Games Tendites are playing.

[OB1]

My point was that that first 'i' wasn't a solo vowel, it was part of the syllable 'shi'. The difference matters! Yes, it does end up as sheeee, but you need to remember how Japanese is syllabic, not alphabetic.

Uh, you said "shi-i. Two syllables". That was false, it is one long syllable.

When people started to spell Japanese words with roman characters they pretty much spelled things phonetically so that it would be easy for westerners to read them correctly. Some strange rules were made, but once you learn what those rules are it is pretty easy to pronounce Japanese words using our alphabet. Well, granted that you know how to roll your r's correctly, something most Americans can't do because of how "soft" our accent is.