Muecas comic in English: Training in Guilin

[Switch]

Here's a translation of one of the comic strips that used to be up on the official Japanese Shenmue.com site (before it was taken down). The comic was drawn by the Muecas team, which consisted of actual Shenmue project members.



For background notes (e.g. about Segata Sanshiro and the TV ads he was in), the full blog post can be read here:

http://www.phantomriverstone.com/2017/0 ... uilin.html

[ShenGCH]

What in the actual fuck...

[Kiyuu]

The comic was drawn by the Muecas team, which consisted of actual Shenmue project members.

Actually, アニィたかはし (Anii Takahashi) who drew the comic was not an official Shenmue project team member, but one of us, Shenmue fans. Muecas-dan was formed by the official Shenmue team to communicate with fans and the fans who contributed to their web magazine were acknowledged as Muecas-dan members. Anii-san was the first fan who got the honor and awarded #011 as a Muecas-dan member. Myself got #023, btw.

Here's the last Muecas magazine and you can find the member list in the left column:

https://web.archive.org/web/20130829034 ... uecas.html

Anii-san who was an amateur cartoonist back then now has become professional and even published a comic book like this:

https://www.amazon.co.jp/exec/obidos/as ... /tavel-22/

[Switch]

The comic was drawn by the Muecas team, which consisted of actual Shenmue project members.

Actually, アニィたかはし (Anii Takahashi) who drew the comic was not an official Shenmue project team member, but one of us, Shenmue fans. Muecas-dan was formed by the official Shenmue team to communicate with fans and the fans who contributed to their web magazine were acknowledged as Muecas-dan members. Anii-san was the first fan who got the honor and awarded #011 as a Muecas-dan member. Myself got #023, btw.

Here's the last Muecas magazine and you can find the member list in the left column:

https://web.archive.org/web/20130829034 ... uecas.html

Anii-san who was an amateur cartoonist back then now has become professional and even published a comic book like this:

https://www.amazon.co.jp/exec/obidos/as ... /tavel-22/

Thanks Kiyuu for the clarification on that, that's really interesting.

Wow, so you were an official Muecas team member! Did you also have things published on the pages, and have interaction with the Shenmue project team? If you did, would love to see / hear about those.

[Kiyuu]

Wow, so you were an official Muecas team member! Did you also have things published on the pages, and have interaction with the Shenmue project team? If you did, would love to see / hear about those.

Since I'm not an artist like Anii-san or most of the fellow Mucas-dan members, my contributions were mainly asking questions like the ones in the following issues:

https://web.archive.org/web/20100115010 ... s/028.html
https://web.archive.org/web/20110910053 ... s/030.html

[Switch]

Ha ha, how great to have been able to interact with the staff members like that. It's probably a part of the Shenmue history that non-Japanese fans may not be so familiar with.

[Kiyuu]

Ha ha, how great to have been able to interact with the staff members like that. It's probably a part of the Shenmue history that non-Japanese fans may not be so familiar with.

Japanese Shenmue fans had been interacting with the Shenmue team even before the release of the first game. The Shenmue BBS was opened for the fans one year prior to the release of the game, which was often visited by the staff members to interact with. Apparently, the development team had been heeding the voices on the BBS, and some of the fans dreams had been materialized in the game; feeding the cat, finding a cockroach in the kitchen. If you are interested in the history of Shenmue BBS, check out this page of Felicity-san, a legendary Shenmue fan:

http://www.geocities.co.jp/Playtown-Dom ... enmue/bbs/

[Lan Di-sama]

Ha ha, how great to have been able to interact with the staff members like that. It's probably a part of the Shenmue history that non-Japanese fans may not be so familiar with.

Japanese Shenmue fans had been interacting with the Shenmue team even before the release of the first game. The Shenmue BBS was opened for the fans one year prior to the release of the game, which was often visited by the staff members to interact with. Apparently, the development team had been heeding the voices on the BBS, and some of the fans dreams had been materialized in the game; feeding the cat, finding a cockroach in the kitchen. If you are interested in the history of Shenmue BBS, check out this page of Felicity-san, a legendary Shenmue fan:

http://www.geocities.co.jp/Playtown-Dom ... enmue/bbs/

Always appreciate your comments, Kiyuu. Do your fellow Japanese fans from back in the day still communicate with each other since the demise of the BBS? I would hope that the long-awaited announcement of Shenmue III re-ignited the fanbase somewhat, and that there's still a place for you all to chat.

Here's hoping Shenmue III lives up to its predecessors. Quite honestly, I still can't quite believe it's actually happening. Might have to purchase PS4 sooner rather than later so that I'm ready for it when the time comes.

[Kiyuu]

Always appreciate your comments, Kiyuu. Do your fellow Japanese fans from back in the day still communicate with each other since the demise of the BBS? I would hope that the long-awaited announcement of Shenmue III re-ignited the fanbase somewhat, and that there's still a place for you all to chat.

The pleasure is mine, Lan Di-sama!
As the Shenmue BBS was irreplaceable, Japanese fans no longer have a place to get together, unfortunately. I see some of the fans are still active on SNS, though, and keep supporting Shenmue individually.

[Peter]

Always great to see Kiyuu post.

Have you experienced much excitement for Shenmue 3? Do you think once it is released, there will be a lot of new fans?

[Kiyuu]

Always great to see Kiyuu post.

Have you experienced much excitement for Shenmue 3? Do you think once it is released, there will be a lot of new fans?

Always great to see your extraordinary devotion to Shenmue. Congrats on the dream dinner with Yu-san!

At the announcement of Shenmue III, I busied myself in checking various Japanese websites and SNS to find many old Shenmue pals coming back online for celebration. Now, the excitement period is over and we're calmly watching over the progress. As more and more people in Japan play games on the smart phone these days, we can't expect a lot of new fans, I'm afraid.