Although a second season was already in production, Shenmue: The Animation, the Adult Swim collaboration with Crunchyroll, has been canceled. This news was first shared on Twitter by Senior Vice President of Warner Discovery’s Action and Anime Programming.
The anime series adapts the popular cult classic SEGA franchise and started airing in February 2022. At the time of this post, it remains on Crunchyroll but has been taken down from every other streaming site, including Adult Swim.
Industry analysts speculate that the cancellation was part of a widespread purge of various Warner Discovery franchises in response to its corporate merger that took place back in April.
Shenmue is a trilogy of video games designed by game developer veteran Yu Suzuki, the creator of Virtua Fighter and the arcade smash hit Space Harrier.
The first two entries in the franchise go down in history as some of the most expensive projects in the timeline of the gaming industry. While they were both commercial failures, their influence on open-world design and quick-time events is remembered forever.
Some 18 years after the release of 2001’s Shenmue II, Yu Suzuki, no longer a part of SEGA, launched a wildly successful Kickstarter campaign to fund his independent studio’s development of Shenmue III.
Suzuki always envisioned four Shenmue games to complete the story. Shenmue III, built on Unreal Engine 4, faithfully recreated the controls, gameplay, and feel of the classic Shenmue games. Unfortunately, Shenmue III ended on a major cliffhanger, with many gamers feeling as if nothing moved forward with the plot.
At the moment, there are no concrete plans in place for a Shenmue IV.