Shenmue, the popular action-adventure video game franchise from Sega and Ys Net, is getting an original anime series from Crunchyroll and Adult Swim. The show is directed by Chikara Sakurai (One punch man Season 2) starring Ryo Hazuki, who is voiced by Masaya Matsukaze in the Japanese language version (Matsukaze voices Hazuki in the video game series). Shenmue the animation will premiere on February 5th on streaming platform Crunchyroll and Adult Swim on Toonami in North America.
The cult hit shen mue first came to Dreamcast in 1999. From what we’ve seen so far, the animation appears to be based on the games’ original story. According to a publication, the new 13-episode adaptation will tell the story of Ryo Hazuki, a high school boy and martial artist on a quest to find the man who murdered his father.
Animation production is handled by Telecom Animation Film (tower of god) with further production management by Sola Entertainment (The god of high school). Austin Tindle (Tokyo Ghoul) will voice Hazuki in the English dub. Lan Di, a high-ranking member of an underground organization, is voiced by Takahiro Sakurai in Japanese and Scott Gibbs in English. In the English version, simple town girl Shenhua is voiced by Natalie Rial, and Hazuki’s close friend Nozomi Harasaki is voiced by Cat Thomas.
Crunchyroll and Adult Swim announced that the two companies would begin collaborating in 2019 to bring more anime to the United States. In 2020, Crunchyroll released the first season of its original anime series, tower of god and the streaming company has continued to create original content ever since. Over the past year, the platform released a number of new original series, including Blade Runner: Black Lotus.
