My goal with Project Shenmue is fairly straightforward: create a tribute to the Shenmue game series’ story, but with an emotionally satisfying conclusion and less racism. Seems simple enough, but I’m approaching the subject of China as a complete outsider. I know some basic history and have seen some films, but there’s still a lot I don’t know, and I want to at least put some level of research into whatever representation I give my story. Not because I’m hoping to earn some SJW brownie points, I don’t think Project Shenmue will even reach the eyes of the arbiters of woke, but really just for my own, personal satisfaction and artistic pride. I don’t have any great goals beyond telling a pulpy adventure story with less racism than the pulpy adventure stories that inspired it. But I hope at least that I can make something better than Bullet Train or Shogun (stories I… have very strong opinions about). To that end, I have set about getting my hands on whatever decent research texts I can find on the subjects I want to incorporate into Project Shenmue, which leads us to the topic of today’s article.
