not just call Ryo and Xiuying – she seems competent enough as a fighter. The only reason Ryo and Lan Di should have to be destined to fight is because they share something. Might not be a stretch to assume it involves a relation to each other.

You get where I'm going with this so I can't be bothered to write more. Nice theory though.

[JMan]

Lan Di is 31 years of age, Iwao is 46. So unless Iwao was a minor who both had a child and visited a foreign country to learn the martial arts while magically altering his age to appear as an adult in the photograph you find in the dojo I don't see how that is possible.

(1) Lan Di is too old to be a son of Iwao as stated.
(2) Shenhua and Ryo both own trees. The point I was making was that symbolically it may or may not be seen as a duality. Lan Di getting a bodyguard to dig up a mirror from the ground contributes what exactly to my point?
(3) Those are nightmares. Lan Di and Ryo don’t talk to each other in their dreams as Shenhua and Ryo do. Dreaming of a girl who you have never met beckoning you isn’t the same as dreaming about someone you’ve seen before. Reference to my idea of a split soul calling for each other.
(4) Again, nightmares. Knowing somebody’s whereabouts doesn’t automatically mean you’re psychic.
(5) Ryo and Lan Di are not destined to meet. This is never cited in the game. Shenhua and Ryo however are featured in a prophecy to meet.

[shengoro86]

(5) Mega64 when making their “How Shenmue was meant to end” spoof originally meant for the script to be “Ryo bones Ling Shenhua in the cave.” Sega apparently took issue with this part asking for it to be changed to instead “Ryo explains the meaning of love to Shenhua.” On the day of filming, Mega64 asked Yu Suzuki about this section to which Suzuki explained that Ryo and Shenhua could fool around a little bit, but they absolutely must not have sex. This to me is a big sign of the two being related and Sega/Suzuki trying to steer away from jokes which later on might be deemed incestuous.

I know the guys from Mega64 and I just wanted to say that this is not entirely true.

Other than that, nice theory!