We have all waited close to 15 years for Shenmue 3, and when it was announced at E3 2015 we all cried tears of joy. The initial goal of the Kickstarter was funded in one day and even set a Guinness world record, everything looked good and we were all shaking with excitement, and we still are.

But then we slowly started to realize that something is strange with the campaign and the people in charge of it, a group called "Awesome Japan".

They are simply not doing their job.

Overall the campaign feels and looks very amateurish (remember this is a multi-million-dollar project). The updates are few and heartless, and same goes for the goals to make people pledge more and be excited about the project. All requests from backers are ignored, no replies in the comment section and there is no continuous effort put into marketing the campaign from their side.

And then it happened, the last drop that made the cup run over for most fans and backers: the live Q&A on twitch with the director of the game Yu Suzuki.

The stream which apparently didn't even have a sound check before going live looked and felt just like the campaign: extremely amateurish and lazy, and had an interviewer who clearly wasn't in the condition to perform a live interview: it looked like he didn't prepare anything at all beforehand and behaved very rude and disrespectful to Yu Suzuki. As the terrible interview proceeded you could see in Suzuki's eyes that this isn't what he wants to represent his long awaited Shenmue 3. It was a total mess and even if the stream boosted some donations it wasn't a good PR event, it turned off people from supporting the campaign and some backers even removed their pledge just because everything around it is handled in such a poor way.

When i tried to get my friend to pledge his reply was: "Why would I want to support a campaign that looks like a high school-project?"

As "Awesome Japan" probably gets a nice share of the Kickstarter amount (your donations) the very poor, unenthusiastic and amateurish work from them is unacceptable. Instead of helping and making people excited about the campaign, they are killing it. If someone who knows how to run a campaign would be steering this ship, it wouldn't surprise me if we were a few millions more at the moment (which would mean a better Shenmue 3), but now the ship is sinking. 

What "Awesome Japan" should be doing:

* Update the campaign every single day with big and small news, behind the scenes information, live streams and other various stuff to keep the campaign exciting and fun to follow.
* Push all big gaming websites and make them update about the kickstarter on their sites, everyday. 
* Contact TV & Radio stations, Newspapers and other media and ask them to mention the Kickstarter in their shows and products, everyday.
* Add loads of new rewards to never let the donations stall, everyday. 
* Improve and re-design the whole campaign page.
* Bring the campaign a new trailer. 

And just generally work on marketing the campaign to get new people (non-shenmue fans) to support it.

What "Awesome Japan" is doing instead: 
Uploading pre-recorded interviews each other day to people who already pledged, only that. Nothing is done to boost pledges and get new backers. Very lazy and disrespectful to the Ys Net team and Yu Suzuki himself. 

With all this - dear Yu Suzuki, Ys Net and Shibuya productions: I ask of you to remove "Awesome Japan" from the Shenmue 3 kickstarter project and if you as a Shenmue fan read this and agree - please help to spread to word so it can get the campaign it deserves!

Let's not let a thing like this, not even for a bit, destroy our Shenmue 3.

***NOTE***  This is not to tell you to stop support for the project. I just think Shenmue 3 deserves a better campaign run by people who truly cares about it - please ensure you stay on track and continue to pledge so we can get what we have waited so long for!