So... That new Kiriko Voice, and what we can maybe do.

[The Nuclear King]

(TL;DR at the bottom)

First off I just want to say off the bat that I do not blame Miko for what we've gotten. This wasn't her idea, she was just casted and was probably ecstatic to be given the opportunity. If anything, Miko is probably the biggest victim out of all of this since now she's the center of attention to something that was the fault of Fruitbat Factory or Orange_Juice.

Back on topic yeah, a lot of people, including myself, are really, really not happy with what we got here. Every other voice we got in this wave was honestly great!... Except Kiriko's.

It really sucks since I feel like this was supposed to be a really wonderful surprise since the whole bots playing games on Youtube thing is pretty popular, thus giving a voice from one of them to one of the most anticipated voices in the game seemed like a great idea.

It SUPER sucks since Sumika came out at the exact same time as this voice, and honestly, I think Miko would have done an outstanding job voicing her with her "kawaii" style tone and breathy endings, it just matches her perfectly. They could have even made it a selling point of the new package, but they decided to slap it onto a character that juts wasn't fir for the role... But... Y'know, kinda too late for that.

Honestly I don't really know what to do about the situation, especially since it's purely up to fruitbat to do something. Easiest solution off the top of my head is to give Kiriko an alternative voice that more closely matches what people want from her (something more mature, womanly, maybe with a twist of psychotic sociopathy in the mix,) and pass it out in the next voice wave that you can switch between the Miko in the options menu whenever. It's a blunt solution, but it'd probably be the easiest way to fix things, especially given that to remove it entirely would make the existence of the Miko outfit we got for Kiriko kind of out of place... Well.. More out of place than it already is.


TL;DR, Kiriko's voice doesn't fit what anyone was expecting to give her a celebrity voice for the sake of giving her a celebrity voice, make your displeasure known.

Tell others, make your opinion known on the trailer on Youtube (you can find it on their discord or just by googling "Kiriko Character Trailer" on Youtube), and maybe we'll be able to get some sort of compromise. Be civil about it, no death threats or insults towards Miko, just say "hey, this is bad, super disappointed" and hopefully we can get the message across that way. The voice is the soul of any fictional character, and it'd be wrong to just leave a inaccurate job for someone a loved as Kiriko (for appearance mainly) left without at least some protest when a fix is very possible.

Otherwise... Well... We sure can mute individual voices and use our imagination, can't we? I mean at least we have the dialogue bubbles now...

[Anita Coffee]

Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeah.

Kiriko doesn't sound right. She sounds 12 & is suppose to be in her mid-20's or even close to 30? Or that's what I always assumed. She has this whole surgeon aesthetic going on & that voice just does not go. My opinion.

[KingJengo]

Really, the thing that angers me about this the most is not just the fact that Miko didn't do a good job voicing Kiriko, but the fact that they seem to put more focus on Miko herself rather than Kiriko, and I find that sickening.

Now, I really don't know anything about her to be honest, but I believe that this wasn't entirely her fault. Watching the trailer instantly gave me the impression that they weren't trying in the slightest to get Miko to sound anything like we'd expect Kiriko to be, and in that case it's not the fault of Miko, but the fault of either bad voice direction, or they just flat out didn't care and let Miko be herself.


I say that more focus was put on Miko herself than Kiriko for a few reasons:

1. The most obvious reason being that Kiriko's voice is extremely unfitting.

2. As someone else mentioned on a different thread as well as in the comments of the trailer, the thumbnail for the trailer shows Miko and not Kiriko, unlike all the other character voice trailers which have the voiced character in the thumbnail.

3. The Miko costume. Honestly, this is the most insulting thing about this to me. If this was as far as they were going with the collaboration, why didn't they just make a separate Sakura Miko character pack rather than turn an already existing character into a promotion rather than give her more character? Also, no offense to Hono, but something about the costume looks extremely off putting and somewhat unsettling. It just doesn't look right compared to everyone else in the game, even the characters with more up-to-date artstyles.


I really don't play Kiriko often, if at all, and I even wish to see her be buffed in some form down the line, but I really feel bad about how they treated her here. She wasn't given life to her character, but turned into someone else entirely unfitting, and had what character she had prior completely tarnished.

I really hope Fruitbat has someone else come in and give her a more fitting voice. They can keep Miko's in, but it's just not what I'd expect to hear out of Kiriko.

[Solidus]

I think I just came up with an idea. Maybe they could release a new Kiriko, like in her original QP Shooting form, casted by someone else? They did new lines for Suguri 46B instead of reciclying the ones from the already existing ones, so maybe that could work?

[DESTROYER]

Miko as Sumika (including the costume) would have really made a lot more sense, this by far is the most disappointing VA choice for a character so far.

[Jon Shoes]

k

[CarThief]

Definitely seems a poor decision on FBF's end this time. The voice itself isn't bad, it fits the skin, but it doesn't fit original Kiriko.
So yeah, would be nice if they kept it in as an alternate voice to suit the new skin, and redid the voice more appropiately for regular Kiriko.

Not that i'm expecting much here. And in the end, as much as i play her, i'm fairly indifferent to it beyond "voice does not match character". Maybe they'll do something, maybe not. Not like it was promised to be an accurate VA pack for Kiriko that was seperately sold, anyway.

[Aqualung]

it's not really that bad tbh

[Miraglyth]

You know, I've listened to a few of the lines and I'm thinking a pitch shift and a slight tempo reduction could sound pretty good for what people might have expected for Kiriko.

[Jackling]

I honestly don't care, if Honos thinks the voice fits her, it fits her. He created Kiriko, for all we know he always imagined her to sound kawaii. If Honos didn't think it fit, he would of shut FBF down on the idea.

[RedSage]

Originally posted by Smooth Jazzie:

I honestly don't care, if Honos thinks the voice fits her, it fits her. He created Kiriko, for all we know he always imagined her to sound kawaii. If Honos didn't think it fit, he would of shut FBF down on the idea.

Reminder that THIS is Kiriko's theme: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EjNOx-0vihc

Also, as others have pointed out, if he was blinded by VTuber fandom, he could have easily chosen an unfitting voice.

I just don't see how you design a character that YOU YOURSELF confirm is 23, has all the mannerisms and facial expressions as Kiriko...and then give her a voice that belongs on Nico.

[Jackling]

Again, if Honos thinks it's fine I couldn't really care. Not saying you don't have a right to be mad and confused just, I don't see any issues personally.

[Juno Brier]

Realistically speaking, not everyone's going to have a voice fitting their appearance. I mean yeah, not quite the game to call in realism as a justification for anything, but people not having the voice you expected happens often enough.

If anything I got more of a "is that really their voice" moment out of Tomato and Mimyuu, was expecting them to be a little less, well, obnoxious, at least.

[The Nuclear King]

I think my big issue with all of this is that Kiriko just did not fit this role, yet we also had so many other good choices for it. Miko could also have been her own character if Hono REALLY wanted, I mean he went through the trouble to basically give her her own sprite just for this occasion, so why not just do that? Toss in some unique stats or hell, just make her a mirror! She could even have had her own unique dialogue without having to talk like Kiriko would. It just doesn't add up.

Maybe he just really wanted Kiriko to be a more snotty, whiny, child like person with a thicc bod. However nothing ever hinted at that or implied it. Nobody ever mentioned she has a strangely unfitting voice, so it's hard to really pin that down as a character decision.

This decision just doesn't really work for anyone. Everyone who wanted Kiriko wanted a different voice, and everyone who doesn't mind also doesn't really love it, they're just "eh" about it, not thrilled or excited in the slightest. Even for the Miko fans (if that's a big crowd here, I don't know) it's still just Kiriko with a Miko voice and skin, but not actually her. Kiriko doesn't even match Miko's personality, the alt outfit, while nice on it's own, is just jarring and when you know that it's supposed to be Kiriko.

This entire thing just feels like a massive lapse in judgement Hono did cause I guess he wanted Miko in the game in some way and she had to voice someone. Either that or they just absolutely could not afford to get anyone else to play Kiriko, but could for Sumika, so Kiri got the short straw for representing Miko. Not Miko representing Kiri, the other way around. All the people anticipating this voice aren't happy, and everyone defending it aren't even that passionate about it, they're just doing it out of what seems like respect for Hono. Which, y'know, that's a fair stance, Hono is a great guy, but even then this whole thing doesn't add up.

The situation is just.... W-why? I just can't justify in my head why things went down the way they did, and why Hono put so much effort into a decision nobody was thrilled for in the first place. I wasn't thrilled with Sherry either, but at least there I could say I was just genuinely surprised how she sounded, not completely tacken aback to the point of thinking "that's not how she sounds in the slightest". With this, being the first real celeb voice in OJ, the only question I have in mind is just "why?".

[tricosahedron]

I'd be lying if I said that I would have expected a voice like this for Kiriko. But I don't really think her voice sounds inappropriate. She doesn't really sound like a kid to me, but like a young adult (e.g. ~ 23 years old) who tries to talk like a kid. I always thought of Waruda as a group of childish and crazy members (weren't they called "the bad kids"?), so I think it fits.

I also have to say I like the costume; she probably tries to look cute, but actually looks dark and creepy with the way her eyes look, and I like that contrast.


However, so far I'm disappointed with how NoName's voice sounds. I liked Hono's voice for Tequila or Arthur, but NoName sounds weary and lifeless to me, which is basically the opposite from what I expected. But maybe I'll get used to it, or I might even end up appreciating it. Wouldn't be the first time that I disliked a voice at first, but then it grew on me.

[QuantumRoad]

I wonder if FBF or oj will ever comment on this or just out right pretend nothing wrong and wait for everyone to move on.
I wonder how the Japanese fans feel about this? They been quiet on this