English Dub Review: Shenmue the Animation “Comeback”

Overview

To find Yuanda Zhu, Ryo follows Ren, the leader of Heavens, to seek clues, and they follow a trail that turns out to be a trap set by the Yellow Heads…

Our Take

Thanks to the efforts of the “Heaven’s gang” leader Ren tagging along and using his street connections within Hong Kong, Ryo manages to get more leads to finding Yuanda Zhu in Kowloon, but what he got into was another encounter with the Yellow Heads gang along with their head honcho Dou Niu who is also seeking Yuanda Zhu to hand him over to the “Chi You Men”, which is Lan Di’s cartel. Predictably as Ryo & Ren proceed to Double Dragon their asses, the two end up being temporary prisoners being handcuffed together after this stint and briefly escape from the Yellow Heads back to their hideout and manage to uncuff themselves.

As they get to the residence of Huang the wiretapper, they find recorded cassette tapes manage to provide a lead to their backdoor discussions, but Ryo being indecisive to head where next is Ren’s chance to help him more since it involves money. Possible leads are going from each place, but I do like the Ryo-Ren dynamic as there’s a level of fun adventurous energy to be had in many of their action scenes together that give somewhat a “Swashbuckling” feel to all of it. But jokingly, that could also be because Ren kinda dresses like a Chinese pirate. Also, that cliffhanger of an ending caught me off guard.

Overall, the episode was fun, if not a tad bit rushed. Just like at the beginning of the Hong Kong arc, I feel like we’re not getting enough of that Kowloon atmosphere, which is a shame since it’s considered to be one of the better parts of Shenmue II’s story. Considering how large the remaining chunk of Shenmue II’s plot they’ve yet to adapt. But with 3 episodes left, and so much story to cover, I guess that’s to be expected…