#and honestly there's enough content out there for Yuri that I'd sooner trust Toriumi's thoughts on Yuri

[bravewolfvesperia]

/ realized I forgot to put this in my bio and will add it later but

heads up that my Yuri is a combination of JP Yuri and dub Yuri, but primarily JP. there's a whole lot of nuance to Yuri that got left out of the dub (and seeing as he has waaay more content in JP due to the vast amount of crossovers/Tales crossovers/gachas he's in, it's a lot easier to keep Toriumi's take on him (and in depth understanding no less!) in mind). overall you get the same general person, but the dub left out a lot more his casual/playful side in vocal tone, preferring to go for the "edgy cool adult" concept despite, well, the JP version of him intentionally being quite opposite.

(on another note, context I use for Yuri involves nuances found in the drama CDs that are a condensed retelling of the game (before some original stuff) as well as his childhood novel which has voiced dialogue for his child and teen years. this post covers the game, but a lot of (especially internal) stuff for my muse may be heavily affected by his backstory too which is unfortunately completely absent in the actual game itself)

there's also a lot of back and forth between him and other characters that really lost their depth in the dub (ex. Yuri being much more gentle and soft with early game Karol when Karol was convinced nobody would believe him and that he was a failure, or his banter with Flynn being a lot more relaxed and significantly less annoyed with a better understanding of each other). I'll be retaining anything the dub yeeted out for whatever odd reason regarding his relationships.

(one particular grievance of mine is in the Flynn jailbreak scene, where Yuri is basically saying "you're just dying to abandon me" and Flynn starts off with "that's right" before basically saying the same thing - i.e. they both know it's not true and Flynn is going along with it because That's Them, to which Yuri responds with a solid and fully accepting "yeah" (no hesitation, no concern over it, as he prioritizes Flynn's life over his own).

another extremely strong grievance I have is the port scene - oops also with Flynn - where he's basically holding back tears asking for answers in desperation, which was extremely if not outright completely lost in the dub where he only sounds angry and not just utterly hurt. dub Yuri? I could believe he might kill Flynn if it came to that. JP Yuri? forget it, he would hold back at the last second and couldn't go through with it. that's genuinely the level of difference that was present between both audios.

that said, I love Troy Baker's performance itself - I just think he was unfortunately deeply incorrectly directed for several of his major scenes, and also unfortunately, some of those cases were involving some of his most important relationships)

if any of y'all play Vespy any time soon, I fully recommend giving it a shot with its original context at least once (if you're playing the DE version there's an option for JP audio)! even if you don't understand JP, at the very least the tone won't be lost on you! from what I've heard apparently there wasn't much communication between the directors on both sides, so a lot of Yuri got lost in the localization (and Karol's screaming is glorious in JP lbh).

tl;dr Yuri really is just a silly little guy and he's really not that cool or serious. he's a dork. he's a dummy. and he's easily embarrassed about it. get deep enough into his feelings for Flynn when they're not in a life or death situation and he'll completely cave in embarrassment.