Shenmue I & II: From Yokosuka to Guilin

In 1986 Ryo comes home to the family dojo and walks in on a confrontation between his father, Iwao, and a Chinese man, Lan Di. Iwao tells Lan Di the mirror is buried under the cherry blossom tree outside, and Lan Di delivers a finishing blow: Iwao dies in Ryo's arms. Later Ryo finds a second mirror, the phoenix mirror, in a hidden basement beneath the dojo. The dojo itself is invented. Yokosuka's city guide places Ryo's home in the residential Sakuragaoka area but says no particular house was the model.

Location precision: The dojo is invented; the pin marks Sakuragaoka, the residential area Yokosuka's guide gives as Ryo's neighborhood, not a house.

After the murder Ryo swears revenge and begins asking locals for information, and the street he walks is modeled on Dobuita in Yokosuka. It sits close to the U.S. naval base, and in the evening it turns into the local bar and club district. Fans visit it as the place where most of the game is set, and those who make the trip say the area has hardly changed since the game's 1986 setting. Stores here also joined the city's 2022 anime tie-in.

Location precision: The game's setting is modeled on Dobuita rather than copied from it; the pin marks Dobuita Street itself.

Visitor guidance: A public shopping street a short walk from the naval base; it changes character in the evening, when the bars open.

Part of Ryo's investigation sends him raiding bars in an infamous search for sailors. Fans who made the Yokosuka pilgrimage point to a real watering hole on Dobuita Street, Tom and Jack, as the likely model for those bars. The same visitors found the jacket shop Mikasa Vol. 2 to be the closest match to its in-game counterpart. Nothing official confirms the link.

Location precision: Visitors only say Tom and Jack likely served as the model; the game's bars are not tied to it in any official source.

Visitor guidance: The bar is on Dobuita Street, as is the jacket shop Mikasa Vol. 2.

A letter from Zhu Yuanda points Ryo to Master Chen, who works at Yokosuka Harbor. There Ryo learns that the Chi You Men is tied to the harbor gang, the Mad Angels, and takes a job as a forklift driver to investigate, ferrying crates between warehouses and racing forklifts. In the end Chen tells him Lan Di has left for Hong Kong, and Ryo boards the boat for Hong Kong.

Location precision: The sources do not tie the game's docks and warehouses to one real quay; the pin marks the Yokosuka port area.

In 1987 Ryo arrives from Japan in Wan Chai, Hong Kong, on the trail of his father's killer. He searches for Master Lishao Tao, the only link to Zhu Yuanda; when he finds her, her real name is Xiuying Hong, and she refuses to help, considering his quest for vengeance reckless. Help comes instead from Ren, a street gang leader who thinks there may be money in Ryo's phoenix mirror. Wan Chai lies on the northern shore of Hong Kong Island and is known for its nightlife, and Japanese Wikipedia says the game rebuilds mid-1980s Hong Kong from reference material.

Location precision: The game places Ryo's arrival in Wan Chai; the pin marks the district, not a particular street.

Ren says Zhu is hiding from the Chi You Men in Kowloon Walled City, a crime-ridden enclave of Hong Kong. Ryo finds him, but the Yellow Head organization ambushes them and kidnaps Zhu. On the rooftop of the Yellow Head building Ryo rescues Wong and Zhu from the leader, Dou Niu, as Lan Di leaves by helicopter. Zhu then explains that Lan Di killed Ryo's father because he believes Iwao killed his own father. The real Walled City held about 33,000 people by 1987 and was demolished between March 1993 and April 1994. Its site is now a park.

Location precision: The Walled City no longer exists; the pin marks its site, now Kowloon Walled City Park, and the game's version is a depiction rather than a map.

Visitor guidance: The walled city is gone; Kowloon Walled City Park now stands where it once was.

Zhu sends Ryo to Bailu Village in Guilin, where Lan Di is also heading. In the mountains Ryo rescues Shenhua Ling after she dives into a river to save a deer. At her family home a tree named Shenmue (Chinese for "sedge tree") is in bloom, and her name means "flower of the Shenmue tree". The pair go to a stone quarry on the village outskirts to meet her father, but he is missing; combining a sword with the phoenix mirror reveals a mural of the dragon and phoenix mirrors. Bailu is invented, though Suzuki visited China in 2015 to research the locations of Guilin for Shenmue III.

Location precision: Bailu Village is invented; the pin only marks the city of Guilin in the region where the game sets it.