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+---- Thread: Shenmue Series - Trivia & Easter Eggs (/thread-4335.html)
Shenmue Series - Trivia & Easter Eggs - ProtoSnake - 09-12-2018
http://shmuplations.com/shenmue/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gHha_TmyC_4
The "Orphaned kitten" was based on game's interior designer Manabu Takimoto's cat "Sasuke". During development, a game designer came by to Manabu's desk and ask to borrow the picture of "Sasuke" when he was a kitten.
Game's producer Yu Suzuki stated, "Ah, I remember that. We called him Sasuke during the planning phase too. We knew it had been modeled after Takimoto’s cat, so we wanted to leave the name as Sasuke, as a remnant of that. (laughs) But eventually someone was like, “Who named this cat Sasuke?!” and we had to change it. (laughs)". In the final version of the game, the "Orphaned kitten's" gender is now female, instead.
In the game's cutscene, "Ryo Hazuki" and "Megumi Mishima" talk about naming the "Orphaned kitten". There's an option to select Manabu's cat's name "Sasuke", if players choose "Sasuke", Ryo will say "So she can grow up to be big and strong like a ninja", but Megumi will not like it, because it's a boy's name. This name cannot be used, as it will result her name to be defaulted as Mimi.