Shenmue is being made into an anime series

(Image credit: Crunchyroll/Adult Swim)

Shenmue, the series that is somehow both a jiu-jitsu revenge saga and a slow-burn slice-of-life drama about forklift driving and collecting capsule toys, is being adapted into an anime series.

It'll be a joint production between Crunchyroll and Adult Swim (like the upcoming Blade Runner: Black Lotus series), and Shenmue creator Yu Suzuki will serve as executive producer. It's being directed by Chikara Sakurai, who directed the second series of One Punch Man, with animation production from Telecom Animation Film. Shenmue: The Animation is planned to run for 13 episodes, which means they might make it halfway through the first game.

Shenmue 3 was released last year, after an 18-year gap following Shenmue 2. Andy Kelly enjoyed the calm sedateness of the experience, saying in his review, "This unlikely sequel sticks so closely to the formula of the first two games that it's almost as if the last 18 years of game design never happened. And honestly, as a fan, I couldn't be happier."

Jody's first computer was a Commodore 64, so he remembers having to use a code wheel to play Pool of Radiance. A former music journalist who interviewed everyone from Giorgio Moroder to Trent Reznor, Jody also co-hosted Australia's first radio show about videogames, Zed Games. He's written for Rock Paper Shotgun, The Big Issue, GamesRadar, Zam, Glixel, Five Out of Ten Magazine, and Playboy.com, whose cheques with the bunny logo made for fun conversations at the bank. Jody's first article for PC Gamer was about the audio of Alien Isolation, published in 2015, and since then he's written about why Silent Hill belongs on PC, why Recettear: An Item Shop's Tale is the best fantasy shopkeeper tycoon game, and how weird Lost Ark can get. Jody edited PC Gamer Indie from 2017 to 2018, and he eventually lived up to his promise to play every Warhammer videogame.