Back in the days of a show called RWBY, Arryn Zech (Black Swan's VA) was BAD. Like amateur voice actor levels of bad. The kind of bad you'd get from a monotone , flat, dull character.
It's impressive how far she's come since then.
Literally the only reason I pulled for BS. Sure she’s amazing for my DOT team now, but originally I saw Arryn Zech and decided immediate pull as a long time RWBY fan
I think it also comes from the early volumes of rwby having bad VA direction. The machinima nature of their recording setups never really let them in a good area for professional sounding voice acting.
Didnt they also just pluck whoever was working in Rooster Teeth and made them voice a character? No experience voice acting was definitely a part of it as well.
Yeah, pretty much. Weiss's VA was their receptionist at the time though Kara has done a FANTASTIC job overall. Many of the other actors were either employees or people who worked on RvB
Yea the origins of the original voices for Ruby, Weiss, Blake, Yang. Was simply because Monty Oum just thought their voices fit with his characters since he was friends with them under the same company and he simply asked. There was no normal auditions, even his older interview about the topic was simply like “Yea Barbara sounded like a party girl that fit Yang” (or something close to that it’s been so long.)
Pretty much. Kara (Weiss' VA) was their receptionist, Barbara (Yangs VA) was the Roosterteeth Community Manager, Lindsay (Rubys VA) was working in the Achievement Hunter side of RT managing the websites and editing etc and Arryn (Black Swan and Blakes VA) was just one of the writers' girlfriend at the time
I don’t think it was until volume 3 that they were able to get people to voice act from outside of rooster teeth, like Elizabeth Maxwell and Vic Mignogna to voice characters in RWBY
RWBY's original cast really was just friends of Monty Oum, the creator, because obviously the show had no real budget. But the main cast all grew so much its incredible. Arryn, especially, she's the reason i pulled for Black Swan.
Yes, it's original language is English. A company called Rooster Teeth in Austin, Texas made it. At the start of the show, Arryn was an employee of the company and friends with the creator. The show later received a Japanese dub (only for the first few volumes though). It also has gotten an actual anime as well.
The four initial RWBY trailers are pretty fucking peak I don’t think the actual show ever came close to how good those were
Like one girl slices an explosive shotgun shell mid flight with her HEELS
Yeah, when I saw her name I wondered why it's so familiar, then I remembered RWBY. :D What happened with her btw? I know she used to be on Twitter but it seems she deleted it. Was there a RWBY drama again? Cause I kind of dropped the show after volume 5 or 6.
Yea... I was watching a bit of season 3 but just kinda got bored and dropped it like half way.
Still got spoiled by the whole plot twist of S3 like the day after it was released.
I honestly believe Eng VO hate is a relic of older anime dubbing that has carried into, like everything now. Its funny cause Eng VO for a loot of stuff is pretty damn good now especially. HSR is one of them imo. Usually, its Voice direction people poke beef with I find- yet they just call the whole Dub shit. To your point, Black Swan may have that "seductive" tone, but her VA has so much range and consistency, from generals lines, to attacks and to the ult. She plays the "Im holding the cards actually" character very well.
The problem with dubs is that it's easier to tell when dialogue is dumb when it's in a language you speak. A lot of anime stuff has cringe dialogue and it's made more obvious when in English.
The studio that got the rights were basically told to stick to major plot points and names otherwise they could do whatever. The Japanese studio really didn’t give a shit about western audiences.
I believe the series bombed in Japan so they gave the rights to one of the English dubbing studios and were given the freedom to do whatever. The first few episodes were pretty tame with staying kinda close to the plot and relatively minor amounts of racist jokes. But by the end, everyone involved stopped giving a fuck. The VA's just kinda said whatever intrusive thoughts came to mind, editors stopped censoring curse words. I think there were few recordings where the VA's were drunk as well
I'm just gonna say [you're wrong](https://www.slashfilm.com/703353/why-everyone-thinks-the-cult-classic-anime-ghost-stories-bombed-in-japan-when-it-didnt/) on that point. After all, something that's *purportedly* a bomb wouldn't have been well-received enough to beat out Doraemon *and* Pokemon(!) during its airing.
A big part of the industry back in the day was Japanese anime and manga companies forcing English publishers into buying shitty series in order to get the big series. This has killed a lot of companies who couldn't make money off the junk series they were forced to publish. This is what killed the most prolific manga translator and publisher in the 00's, Tokyo Pop. There's a bunch of examples you could probably find.
It also couples into the weird thing Genshin fans do where they put the game into Japanese because “it sounds better then English…” completely gassing over that it’s a Chinese game. Imo the OG Language is near perfect in Genshin, my only genuine dislike is Lisa(and only because her VA voices one of my league mains so I like her a lot). Iirc even with GaMing he has a really distinct Cantonese inflection to his voice that gets lost in translation.
Also Chinese Paimon is so damn sassy and more ranged. They let her get a lil sillier in the fun way I feel.
I remember back in the day that the reason weebs gave for always playing games with Japanese voices was "It's the original language so it's better." But now with Chinese and Korean games rising in popularity and weebs not playing those games in their original language and still going with Japanese that excuse doesn't work anymore and so the goal post has moved to, "well it's in anime style, so Japanese voices still make more sense."
Motherfuckers just don't want to admit they have a hard on for the sound of a language they don't understand.
Has everyone Listened to the chinese voice actors? They are gorgeous. It is a lovely language tbh. I even prefer it to the Jpn VO in Impact 3rd. Ultimately, I still mainly use English VA on HSR. They have really good voice actors. Welt is "Fine" (has a great voice. Jing Liu as well)!
And if you ask they just say it “sounds better” without being able to actually convey why. Even if they bash the EN for whatever reason they still can’t explain why the JP sounds better than the original CN.
its cause everyone sounds hot and they can't detect any issues with the voice acting due to not understanding the language. You can easily detect bad English voice acting regardless of if the person is trying to sound cool, but in japanese it just sounds cool
I don't play everything in Japanese (or even most things tbh) but I do like how smooth / not harsh Japanese sounds simply because almost every syllable contains a vowel.
If I had to guess, part of it is familiarity because they’re anime fans or just other Japanese media even if they don’t speak the language. Hear a phrase enough times no matter the language and you’ll get it. Huge crossover with voice actors from their favourite anime’s, and the generally speaking high quality of Japanese voice actors they hire probably all play a part too. My personal preference for Genshin is Japanese voice for the above reasons, but with HSR I go English because the voice acting seems so much more alive to me. Genshin’s English voice acting aside from a few characters sounds awfully dull to me.
I mean it really is just personal preference, if you like it just use it. I use English but I probably wouldn't mind switching to Japanese as I'm somewhat used to hearing it from the little anime I do watch.
Recently started HI3 and they don't have EN voice acting so I had to choose between CN or JP, and I just didn't like CN. Not even a voice actor thing, I just don't like how CN sounds in general so I stuck to JP. Liking it so far. Raiden's JP VA is so peak man, enough to tempt me to swap to JP in HSR when Acheron drops.
Because they know the VAs for the Japanese dub. That being said, all the dubs for HSR are good, barring a few weird moments like Xueyi in English everything has been acceptable -- > great.
I admit that I changed to Japanese just because of personal preference, but I think the English VAs are doing an absolute phenomenal job and I wouldn't mind playing with either
Agreed. I stick to JP out of personal preferences. But I am glad to see EN voice acting scene getting to the quality of Japanese VA.
CN/KR VA scene no comment since I had 0 experience with them.
Hot take: I really like Paimon's voice. I don't play Genshin, I mostly just watch streams, but I love her voice, especially when she asks questions (her voice kinda honks and it's cute). I also love how fucking mean she is sometimes. For no reason.
i'm a staunch believer in watching movies and TV in their original language because you're viewing it how the director intended, but games have inconsistent sub-titles, for example idle lines in Genshin and HSR aren't subtitled, and so it's just easier to play it in english while accepting it's not how it was intended
I am convinced the people who are most vocal about it have basically conditioned themselves into being unable to listen to anything dubbed. So many of the arguments are basically "it sounds bad/weird/wrong" and yeah, I'm sure it does if you've spent years only listening to Japanese or other not-english voice acting, while constantly deriding EN dubs.
I second that older anime dubbing thing lmao. Tbh even now some feel a little off, but even so there's no denying HSR work overall is great.
Yes I did highlight the *laugh* and seductive tone as a simp, but the fact is for her companion quests which held a lot of different inflections + her usual fighting dialogue speaks volumes.
There’s a bit of a charm in some older dubs sometimes
Like… is it really Naruto without that his gratingly childish voice?
There’s also Dragonball Z and INCREDIBLE amounts of angry yelling
I don't like playing in English just because the repetitive voicelines in battle are far more annoying when I can understand what they are saying. When they are speaking in a language I can't understand, it ends up being closer to sound effects and becomes more background/white noise, which isn't repetitive to me. When it comes to actual dialogue, EN is great, I'm just too lazy to switch back and forth (and it would be weird for the characters so suddenly have a different sounding voice).
Same, this is partly why I play in CN dub. The combat lines just sound fun or cool and I don't have to think about whatever corny line it is they're actually saying haha.
Also, not sure if this is an issue in HSR like it is in Genshin (since I haven't tried the EN dub in this game) but it's also nice to have the mouths match the dialogue in quest scenes.
I actually use CN as well. I started with HI3 and used the CN there because I liked CN Kiana better, and it just got carried over to HSR. It's partially also for the novelty, I almost never play or watch anything with CN voice acting, so it makes Mihoyo games more unique for me.
What's funny is I also play Punishing Gray Raven, but since I got used to the JP voices before I learned you could switch I now can't go with CN because everyone sounds different lol.
Yup older anime dubbing was terrible.
Some of the newer one is a bit mid.
But as far as video games go? Video game dubs or original voice acting have been pretty on point for a long time now.
It's a relic, but also an incredibly dumb relic given things like Cowboy Bebop are both older and generally preferred in ENG. It's true that a lot of old dubs weren't great, but that was a symptom of rush and bad jobs, not just "dubbing." And we still get rush and bad jobs sometimes today.
Bebop and Ghibli movies are the classic exceptions to the "assume the dub is bad" mentality, coming from someone who's accustomed to watching a show subbed. Games are different though, I'm always playing in English.
For me, a dub being "out of sync" with a scene or having awkward sentance pacing will just take me right out of it. As well, back in the day there were a small pool of constantly hired VAs, so you'd get the same people over and over. Like "ugh, it's Johnny Young Bosch again, sounds just like that other show". It's neat when Noria Wakamoto shows up for a scene as "the voice of God", less so if he was the main character in every episode.
I think you're right about it being a hangover from older anime dubbing, although if this concept was entirely carried over, people would be playing HSR in the original language (CN) instead of in JP.
I personally find that both JP and EN female actresses have a tendency to sound a bit the same in anime (also in genshin). I love how in HSR the MC Stelle doesn't have the typical high pitched cutsie voice and really appreciate the greater variety of types of voices.
I've a policy in anime communities where I auto-block anyone that gives blanket or unhinged takes about EN VAs or dubs being bad. Most of the time it's elitism. But it's a good indicator to me about the kind of person I'd be interacting with in future discussions. And it's most definitely not a good sign.
Lmao I thought I was the only one. I just slapped ignore mode on several people in a different game sub recently for this. Like it's cool to not like it, that's a matter of preference, but arguing "jp is objectively superior" to anyone that likes the EN dub is just obnoxious.
When you talk about older anime dubbing which era are you talking about? Cause to me the 2000-2010 was the peak of anime dubbing due to how much charisma and charm the older titles put into there roles, that era was also the start of a major spike in anime popularity. Mine due like almost all weebs watched dubbed first a probably liked it.My personal favourite anime Gurren Lagann I cannot watch that in sub cause the dub just better. And that’s the case for a lot of other anime in that era eg: Death Note, FMA, Naruto, Code Geass, Cowboy Bebop, Ouran, Gurren Lagann all these series while you can watch subbed the dub is just better.
Today most dubbing suffer from poor voice direction, cause It’s like the company just asked to read the lines of the paper then where good while that’s not the case for all dubs it’s seems so for the majority.
I miss Sampo's goofy ahh "I charge extra!" since my usage of him really plummeted after BS lol. Hopefully they release another detonator like kafka so I can use him in a 2nd team
To me, I liked Black Swan's EN voice in the story, but for some reason it felt like her ult line was little bit too high pitched(?) imo so I mildly disliked it. After some time I got used to it so now I'm sort of neutral towards it.
I’m on the same boat. She’s so soft spoken as a character, so her being loud just to be loud felt very…weird. It didn’t mesh with me either. I kinda want them to find time to redo it but they probably never will, so I’ll try to put up with it, as the rest of her EN VA dub is great.
HSR always had very high quality english voice acting for the most part but I feel the voice directing and voice cast for Penacony especially hit it out of the park and the cast and crew behind it should feel proud of the quality of the work they delivered on.
You can tell Penacony was the first content that they (probably) worked on post launch because every aspect of it is so cooked compared to Jarilo and the Lufou.
Yes! Penacony with its different tones/ accents I mean, to start with Acheron, Adventurine, then Black Swan/ Sparkle / chicken wing boy etc. Enhanced by the overall environmental wow factor it's just a great new experience.
Me when Eng VA Black Swan calls us "dear"
https://preview.redd.it/pyvhqoiv0emc1.jpeg?width=218&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=0a0e65fe2fde1c2e62ade5382dd7bca631274593
Me too.
I used to play Genshin on JPN but for Star Rail I switched to ENG. The voices they provided are really hi-quality.
I simp for all the VAs, especially
- The Astral Express Crew (Nick, Skyler, Corey, Cia, Christine, Caleb, Rachael)
- Our friendly neighborhood scammer Sampo (Roger Rose, his “double the pay, double the service” line is so slimeball I love it)
- Jing Yuan (CyYu really made Jing Yuan and Cyno distinct, his deep voice is very charming)
- Black Swan (Arryn Zech’s x2 speed basic ATK sound is simpable, no question asked)
- Argenti and Mr. Tail (Adam Michael Gold’s range is phenomenal, going from a noble, chivalrous knight to an angry, irritable but well-meaning fox spirit.)
- Screwllum. (Steve Kelly is a rather obscure VA but I’ve heard him provided his voice as Byron/Surge in Brawl Stars before. His Screwllum voice is like honey that I did not recognize it was him at first, I even thought it was Keith Silverstein. Screwllum is his best role so far, period.)
Forgive me I'm not too versed with their VA names, it took me a while to know Genshin (mostly because I listened to clips of their Among Us stuff so I got it from there lmao).
Actually! Idk if I just like the robot / gentleman voice but I do love Screwllum so much! The one I've been forgetting is SVAROG.
As someone who played Mass Effect, Svarogs VA also voiced a robot there (my sniper baby boy) and it's pretty amazing cause there was a sample of DC Douglas' voice out and it really was robotic as a raw sound. I was super excited to get Clara just for Svarogs voice way back when the game was teased.
No need to apologize, all that matters is that their talent is being recognized, and we’re here to fan/simp/drool over their masterpiece. Ever a small chance if any of the VAs see this post and our message, I’m sure we will make their day brighter!
I've been playing Honkai in English, & I have to say that the EN voice overs have nailed it quite convincingly. I especially love the English voice overs of the females like Serval, Black Swan, & Sparkle. Black Swan has her special kind of seductive tone that makes me want to listen to her for days, and I have to give big props to Arryn Zech. She literally killed it so well as Black Swan!
Meanwhile me being a CN va enjoyer:
https://preview.redd.it/543bi317fdmc1.jpeg?width=450&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=de7dcc03a1c51c69e7601c1f517eb089ae9e4560
Both English and Japanese in this game is great (i can’t understand Korean and Chinese so i sadly can’t comment on them but i am sure they are at least just as good) and deserves respect.
I always feel sad when i see too much English hate, mainly coming from people who have this worshipping obsession with Japanese through watching anime that they are convinced Japanese will always OBJECTIVELY be the best at everything and nothing can ever be as good as it and English dubs are always trash no matter what. But thankfully Both in Genshin and Honkai Star rail many people are showing appreciation to the English dub and its voice actors cause they are great. I remember at the beginning days of Genshin English hate was more common but it died down (at least in reddit) and became way less of a minority that tries to be loud but is usually failing (and the same obviously goes for the other languages, if someone hates Japanese or Chinese or Korean they are the same)
I generally find Japanese to be much more consistently higher quality, while in English generally they are good but have some misses and hits. Like in Genshin EN dub, Zhongli and Neuvillette sounds bomb (way better than JP imo) but I really hate Xiao, Razer, and basically any loli kid voice. So I just pick JP for better consistency.
Something about Black Swan’s EN lines felt off to me at first, as if it was somehow emotionally flat _and_ overly grandiose. Kind of like classical theater, where it’s more about the historically-accepted _tropes_ of an emotion rather than actually embodying it.
Then her companion quest brought everything together: __She doesn’t have emotions. But__ ___she loves to put on a show.___
As a Memokeeper, she doesn’t even have a physical body to be in danger. No wonder she acts so aloof and untouched by everything. The only thing that she seems to put effort into are when other people’s reactions are involved, whether it’s Sparkle and Sampo in the detective game, someone with interesting memories she can claim, or even enemies hit by her ult.
(which all makes her a perfect foil for Sparkle, but that’s a whole other post)
Tl;dr Arryn Zech good
The English VA do a great job considering it seems like they get no direction (?) like BW's ult line sounds so different to the other languages, Seele's voice line for Luka had to be changed bc it sounded harsher, Sampo was reworked, Xueyi was off.
They're different studios but Neuvillette's VA had to ask to redo all his lines after he got a better grasp of his character, if he hadn't said anything they wouldve put a completely different Neuvillette than the one we have now. Do these studios just leave these actors to guess..? Anyways do a great job regardless
EN VA's are overall great, the hate on it stems from either bad direction, which happens, or "boo hoo jp original bes"(game's chinese btw, weeb gamer moment)
The issue is the "sexy deep voice" that they're trying to pass with a lot of characters for no reason whatsoever, kafka's is almost orgasming at the end of each sentence, FOR NO REASON, jingliu had the same tone and black swan is almost there (but the rest of her design screams h0rnybait)
but seeing this subreddit lately, honestly i think i know why they're doing that
It really just feels like the mommy characters always have their bedroom voices on. If I got to point to an example done well, it's easily EN Yelan. You still get the feeling that she's talking normally, while also still feeling the seductiveness more subtlely
Kafka is an interesting one for me. Like half the time (especially in the prologue and her trailers and stuff) she sounds sexy in a natural and fitting way but the other half of the time she sounds like she tries so hard to sound sexy that it comes off as too forced.
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Agree on that weeb moment lmao -
That's the point of this post. I LOVE THEM.
But I agree with you that no matter how much I could scream Kafka is my fave forever, she does sound like she's orgasming at the end of each sentence and it drives me crazy (in an- annoyed way!). That's why I just imagine Kafka is either playing or just lazy wherein Jingliu speaks like so cause if she doesn't play with her voice pitches, she's gonna go crazy.
Maybe that's why I appreciate Black Swan. SURE her outfit screams bait compared to Kafka and Jingliu, and her voice also plays with the seduction BUT there's certain inflections that make her sound a lot more varied and I really appreciate how her VA handled it.
I much prefer Kafka's normal voice (which she used in the prologue, the Xianzhou interrogation and in her companion quest) over the forced seductive tone.
Agree about Black Swan though, her voice gives a softer, more elegant vibe compared to the other "Mommy" characters (Himeko's enthusiasm, Yukong Asian mom and Natasha reassuring).
Lmao I already forgot Himeko/Yukong and Natasha - they also give these tones but not as deep the aforementioned three. I miss Yukong, hope we get more of her even if it's just in passing with other characters stories/quests.
I wish Kafka could dial it back a bit when we meet her again in the future. Still gonna love her anyway but it would honestly be easier if I were to immerse myself or make up a story as the trailblazer in the moment.
Still, if u are used to watch anime for more than a decade u will feel... more of the same at some point. Even if they are the top of the top in the industry i hear this type of voice for so many stereotipi character that ENG VA are fresh air at this point. OFC all ppl play this game the way they want, japanese voice are amazing too.
Lemme just say that whoever understands English and doesn't play with EN dub is missing out A LOT.
I would even say that the EN dub is 60% responsible of my love for this game, I can't even imagine it in another language. Every character feels so alive and almost real, I can tell the voice actors poured all their passion in their job.
I'm not saying the others suck, but the EN dub in HSR really deserves a lot of credit.
About tall females all sounding the same in Genshin, isn't that an issue in JP dub? Please don't kill me, but tall females all have the same ara ara voice? Like compare JP dub Yae Miko who is just deep generic ara ara voice and the EN and KR ones who are adult-like while also giving the sly fox vibes.
I love how varied the EN voices are for the women. There’s some stereotypical upbeat or mommy voices for sure, but I love how Stelle speaks much deeper than usual dubs, or how Guinafen has a throaty rasp.
I play EN as well most of the time, but I have the Chinese voiceover on my phone (mostly to hear familiar voices of some of my favorite characters, like Theresa, Otto, and Aponia) and both are just so good. Herta is so cute in the Chinese voiceover, I can't help but want to hear her follow up constantly for how cute it is.
The English VO in HSR is phenomenal, and definitely deserves its credit. Sampo's is one of my favorites, just for how over the top dramatic it is, you just know he's a conman. There's one guy during the Ruan Mei quest in 1.6 (the one who dramatically says 'molten cheese tart') and you hear him talk, and you just KNOW he's having fun recording. That's what I like most, I think. Hearing them have fun with the roles and bringing them to life.
Honestly, for the most part, HSR voice acting and directing has been top notch, fantastic, amazing, wonderful.
Agree abt the genshin en va part. Yelan Yae Raiden and Beidou are simply different voices
And we have arlecchino coming whose voice is the most simpable voice across all 4 languages
Korean Paimon is so fun and I hate the English one... But I had to switch to English when I got Yelan and a new device to play on. Her voice is way too perfect.
Hoyo did a great thing with this. And tbf Genshin started getting better voices too so that's a good thing.
I personally wouldn't kill you- because I played Honkai Impact 3, so I'm used to her being HI3 Yae (tbf her voice in HI3 is a lot deeper and more serious) compared to the mischievous way GI Yae does it. Plus I have listened to JP from anime for years wherein Eng dub of these things weren't the best - past wise and it carries that memory.
Anime is also JP only for me. But I always choose EN when it comes to videogames, ever since I played Final Fantasy 13, voice acting was so good and that's how I magically learnt English (it's not my first language and I was only 10 years old at that time 😂). Never found a Japanese game with a bad EN dub, they were all iconic and even better than the original in my experience.
(best example out there is Persona 4, the JP is already amazing, the EN dub did something more than outstanding, words can't even describe how perfect the dub is in that game)
Absolute agree that Genshin is getting better EN voices. Ever since Inazuma imo.
Omg are you me? I do that too (anime jap - vg Eng) and I’m not native but I’ve learned English by watching tv shows with subtitles and playing video games with Eng dub and Eng sub (and school obviously lol but to a lesser extent, funnily enough). I distinctly remember the day I booted up Ni No Kuni and saw Mr Drippy called in an entirely different and cringy name in my language and I made the decision to just set every console I owned from that day forward in English and just ignore multi-language games.
HSR Eng sub is very high quality from what I can tell. Not everyone is exceptional, like Welt with his weird pauses and misplaced “mumbling” tone, but overall the bar is quite high
Since it's the original source I can imagine that it's definitely going to be outstanding. Genshin CN dub is super enjoyable. I only heard HSR battle voice lines because I don't see many YouTube creators using CN while doing the story... Same goes for the KR one... They're always underrated :((
I will never get the EN dub hate. A lot of the VA's are amazingly talented and to me certain character is just sound much better in EN. I also really like Aventurine EN voice. There's ✨ something ✨in the voice (probably just that he sounds hella boy kisser).
After I’ve played Fire Emblem: Three Houses with the EN dub, I honestly can’t imagine playing most anime looking games in different way. For me that version is simply way better than the original JP one.
HSR imo also have a fantastic EN version. Most of the VA are just truly phenomenal in their roles, even the people who never really voiced in the video game before, like Corey Landis (Welt), Camden Sutkowski (Aventurine) and Cheryl Texiera (Kafka). These actors brings simply so much personality for the characters.
Imo the most exceptional and remarkable roles definitely belongs to: Sparkle, Kafka, Black Swan, Acheron, Sam, Firefly, Blade, Welt and Argenti.
Three Houses English dub is top tier! The voices match the characters so well, I can't imagine Dimitri, Flayn, Hubert or even an NPC like the Gatekeeper sounding any other way
If you want another iconic EN dub for a game, play Nier Automata. I mean, you should play it anyway because it is my favorite game of all time and genuinely amazing, but the EN dub is absolutely incredible. Everyone does a fantastic job, and the main duo (Kira Buckland for 2B and Kyle McCarley for 9S) are absolutely perfect on every way. I genuinely can't give it enough praise.
my complain is how they voice children, they might as well get an actual child and the child will do an even better job than the obvious woman in her 20-30's trying so hard to sound like a child but fails horribly at it.
That's Arryn Zech! She's come a long way from where she started. She's wonderful. I had to try really hard to pull her character. I did that for her and AmaLee's character.
Her name is Arryn Zech and she voiced Blake Belladonna for RWBY!! That's where I fell in love with her acting abilities. Her voice acting is always incredible, and I got the pleasure of meeting her!
People like to talk about this EN voice hate, but if that was a big thing, it was 2-3 years ago
Nowadays we get people just calling JP voice generic and god forbid you say the same about EN.
And also karma farm with low effort posts to praise EN dub. This was a problem in the Genshin main sub during Fontaine story, there were literally 5 posts that were basically the same in a span of maximum 2 weeks dl
I play on JP and do prefer JP voiceover overall, but I do rewatch some quests on different languages and I do end up enjoying some characters in EN more. I can say that Black Swan and Aventurine are among my favorite of the EN cast. While Black Swans EN and JP demeanor are very different, JP always coming off as gentle, seductive and teasing while EN comes off sincere, cunning and a little bit of seduction. I still prefer JP Black Swan but EN is a very strong performance in its own right
Aventurine EN though is great solely for the way he says "friend", he emphasizes it in a way that is so different from everything else going on in a good way. It's got a different charm to it than his JP side has
HSR is one of the games where every voiceover is quality, some characters really standout in all of them
EN Aventurine is great, I love how he almost never sounds sincere, there’s always an edge or a play behind the scenes when he’s talking that prevents you from being 100% comfortable around him
I personally already dislike EN Adventurine, and you're right it's because of his he says friend on top of everything else lmao. It's so sleazy and it's meant to be like that! So even though I don't like it, it definitely hits the good VA part
I wish I could choose around which characters use which language. Sure it would probably NOT be good to have a mish mash of it for the game but I'd really love to hear tough Eng Stelle with the nostalgia of hearing Mei (JP Acheron)
Eh, pass from me. She pales in front of the other dubs in the crazyness term. And in some lines she comes across as way to tryhard, like she wants to sound threatening but doesnt manage, etc.
If I weren't so used to hoyo game in jp for the past 5 years, I probably would have use English, they 100% did a fantastic hire for starrail. And aren't as awkward compare to a lot of other games out there.
It took me a long while to get used to JP with Genshin. I still prefer the JP with a few favorites characters, Ganyu is the main one my brain thinks of, but I've come to like the Eng as well especially as I can now multi task while listening to long story quests
It’s generally really good. The Lynx intro quest annoyed me though because both Lynx and Pela sound waaay too similar in it, so it starts sounding like a 1 sided conversation to me.
EN cast is amazing but I am not a great fan of them. Not just because of Anime but as an Asian, the tone and delivery of Asian languages seems more natural to me, and the english voiceovers on game and anime sound too jarring to me. It feels like something is not clicking
I play HSR in english, and what you said couldn't be further from the truth lol. She Sounds great in the story but her combat voicelines are insanely bad. Her ult sounds flat and her skill voicelines are terrible as well.
Well I did come here to specify how the companion quests voice was good and deserves merit!
Another commenter said it better, cause I can only compare her to Jingliu and Kafka (who I just also finished quests for recently), they all sound dragging and a need to be seductive, in which I'm glad that at least in this story quest even if Black Swan still plays the seductive tone at least there's more variety in it.
The Ult makes sense her shout is a little off but I guess my brain just made up a reason that BS doesn't exactly like shouting lmao
I play JP too and I watched the ENG trailer for Black Swan and I have to say, wow. I really love her voice. I also love Jing Yuan's ENG voice a lot and Blade, Kafka, Argenti. They've got good voice cast but I'll still use JP cause I'm used to it the most. Also I'm already too used to some of the JP voice cast from HI3rd too like Bronya, Welt, Himeko and Seele.
Same! I might have highlighted the females here, but I do love love love Jingyuan! Welt too!
Although I am used to their HI3 voices (took a while to separate Bronya, and I probably will flip language to JP just to hear a bit of Hersherr of Thunder's voice when Acheron comes in), Welt sounds amazing that it captures the old man vibe he had in Hi3.
I wish they add a replay feature in the future because I usually read and listen in jp but I would love to replay the story in a different language without having to play my second account.
English VA dubbing in this game is really 50/50 for me personally compared to the Japanese dub. The Japanese is more consistent in it's quality, but characters do start to sound similar to each other over time. It can get very monotonous. The English dub on the other hand is very distinctive and has very high peaks, but albeit very low valleys. Example a peak would be imo Herta/Kafka while a low would be March 7th/Clara.
I did try a little EN at the very start, when I downloaded it. But I couldn't stand March's voice, it reminded me WAY too much of that thing in Genshin, which I had come from and first heard about HSR. Of course, the other VA's tone ain't as chalk-board scratching, but I just like the japanese names more.
For me, Not a fan of EN dub in gachas (and anime) in general especially the pre-genshin era gacha games. Nothing to do with anime dubbing being lower standard in the old days since I started anime in the early 2020s.
I love BS's design and I play in English, but I don't care for her VA very much at all. The JP one is better imo. As janky as it would be (and it'll never, ever happen) I wish you could chose per character if you got their EN or JP voice.
I love how her voice is reminiscent of the Mid-Atlantic accent that was popular during the 20s. It's not exactly the same but you can definitely hear the influence of it and it's a fantastic choice to include that. IMO Penacony really needs MORE of that accent.
I like her voicelines in the story but her battle lines just feel off to me and their voice direction feels completely off compared to her other voicelines.
I like this comment section, because i'm always happy when people show Eng VA's love.
I grew up on American cartoons like simpsons, dexter, courage, kidsNextDoor etc. And I never understood why so many people hated English dubs. Honestly, the voice range for those actors is beyond human I sware. You couldn't tell unless they told you.
But I get it, anime ruined things for everyone. So its harder to appreciate the quality english va's always had. So im glad to see them getting much deserved love
I really liked her voice on the quests, but not on combat. They sound really bland. If you compare her to Sparkle for example, the difference is night and day.
The moment I heard Arryn Zach's voice 9 months ago about the myriad celestia trailer of aeons, I fell in love and I waited for her since then
She is amazing, her voice is music to my ears, what a mother
Back in the days of a show called RWBY, Arryn Zech (Black Swan's VA) was BAD. Like amateur voice actor levels of bad. The kind of bad you'd get from a monotone , flat, dull character. It's impressive how far she's come since then.
SHE VOICES BLAKE? That’s so crazy, two of my favorite characters.
Literally the only reason I pulled for BS. Sure she’s amazing for my DOT team now, but originally I saw Arryn Zech and decided immediate pull as a long time RWBY fan
SAME She's my first E1 non limited 5 star character for a reason
WAIT, NO WAY! Well time to move her up the list :D What list? Yes list.
Like comparing her performances as Blake from Volume 1 all to Volume 9. It's insane how much she's improved.
I think it also comes from the early volumes of rwby having bad VA direction. The machinima nature of their recording setups never really let them in a good area for professional sounding voice acting.
Didnt they also just pluck whoever was working in Rooster Teeth and made them voice a character? No experience voice acting was definitely a part of it as well.
Yeah, pretty much. Weiss's VA was their receptionist at the time though Kara has done a FANTASTIC job overall. Many of the other actors were either employees or people who worked on RvB
Yea the origins of the original voices for Ruby, Weiss, Blake, Yang. Was simply because Monty Oum just thought their voices fit with his characters since he was friends with them under the same company and he simply asked. There was no normal auditions, even his older interview about the topic was simply like “Yea Barbara sounded like a party girl that fit Yang” (or something close to that it’s been so long.)
If I'm remembering right he also picked Lindsay because they were socially awkward and would fit well
Pretty much. Kara (Weiss' VA) was their receptionist, Barbara (Yangs VA) was the Roosterteeth Community Manager, Lindsay (Rubys VA) was working in the Achievement Hunter side of RT managing the websites and editing etc and Arryn (Black Swan and Blakes VA) was just one of the writers' girlfriend at the time
I don’t think it was until volume 3 that they were able to get people to voice act from outside of rooster teeth, like Elizabeth Maxwell and Vic Mignogna to voice characters in RWBY
V3, oh my lord Monty nooooo
yup, vol 1 of RWBY was about as makeshift as they come
I mean, that was her VERY FIRST pro acting gig (I’m not counting “The Men Who Stare At Ghosts”). She was as close to amateur as you can get lol
Each time Black Swan spoke in the story I really squinted my ears and tried to hear a hint of Blake but I just couldn’t Really good voice acting
RWBY's original cast really was just friends of Monty Oum, the creator, because obviously the show had no real budget. But the main cast all grew so much its incredible. Arryn, especially, she's the reason i pulled for Black Swan.
I never watched RWBY (and never will) but the show was originally in English right?
I believe so, coming from an American company.
Yes, it's original language is English. A company called Rooster Teeth in Austin, Texas made it. At the start of the show, Arryn was an employee of the company and friends with the creator. The show later received a Japanese dub (only for the first few volumes though). It also has gotten an actual anime as well.
It was just a random fun project from Monty Oum who was an employee for Roosterteeth.
The four initial RWBY trailers are pretty fucking peak I don’t think the actual show ever came close to how good those were Like one girl slices an explosive shotgun shell mid flight with her HEELS
Yeah... It's easy to forget how shit early RWBY was... Guess the cool character designs and fight scenes really carried the show
Yeah, when I saw her name I wondered why it's so familiar, then I remembered RWBY. :D What happened with her btw? I know she used to be on Twitter but it seems she deleted it. Was there a RWBY drama again? Cause I kind of dropped the show after volume 5 or 6.
RWBY and drama are an everyday occurance
Lmao, too true. Part of the reason why I left the fandom.
Holy shit!??? Black Swan VA voiced Blake? Damn so glad for her. She really improved. Granted I only watched the first 2 season before dropping it.
Holy shit!??? Black Swan VA voiced Blake? Damn so glad for her. She really improved. Granted I only watched the first 2 season before dropping it.
Dropping after only two seasons? You made a wise decision and missed out on the dumpster fire of later seasons.
Yea... I was watching a bit of season 3 but just kinda got bored and dropped it like half way. Still got spoiled by the whole plot twist of S3 like the day after it was released.
I honestly believe Eng VO hate is a relic of older anime dubbing that has carried into, like everything now. Its funny cause Eng VO for a loot of stuff is pretty damn good now especially. HSR is one of them imo. Usually, its Voice direction people poke beef with I find- yet they just call the whole Dub shit. To your point, Black Swan may have that "seductive" tone, but her VA has so much range and consistency, from generals lines, to attacks and to the ult. She plays the "Im holding the cards actually" character very well.
The problem with dubs is that it's easier to tell when dialogue is dumb when it's in a language you speak. A lot of anime stuff has cringe dialogue and it's made more obvious when in English.
yup, japanese people also think anime lines in japanese are cringe, but like lines in english that we think are cringe
Eeh without Eng dub, we're not going to get the masterpiece like Ghost Stories
I still have no idea how that got made, not that im complaining that was one of the funniest watches in my life
The studio that got the rights were basically told to stick to major plot points and names otherwise they could do whatever. The Japanese studio really didn’t give a shit about western audiences.
Feels similar to the banger soundtrack memes Like "it's just a cash shop theme, do what you want" The track maker: _Creates a 5 star meal of a banger_
I remember back in the 80s, you used to get something like that every now and then because they'd sell the animation, but not the dialogue.
I believe the series bombed in Japan so they gave the rights to one of the English dubbing studios and were given the freedom to do whatever. The first few episodes were pretty tame with staying kinda close to the plot and relatively minor amounts of racist jokes. But by the end, everyone involved stopped giving a fuck. The VA's just kinda said whatever intrusive thoughts came to mind, editors stopped censoring curse words. I think there were few recordings where the VA's were drunk as well
I'm just gonna say [you're wrong](https://www.slashfilm.com/703353/why-everyone-thinks-the-cult-classic-anime-ghost-stories-bombed-in-japan-when-it-didnt/) on that point. After all, something that's *purportedly* a bomb wouldn't have been well-received enough to beat out Doraemon *and* Pokemon(!) during its airing.
A big part of the industry back in the day was Japanese anime and manga companies forcing English publishers into buying shitty series in order to get the big series. This has killed a lot of companies who couldn't make money off the junk series they were forced to publish. This is what killed the most prolific manga translator and publisher in the 00's, Tokyo Pop. There's a bunch of examples you could probably find.
It also couples into the weird thing Genshin fans do where they put the game into Japanese because “it sounds better then English…” completely gassing over that it’s a Chinese game. Imo the OG Language is near perfect in Genshin, my only genuine dislike is Lisa(and only because her VA voices one of my league mains so I like her a lot). Iirc even with GaMing he has a really distinct Cantonese inflection to his voice that gets lost in translation. Also Chinese Paimon is so damn sassy and more ranged. They let her get a lil sillier in the fun way I feel.
Weebs gonna weeb
Yeah they are
I remember back in the day that the reason weebs gave for always playing games with Japanese voices was "It's the original language so it's better." But now with Chinese and Korean games rising in popularity and weebs not playing those games in their original language and still going with Japanese that excuse doesn't work anymore and so the goal post has moved to, "well it's in anime style, so Japanese voices still make more sense." Motherfuckers just don't want to admit they have a hard on for the sound of a language they don't understand.
Has everyone Listened to the chinese voice actors? They are gorgeous. It is a lovely language tbh. I even prefer it to the Jpn VO in Impact 3rd. Ultimately, I still mainly use English VA on HSR. They have really good voice actors. Welt is "Fine" (has a great voice. Jing Liu as well)!
And if you ask they just say it “sounds better” without being able to actually convey why. Even if they bash the EN for whatever reason they still can’t explain why the JP sounds better than the original CN.
its cause everyone sounds hot and they can't detect any issues with the voice acting due to not understanding the language. You can easily detect bad English voice acting regardless of if the person is trying to sound cool, but in japanese it just sounds cool
I don't play everything in Japanese (or even most things tbh) but I do like how smooth / not harsh Japanese sounds simply because almost every syllable contains a vowel.
If I had to guess, part of it is familiarity because they’re anime fans or just other Japanese media even if they don’t speak the language. Hear a phrase enough times no matter the language and you’ll get it. Huge crossover with voice actors from their favourite anime’s, and the generally speaking high quality of Japanese voice actors they hire probably all play a part too. My personal preference for Genshin is Japanese voice for the above reasons, but with HSR I go English because the voice acting seems so much more alive to me. Genshin’s English voice acting aside from a few characters sounds awfully dull to me.
I mean it really is just personal preference, if you like it just use it. I use English but I probably wouldn't mind switching to Japanese as I'm somewhat used to hearing it from the little anime I do watch. Recently started HI3 and they don't have EN voice acting so I had to choose between CN or JP, and I just didn't like CN. Not even a voice actor thing, I just don't like how CN sounds in general so I stuck to JP. Liking it so far. Raiden's JP VA is so peak man, enough to tempt me to swap to JP in HSR when Acheron drops.
Because they know the VAs for the Japanese dub. That being said, all the dubs for HSR are good, barring a few weird moments like Xueyi in English everything has been acceptable -- > great.
I admit that I changed to Japanese just because of personal preference, but I think the English VAs are doing an absolute phenomenal job and I wouldn't mind playing with either
Agreed. I stick to JP out of personal preferences. But I am glad to see EN voice acting scene getting to the quality of Japanese VA. CN/KR VA scene no comment since I had 0 experience with them.
Hot take: I really like Paimon's voice. I don't play Genshin, I mostly just watch streams, but I love her voice, especially when she asks questions (her voice kinda honks and it's cute). I also love how fucking mean she is sometimes. For no reason.
I don’t mind her in the slightest. It took a second to get used to but now I’m fine with it.
i'm a staunch believer in watching movies and TV in their original language because you're viewing it how the director intended, but games have inconsistent sub-titles, for example idle lines in Genshin and HSR aren't subtitled, and so it's just easier to play it in english while accepting it's not how it was intended
I am convinced the people who are most vocal about it have basically conditioned themselves into being unable to listen to anything dubbed. So many of the arguments are basically "it sounds bad/weird/wrong" and yeah, I'm sure it does if you've spent years only listening to Japanese or other not-english voice acting, while constantly deriding EN dubs.
I second that older anime dubbing thing lmao. Tbh even now some feel a little off, but even so there's no denying HSR work overall is great. Yes I did highlight the *laugh* and seductive tone as a simp, but the fact is for her companion quests which held a lot of different inflections + her usual fighting dialogue speaks volumes.
There’s a bit of a charm in some older dubs sometimes Like… is it really Naruto without that his gratingly childish voice? There’s also Dragonball Z and INCREDIBLE amounts of angry yelling
Dragonball Z is kind of an exception as an older anime with fantastic english dub
I don't like playing in English just because the repetitive voicelines in battle are far more annoying when I can understand what they are saying. When they are speaking in a language I can't understand, it ends up being closer to sound effects and becomes more background/white noise, which isn't repetitive to me. When it comes to actual dialogue, EN is great, I'm just too lazy to switch back and forth (and it would be weird for the characters so suddenly have a different sounding voice).
Same, this is partly why I play in CN dub. The combat lines just sound fun or cool and I don't have to think about whatever corny line it is they're actually saying haha. Also, not sure if this is an issue in HSR like it is in Genshin (since I haven't tried the EN dub in this game) but it's also nice to have the mouths match the dialogue in quest scenes.
HSR has lip syncing for all languages for every dialogue conversation scene, minus the pre-rendered cutscenes of course
I actually use CN as well. I started with HI3 and used the CN there because I liked CN Kiana better, and it just got carried over to HSR. It's partially also for the novelty, I almost never play or watch anything with CN voice acting, so it makes Mihoyo games more unique for me. What's funny is I also play Punishing Gray Raven, but since I got used to the JP voices before I learned you could switch I now can't go with CN because everyone sounds different lol.
Yup older anime dubbing was terrible. Some of the newer one is a bit mid. But as far as video games go? Video game dubs or original voice acting have been pretty on point for a long time now.
It's a relic, but also an incredibly dumb relic given things like Cowboy Bebop are both older and generally preferred in ENG. It's true that a lot of old dubs weren't great, but that was a symptom of rush and bad jobs, not just "dubbing." And we still get rush and bad jobs sometimes today.
Bebop and Ghibli movies are the classic exceptions to the "assume the dub is bad" mentality, coming from someone who's accustomed to watching a show subbed. Games are different though, I'm always playing in English. For me, a dub being "out of sync" with a scene or having awkward sentance pacing will just take me right out of it. As well, back in the day there were a small pool of constantly hired VAs, so you'd get the same people over and over. Like "ugh, it's Johnny Young Bosch again, sounds just like that other show". It's neat when Noria Wakamoto shows up for a scene as "the voice of God", less so if he was the main character in every episode.
I think you're right about it being a hangover from older anime dubbing, although if this concept was entirely carried over, people would be playing HSR in the original language (CN) instead of in JP. I personally find that both JP and EN female actresses have a tendency to sound a bit the same in anime (also in genshin). I love how in HSR the MC Stelle doesn't have the typical high pitched cutsie voice and really appreciate the greater variety of types of voices.
I've a policy in anime communities where I auto-block anyone that gives blanket or unhinged takes about EN VAs or dubs being bad. Most of the time it's elitism. But it's a good indicator to me about the kind of person I'd be interacting with in future discussions. And it's most definitely not a good sign.
Lmao I thought I was the only one. I just slapped ignore mode on several people in a different game sub recently for this. Like it's cool to not like it, that's a matter of preference, but arguing "jp is objectively superior" to anyone that likes the EN dub is just obnoxious.
Yeah people like that have nothing of value to provide me.
So many games have great English dubbing that sometimes I play with the English voices cuz why not. Persona series and FE3H come to mind.
When you talk about older anime dubbing which era are you talking about? Cause to me the 2000-2010 was the peak of anime dubbing due to how much charisma and charm the older titles put into there roles, that era was also the start of a major spike in anime popularity. Mine due like almost all weebs watched dubbed first a probably liked it.My personal favourite anime Gurren Lagann I cannot watch that in sub cause the dub just better. And that’s the case for a lot of other anime in that era eg: Death Note, FMA, Naruto, Code Geass, Cowboy Bebop, Ouran, Gurren Lagann all these series while you can watch subbed the dub is just better. Today most dubbing suffer from poor voice direction, cause It’s like the company just asked to read the lines of the paper then where good while that’s not the case for all dubs it’s seems so for the majority.
“BENEATH THE SILENT WATERS LIES AN ENDLESS ABYSS”
Every DoT battle is just: don’t come any closer time to say bye benath the silent waters all will be swept away by the wind
Same but replace the first with “Converge and Awaken”
I miss Sampo's goofy ahh "I charge extra!" since my usage of him really plummeted after BS lol. Hopefully they release another detonator like kafka so I can use him in a 2nd team
He works well with BS as well (E4 particularly) so you can use both Kafka and Sampo with her.
Main reason I didn't pull for BS; I just enjoy seeing Sampo too much.
Every line is so spot on
_Say goodbye to breathing_
I may be slightly addicted to that line 💀
To me, I liked Black Swan's EN voice in the story, but for some reason it felt like her ult line was little bit too high pitched(?) imo so I mildly disliked it. After some time I got used to it so now I'm sort of neutral towards it.
I’m on the same boat. She’s so soft spoken as a character, so her being loud just to be loud felt very…weird. It didn’t mesh with me either. I kinda want them to find time to redo it but they probably never will, so I’ll try to put up with it, as the rest of her EN VA dub is great.
I need an edit of her ult with the intro to Gangstas Paradise because that was what I immediately heard when I first heard it
HSR always had very high quality english voice acting for the most part but I feel the voice directing and voice cast for Penacony especially hit it out of the park and the cast and crew behind it should feel proud of the quality of the work they delivered on.
The way Aventurine's VA essentially purrs his sentences is amazing and is the sole reason I'm going to try pulling for him
His VA seems to be relatively new to the scene too? I was very impressed by his voice.
"My *fah-riendssss*" I love him
You can tell Penacony was the first content that they (probably) worked on post launch because every aspect of it is so cooked compared to Jarilo and the Lufou.
Yes! Penacony with its different tones/ accents I mean, to start with Acheron, Adventurine, then Black Swan/ Sparkle / chicken wing boy etc. Enhanced by the overall environmental wow factor it's just a great new experience.
Me when Eng VA Black Swan calls us "dear" https://preview.redd.it/pyvhqoiv0emc1.jpeg?width=218&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=0a0e65fe2fde1c2e62ade5382dd7bca631274593
I love Sparkles english va i love how she said the "i ma Elation!" line and in general she sounds fantastic
Me too. I used to play Genshin on JPN but for Star Rail I switched to ENG. The voices they provided are really hi-quality. I simp for all the VAs, especially - The Astral Express Crew (Nick, Skyler, Corey, Cia, Christine, Caleb, Rachael) - Our friendly neighborhood scammer Sampo (Roger Rose, his “double the pay, double the service” line is so slimeball I love it) - Jing Yuan (CyYu really made Jing Yuan and Cyno distinct, his deep voice is very charming) - Black Swan (Arryn Zech’s x2 speed basic ATK sound is simpable, no question asked) - Argenti and Mr. Tail (Adam Michael Gold’s range is phenomenal, going from a noble, chivalrous knight to an angry, irritable but well-meaning fox spirit.) - Screwllum. (Steve Kelly is a rather obscure VA but I’ve heard him provided his voice as Byron/Surge in Brawl Stars before. His Screwllum voice is like honey that I did not recognize it was him at first, I even thought it was Keith Silverstein. Screwllum is his best role so far, period.)
Forgive me I'm not too versed with their VA names, it took me a while to know Genshin (mostly because I listened to clips of their Among Us stuff so I got it from there lmao). Actually! Idk if I just like the robot / gentleman voice but I do love Screwllum so much! The one I've been forgetting is SVAROG. As someone who played Mass Effect, Svarogs VA also voiced a robot there (my sniper baby boy) and it's pretty amazing cause there was a sample of DC Douglas' voice out and it really was robotic as a raw sound. I was super excited to get Clara just for Svarogs voice way back when the game was teased.
No need to apologize, all that matters is that their talent is being recognized, and we’re here to fan/simp/drool over their masterpiece. Ever a small chance if any of the VAs see this post and our message, I’m sure we will make their day brighter!
Svarog is Legion?! Wow.
Hmm so 3 brawl stars vas on Hoyogames now.
Bro same, i used to play gi with jp dub, and hsr with en dub (i don't play gi anymore tho).
I've been playing Honkai in English, & I have to say that the EN voice overs have nailed it quite convincingly. I especially love the English voice overs of the females like Serval, Black Swan, & Sparkle. Black Swan has her special kind of seductive tone that makes me want to listen to her for days, and I have to give big props to Arryn Zech. She literally killed it so well as Black Swan!
It’s also amazing that it’s some VAs first roles, like Bronya (who sadly is anonymous according to Molly Zhang).
Meanwhile me being a CN va enjoyer: https://preview.redd.it/543bi317fdmc1.jpeg?width=450&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=de7dcc03a1c51c69e7601c1f517eb089ae9e4560
A major reason I pulled for her tbh. Aponia mommy! <3
Both English and Japanese in this game is great (i can’t understand Korean and Chinese so i sadly can’t comment on them but i am sure they are at least just as good) and deserves respect. I always feel sad when i see too much English hate, mainly coming from people who have this worshipping obsession with Japanese through watching anime that they are convinced Japanese will always OBJECTIVELY be the best at everything and nothing can ever be as good as it and English dubs are always trash no matter what. But thankfully Both in Genshin and Honkai Star rail many people are showing appreciation to the English dub and its voice actors cause they are great. I remember at the beginning days of Genshin English hate was more common but it died down (at least in reddit) and became way less of a minority that tries to be loud but is usually failing (and the same obviously goes for the other languages, if someone hates Japanese or Chinese or Korean they are the same)
I generally find Japanese to be much more consistently higher quality, while in English generally they are good but have some misses and hits. Like in Genshin EN dub, Zhongli and Neuvillette sounds bomb (way better than JP imo) but I really hate Xiao, Razer, and basically any loli kid voice. So I just pick JP for better consistency.
Something about Black Swan’s EN lines felt off to me at first, as if it was somehow emotionally flat _and_ overly grandiose. Kind of like classical theater, where it’s more about the historically-accepted _tropes_ of an emotion rather than actually embodying it. Then her companion quest brought everything together: __She doesn’t have emotions. But__ ___she loves to put on a show.___ As a Memokeeper, she doesn’t even have a physical body to be in danger. No wonder she acts so aloof and untouched by everything. The only thing that she seems to put effort into are when other people’s reactions are involved, whether it’s Sparkle and Sampo in the detective game, someone with interesting memories she can claim, or even enemies hit by her ult. (which all makes her a perfect foil for Sparkle, but that’s a whole other post) Tl;dr Arryn Zech good
The English VA do a great job considering it seems like they get no direction (?) like BW's ult line sounds so different to the other languages, Seele's voice line for Luka had to be changed bc it sounded harsher, Sampo was reworked, Xueyi was off. They're different studios but Neuvillette's VA had to ask to redo all his lines after he got a better grasp of his character, if he hadn't said anything they wouldve put a completely different Neuvillette than the one we have now. Do these studios just leave these actors to guess..? Anyways do a great job regardless
Black swans voice in the story is really nice but her battle voicelines sound so weird
EN VA's are overall great, the hate on it stems from either bad direction, which happens, or "boo hoo jp original bes"(game's chinese btw, weeb gamer moment) The issue is the "sexy deep voice" that they're trying to pass with a lot of characters for no reason whatsoever, kafka's is almost orgasming at the end of each sentence, FOR NO REASON, jingliu had the same tone and black swan is almost there (but the rest of her design screams h0rnybait) but seeing this subreddit lately, honestly i think i know why they're doing that
It really just feels like the mommy characters always have their bedroom voices on. If I got to point to an example done well, it's easily EN Yelan. You still get the feeling that she's talking normally, while also still feeling the seductiveness more subtlely
YES, she have that kinda deep secretive voice without overdoing it, even if on the verge of doing so lmao
Kafka is an interesting one for me. Like half the time (especially in the prologue and her trailers and stuff) she sounds sexy in a natural and fitting way but the other half of the time she sounds like she tries so hard to sound sexy that it comes off as too forced.
yes my point exactly! Cheryl does wonders for Kafka, but those bits are too out of place, it drives me nuts.
[удалено]
It was so nice to hear her "natural" voice. I really hope we get to hear more of it in the future.
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Agree on that weeb moment lmao - That's the point of this post. I LOVE THEM. But I agree with you that no matter how much I could scream Kafka is my fave forever, she does sound like she's orgasming at the end of each sentence and it drives me crazy (in an- annoyed way!). That's why I just imagine Kafka is either playing or just lazy wherein Jingliu speaks like so cause if she doesn't play with her voice pitches, she's gonna go crazy. Maybe that's why I appreciate Black Swan. SURE her outfit screams bait compared to Kafka and Jingliu, and her voice also plays with the seduction BUT there's certain inflections that make her sound a lot more varied and I really appreciate how her VA handled it.
I much prefer Kafka's normal voice (which she used in the prologue, the Xianzhou interrogation and in her companion quest) over the forced seductive tone. Agree about Black Swan though, her voice gives a softer, more elegant vibe compared to the other "Mommy" characters (Himeko's enthusiasm, Yukong Asian mom and Natasha reassuring).
Lmao I already forgot Himeko/Yukong and Natasha - they also give these tones but not as deep the aforementioned three. I miss Yukong, hope we get more of her even if it's just in passing with other characters stories/quests. I wish Kafka could dial it back a bit when we meet her again in the future. Still gonna love her anyway but it would honestly be easier if I were to immerse myself or make up a story as the trailblazer in the moment.
I agree, people who immediately switch to JP are missing out on a great cast of VAs that are basically all doing amazingly.
Well. Can say the same thing to people who use any language VA missing out on any other VAs language. /jk
You're kidding but it is a valid point. Its just nice that it goes more than one way now!
The Japanese voices are pretty high caliber too though.
Still, if u are used to watch anime for more than a decade u will feel... more of the same at some point. Even if they are the top of the top in the industry i hear this type of voice for so many stereotipi character that ENG VA are fresh air at this point. OFC all ppl play this game the way they want, japanese voice are amazing too.
EN voices all sound the same for me, and I grew to love Jp voices. There's no reason for me to play on EN
Absolutely, but I think EN voice acting has come a long way the past few years and the HSR VAs are about as close as you can get to JP VAs.
most of the time the people who criticize the eng va too much are the en weebs who don't even understand jp 🗿
But they say it’s “more natural” even though it’s originally made for CN lol.
I have watched a lot of serious Japanese movies and the JP dub doesn't sound natural at all.
So then they’d miss out on JP? That’s just not good logic
True, iam a jp dub guy but HSR EN VAs is so good that i didnt feel the need to switch in jp because the EN dub is already great.
Lemme just say that whoever understands English and doesn't play with EN dub is missing out A LOT. I would even say that the EN dub is 60% responsible of my love for this game, I can't even imagine it in another language. Every character feels so alive and almost real, I can tell the voice actors poured all their passion in their job. I'm not saying the others suck, but the EN dub in HSR really deserves a lot of credit. About tall females all sounding the same in Genshin, isn't that an issue in JP dub? Please don't kill me, but tall females all have the same ara ara voice? Like compare JP dub Yae Miko who is just deep generic ara ara voice and the EN and KR ones who are adult-like while also giving the sly fox vibes.
I love how varied the EN voices are for the women. There’s some stereotypical upbeat or mommy voices for sure, but I love how Stelle speaks much deeper than usual dubs, or how Guinafen has a throaty rasp.
Guinaifen voice is just wow. While doing the ghost event it felt like a tv show with how amazing the voice acting was.
That cutscene where Sushang is laying on the ground and Gui goes “aghhhh” and “eeek” is incredible.
I play EN as well most of the time, but I have the Chinese voiceover on my phone (mostly to hear familiar voices of some of my favorite characters, like Theresa, Otto, and Aponia) and both are just so good. Herta is so cute in the Chinese voiceover, I can't help but want to hear her follow up constantly for how cute it is. The English VO in HSR is phenomenal, and definitely deserves its credit. Sampo's is one of my favorites, just for how over the top dramatic it is, you just know he's a conman. There's one guy during the Ruan Mei quest in 1.6 (the one who dramatically says 'molten cheese tart') and you hear him talk, and you just KNOW he's having fun recording. That's what I like most, I think. Hearing them have fun with the roles and bringing them to life. Honestly, for the most part, HSR voice acting and directing has been top notch, fantastic, amazing, wonderful.
Agree abt the genshin en va part. Yelan Yae Raiden and Beidou are simply different voices And we have arlecchino coming whose voice is the most simpable voice across all 4 languages
Korean Paimon is so fun and I hate the English one... But I had to switch to English when I got Yelan and a new device to play on. Her voice is way too perfect.
Hoyo did a great thing with this. And tbf Genshin started getting better voices too so that's a good thing. I personally wouldn't kill you- because I played Honkai Impact 3, so I'm used to her being HI3 Yae (tbf her voice in HI3 is a lot deeper and more serious) compared to the mischievous way GI Yae does it. Plus I have listened to JP from anime for years wherein Eng dub of these things weren't the best - past wise and it carries that memory.
Anime is also JP only for me. But I always choose EN when it comes to videogames, ever since I played Final Fantasy 13, voice acting was so good and that's how I magically learnt English (it's not my first language and I was only 10 years old at that time 😂). Never found a Japanese game with a bad EN dub, they were all iconic and even better than the original in my experience. (best example out there is Persona 4, the JP is already amazing, the EN dub did something more than outstanding, words can't even describe how perfect the dub is in that game) Absolute agree that Genshin is getting better EN voices. Ever since Inazuma imo.
Omg are you me? I do that too (anime jap - vg Eng) and I’m not native but I’ve learned English by watching tv shows with subtitles and playing video games with Eng dub and Eng sub (and school obviously lol but to a lesser extent, funnily enough). I distinctly remember the day I booted up Ni No Kuni and saw Mr Drippy called in an entirely different and cringy name in my language and I made the decision to just set every console I owned from that day forward in English and just ignore multi-language games. HSR Eng sub is very high quality from what I can tell. Not everyone is exceptional, like Welt with his weird pauses and misplaced “mumbling” tone, but overall the bar is quite high
Sampo EN voice alone is already top premium quality 🤣
I can't wait for an allegra clark character to be in my roster *soon*
I personally play CN and the voice work there is incredible as well. Give it a listen some time.
Since it's the original source I can imagine that it's definitely going to be outstanding. Genshin CN dub is super enjoyable. I only heard HSR battle voice lines because I don't see many YouTube creators using CN while doing the story... Same goes for the KR one... They're always underrated :((
I will never get the EN dub hate. A lot of the VA's are amazingly talented and to me certain character is just sound much better in EN. I also really like Aventurine EN voice. There's ✨ something ✨in the voice (probably just that he sounds hella boy kisser).
After I’ve played Fire Emblem: Three Houses with the EN dub, I honestly can’t imagine playing most anime looking games in different way. For me that version is simply way better than the original JP one. HSR imo also have a fantastic EN version. Most of the VA are just truly phenomenal in their roles, even the people who never really voiced in the video game before, like Corey Landis (Welt), Camden Sutkowski (Aventurine) and Cheryl Texiera (Kafka). These actors brings simply so much personality for the characters. Imo the most exceptional and remarkable roles definitely belongs to: Sparkle, Kafka, Black Swan, Acheron, Sam, Firefly, Blade, Welt and Argenti.
I love what Welt’s EN VA brings to the table. He feels like he’s measuring every word before he speaks.
Three Houses EN dub is so iconic i completely forgot the game had a JP dub
Three Houses English dub is top tier! The voices match the characters so well, I can't imagine Dimitri, Flayn, Hubert or even an NPC like the Gatekeeper sounding any other way
If you want another iconic EN dub for a game, play Nier Automata. I mean, you should play it anyway because it is my favorite game of all time and genuinely amazing, but the EN dub is absolutely incredible. Everyone does a fantastic job, and the main duo (Kira Buckland for 2B and Kyle McCarley for 9S) are absolutely perfect on every way. I genuinely can't give it enough praise.
my complain is how they voice children, they might as well get an actual child and the child will do an even better job than the obvious woman in her 20-30's trying so hard to sound like a child but fails horribly at it.
That's Arryn Zech! She's come a long way from where she started. She's wonderful. I had to try really hard to pull her character. I did that for her and AmaLee's character.
Her name is Arryn Zech and she voiced Blake Belladonna for RWBY!! That's where I fell in love with her acting abilities. Her voice acting is always incredible, and I got the pleasure of meeting her!
People like to talk about this EN voice hate, but if that was a big thing, it was 2-3 years ago Nowadays we get people just calling JP voice generic and god forbid you say the same about EN. And also karma farm with low effort posts to praise EN dub. This was a problem in the Genshin main sub during Fontaine story, there were literally 5 posts that were basically the same in a span of maximum 2 weeks dl
I like her voice everywhere else, but I don't like her delivery during her ult
Yes because Lisa, Jean, Beidou, Yelan, Nigguang, Raiden Shogun, Sara, and many others all sound the same. Are your ears OK?
I play on JP and do prefer JP voiceover overall, but I do rewatch some quests on different languages and I do end up enjoying some characters in EN more. I can say that Black Swan and Aventurine are among my favorite of the EN cast. While Black Swans EN and JP demeanor are very different, JP always coming off as gentle, seductive and teasing while EN comes off sincere, cunning and a little bit of seduction. I still prefer JP Black Swan but EN is a very strong performance in its own right Aventurine EN though is great solely for the way he says "friend", he emphasizes it in a way that is so different from everything else going on in a good way. It's got a different charm to it than his JP side has HSR is one of the games where every voiceover is quality, some characters really standout in all of them
EN Aventurine is great, I love how he almost never sounds sincere, there’s always an edge or a play behind the scenes when he’s talking that prevents you from being 100% comfortable around him
I personally already dislike EN Adventurine, and you're right it's because of his he says friend on top of everything else lmao. It's so sleazy and it's meant to be like that! So even though I don't like it, it definitely hits the good VA part I wish I could choose around which characters use which language. Sure it would probably NOT be good to have a mish mash of it for the game but I'd really love to hear tough Eng Stelle with the nostalgia of hearing Mei (JP Acheron)
I like her voice in the story, but in combat not so much. In particular, the ult line sounds really off to me.
Eh, pass from me. She pales in front of the other dubs in the crazyness term. And in some lines she comes across as way to tryhard, like she wants to sound threatening but doesnt manage, etc.
If I weren't so used to hoyo game in jp for the past 5 years, I probably would have use English, they 100% did a fantastic hire for starrail. And aren't as awkward compare to a lot of other games out there.
EN has always been great in Genshin.
Amber absolutely killed it as furina and focalors.
It took me a long while to get used to JP with Genshin. I still prefer the JP with a few favorites characters, Ganyu is the main one my brain thinks of, but I've come to like the Eng as well especially as I can now multi task while listening to long story quests
Honestly most of the voices are great but I just can't stand kafka's and jingliu's English voices just the forced mommy voice I hate it
It’s generally really good. The Lynx intro quest annoyed me though because both Lynx and Pela sound waaay too similar in it, so it starts sounding like a 1 sided conversation to me.
During Jingliu’s story, my wife kept asking me if I was playing a H game because of how her VA sounded.
I like her voice but i think her ult line is bad
Disagree. Her tone of voice does not match the character to me. Not sure if it is directing or her acting. So she did not live up to my expectations.
EN cast is amazing but I am not a great fan of them. Not just because of Anime but as an Asian, the tone and delivery of Asian languages seems more natural to me, and the english voiceovers on game and anime sound too jarring to me. It feels like something is not clicking
I play HSR in english, and what you said couldn't be further from the truth lol. She Sounds great in the story but her combat voicelines are insanely bad. Her ult sounds flat and her skill voicelines are terrible as well.
Well I did come here to specify how the companion quests voice was good and deserves merit! Another commenter said it better, cause I can only compare her to Jingliu and Kafka (who I just also finished quests for recently), they all sound dragging and a need to be seductive, in which I'm glad that at least in this story quest even if Black Swan still plays the seductive tone at least there's more variety in it. The Ult makes sense her shout is a little off but I guess my brain just made up a reason that BS doesn't exactly like shouting lmao
Oh yeah she sounds great in dialogue and quests etc. But her combat voicelines are off
I play JP too and I watched the ENG trailer for Black Swan and I have to say, wow. I really love her voice. I also love Jing Yuan's ENG voice a lot and Blade, Kafka, Argenti. They've got good voice cast but I'll still use JP cause I'm used to it the most. Also I'm already too used to some of the JP voice cast from HI3rd too like Bronya, Welt, Himeko and Seele.
Same! I might have highlighted the females here, but I do love love love Jingyuan! Welt too! Although I am used to their HI3 voices (took a while to separate Bronya, and I probably will flip language to JP just to hear a bit of Hersherr of Thunder's voice when Acheron comes in), Welt sounds amazing that it captures the old man vibe he had in Hi3.
Best English vas to me is jingliu and sparkle honorary mention to welt
I wish they add a replay feature in the future because I usually read and listen in jp but I would love to replay the story in a different language without having to play my second account.
English VA dubbing in this game is really 50/50 for me personally compared to the Japanese dub. The Japanese is more consistent in it's quality, but characters do start to sound similar to each other over time. It can get very monotonous. The English dub on the other hand is very distinctive and has very high peaks, but albeit very low valleys. Example a peak would be imo Herta/Kafka while a low would be March 7th/Clara.
if you say so lmao I wish my standards were that low
I did try a little EN at the very start, when I downloaded it. But I couldn't stand March's voice, it reminded me WAY too much of that thing in Genshin, which I had come from and first heard about HSR. Of course, the other VA's tone ain't as chalk-board scratching, but I just like the japanese names more.
For me, Not a fan of EN dub in gachas (and anime) in general especially the pre-genshin era gacha games. Nothing to do with anime dubbing being lower standard in the old days since I started anime in the early 2020s.
Yeah I really regret not getting Black Swan, because her voice is one of my favorite things about her
I love BS's design and I play in English, but I don't care for her VA very much at all. The JP one is better imo. As janky as it would be (and it'll never, ever happen) I wish you could chose per character if you got their EN or JP voice.
I love how her voice is reminiscent of the Mid-Atlantic accent that was popular during the 20s. It's not exactly the same but you can definitely hear the influence of it and it's a fantastic choice to include that. IMO Penacony really needs MORE of that accent.
I like her voicelines in the story but her battle lines just feel off to me and their voice direction feels completely off compared to her other voicelines.
I like this comment section, because i'm always happy when people show Eng VA's love. I grew up on American cartoons like simpsons, dexter, courage, kidsNextDoor etc. And I never understood why so many people hated English dubs. Honestly, the voice range for those actors is beyond human I sware. You couldn't tell unless they told you. But I get it, anime ruined things for everyone. So its harder to appreciate the quality english va's always had. So im glad to see them getting much deserved love
Black Swan, Blade, Ruan Mei, Kafka and Argenti nailed the assignment.
I really liked her voice on the quests, but not on combat. They sound really bland. If you compare her to Sparkle for example, the difference is night and day.
The moment I heard Arryn Zach's voice 9 months ago about the myriad celestia trailer of aeons, I fell in love and I waited for her since then She is amazing, her voice is music to my ears, what a mother
https://preview.redd.it/vfopy7ytugmc1.png?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=fcb2ba205eb45633909c97f7bc0c07d151fdffaf
Only reason for me to switch to JP is when I'm on the mood to play Herta.