Airing out books at a taoist temple > being told to search for dogs in town, and then bringing them back to the owner, afterwards she says,"Oh god there are more missing" to which you have to go out in the world map and find even more dogs in order to advance the story. 30 minutes to an hour, wasted on searching for dogs. Mean while, it takes all of five minutes to air out books in Shenmue II.
And that's Okami's problem in a nutshell: plodding, tepid, let's stretch this 15 hour game to a 30-40 hour game. No Zelda has this problem. The idea that if you can rummage through all the Zelda games and should be able to enjoy Okami is false, because Okami only enhances every single flaw Zelda has - with the exception of storytelling.
Again, the only great Zelda clone is Alundra.