There’s been a big push lately to see video games get adapted into a variety of entertainment medium alternatives. Instead of a video game, some fans could find their favorite IPs get picked up for adaptations into television series to featured films. One of those adaptations is coming in the form of an anime for the iconic Shenmue video game series. This iconic IP has been around for ages and while it got started on the Sega Dreamcast in 1999, it was only recently that this franchise received a third mainline installment.
Shenmue was a big production. A ton of money went into making the first two installments in which the development team had planned to be featured in multiple video game releases. Of course, the production cost to make this game outweighed the amount of attention and units solid to make up costs. It eventually was scrapped and for years fans felt that they would never see a conclusion to this IP. That was of course until a Shenmue III Kickstarter campaign was announced.
The game was able to quickly hit its goal and ultimately allowed the third mainline installment to get developed and ultimately released into the marketplace. However, if you didn’t want to go back and replay the games or attempt to enjoy those earlier installments for the first time then there is an alternative means of coming out to get the storyline. An anime series as mentioned is being produced and released with Chikara Sakurai leading the project.
If you’re not familiar with Chikara Sakurai then you might know him from the likes of One Punch Man. While we don’t have any clue as to when this production will find itself wrapping up, but one fan took the time to reach out to the SVP of Adult Swim in hopes of getting some more information about the project. According to the SVP, things are going great with this product, and that they couldn’t wait until they’re able to unveil more information. At the very least it doesn’t look like this anime series was scrapped but there’s no telling just when the next proper official announcement will come.