The problem is they poured the money in, and then they flopped. On top of that, none of them had much, if any rerun value. Black Lotus in particular threw people into a frenzy when it was announced for yet another rerun. What’s left to do with them? The fact that reruns of Primal outperformed all 3 originals almost all 21 weeks that it was in the lead slot certainly doesn’t make a good case for any of the shows sticking around. Thankfully for the very few people who liked these shows, they remain available on Crunchyroll, so they aren’t total banishment as other AS shows are.It is kind of a shame that those series were written off. They weren't anything to write home about, especially Fena, and Shenmue was probably the best one out of the bunch despite being mostly decent, but they still put in a lot of time and money to make those shows. At least they shouldn't be difficult to find like with a lot of other animated series affected by the HBO Max situation, but it is still rough for the people who worked hard on these shows and for Toonami to effectively lose three original series. I would have been up for a Shenmue season two, so it's kind of sad that it probably won't happen.
What would it have done? The creator of Shenmue has stuck by his guns for over 20 years, even in wake of getting a miracle 3rd game and completely squandering it. Could Demarco have actually made the guy change his tune and adapt the rest of his story in anime form? Or would it just have been a horrendously drug out retelling of the 3rd game?Real shame about Shenmue being written off. Would have loved to see a second season for it.