Shenmue the Animation: Episode 7 – Humility

I suppose that there is a continuous stronger idea or connection with how Shenmue is handling this second part of it’s story. Hong Kong is not just being a city of individuals he needs to learn more about and find connections that are there. Ryo Hazuki is that outside and while he is learning about himself, his world and how he sees it is expanding more then the singular mission of going after Lan Di. Yokosuka is a small town where Ryo can be the largest dog without much struggle, but Hong Kong is an entire city and that means more challenges. Like, for instance, getting kicked out of the room knowing Joy allowed him to stay in. Uh oh.

So yeah, he faced a lot more challenges as he learns more about the Wudes of martial arts. Or basically, the lessons that go into the practice of martial arts more just learning how the fight. That sense of discipline that comes from mastering martial arts and slowly becoming a better person in how to handle someone’s life. So he learned the first one of discipline last episode about when to apply the right force. This week’s episode is about not showing off one’s skill in front of people because a tough cat doesn’t bare its claws when fighting. Pretty good stuff.

I’m glad that this episode didn’t come simply from interacting with people or solving people’s problems for them, but by getting two people to communicated with each other once. It’s again, a very video game thing by doing one thing to solve something and then getting that letter to another person. Yeah, well, I think that interesting relationship between the the master of the Guang Martial Arts Schoo, Zhoushan, and his student he tossed away, Zongquan, for showing off. That guy is a street performer now and well, the situation is more complicated.

Joy was that connecting tissue between the two. Zhoushan thought that Zongquan was just showing his skill off more to earn money, but Joy’s words about the cats is what got Ryo to notice this relationship and the one singular letter helped everything. Zongquan was still abiding by Zhoushan’s teachings and Zhoushan wasn’t a failure after all. It’s great. Nothing to fix but a misunderstanding. Plus, another Wude that was unlocked. I suppose that master Xiuyung opened up to them.

Yeah, I kind of ignored one of my least favorite things in this episode until now. I do get really tired of the guy doesn’t want to fight a woman thing even if that woman is a master. I realize that this is from an older peice of media, but it’s not a sense of honor or chivalry. It’s really just stupid. Especially when Xiuying wiped the floor with Ryo in the opening part of this episode. That one small thing of Ryo seeing this great master as an equal or beyond that is just old and tiring. It really did lessen the episode to me.

So in general, a good episode but not a great one for me this time even if the not as good stuff doesn’t last as long compared to everything else. I also wonder what kind of production schedule this show has been this one looked so much better then the last one. No cg people, though they mostly just stayed in place. At least they were expressive though. The side characters and cast are really carrying a lot of the coolness of this himbo just trying to discover what happened to his dad and what was about and that is a lot of fun stuff there. Anyway, that’s it for now. I wrote much more then I did last week and I think it did affect me a bit more.