#but i love certain dubs for specific characters like lemme have cn aether and paimon and en zhongli and jp yanfei...

[tratserenoyreve]

im pretty partial on the dub i chose on the rest of my gameplay (jp) and its obvious since xiao's VA is already skilled enough to know the tone that fits him. though its interesting each dub interprets xiao in quite a variety of his characteristic; as most of them maintains his reserved outlook, jp has that spark of sass and confidence when he feels like it (it really has his struggle noises nail you in the head), cn takes the reserved more gently and accurate to his nature (a lot more tired and timid to vulnerability, casual), kr is a lot different but not far from eng, but it fits his maturity and he sounds older (he sorta has a playful tint, too).

what saddens me is not really the performance, but the subtle yet irritating inconsistency and potential hyv did on their characters' interactions and dynamic thats lost to translation. the eng subtitles may give you the basic context of something, but dialog-wise its much more than that (perhaps even more different on other subs), since jp cn kr has lots of meanings behind their writing. xiao addresses zhongli indirectly as rex lapis too in jp, and the latter had expressed concern as if he has been convincing xiao instead of stating the chasm's danger. ("do you really have to go?". theres lots of those coming from too. klee calling albedo as her brother instead of the typical Mr, same from ayaka to ayato, etc. its obviously not something easy for hyv to change and keep it all streamlined overall, but the chances were truly left unseen.

the dubs do definitely change the tone of characters yeah, and i've also been picking up on how much the lack of nuance the english dub has for honorifics changes how character interactions feel! all of the voice actors do good work, just some were given different direction than others and can't do much about localization choices.

zhongli for example has a decent amount of lines that are actually adages, old proverbs that add to his "wise elder passing on stories to the next generation" image. but in english, because we don't have the same cultural context or puns, a lot of that doesn't translate and it instead comes across as him rambling about boats. like, he is rambling, but there's more to it than what english dubs get.

another notable instance of translators having trouble with conveying layered dialogue that i can think of is during venti's story quest, where diluc and kaeya are having a discussion outside of angel's share. in english, we still get the overall idea that the two brothers are still having a disconnect but some of the details on how kaeya talks to diluc is lost. the english dub has them more directly confrontational whereas, if i understand correctly, the original chinese has kaeya using more double-meaning with his phrasing to express how he feels abandoned and diluc is being unintentionally blunt. which is why he's surprised with kaeya actually being so upset when diluc poked at him about drinking alone so often.

and yeah!! the klee thing is one that is so?? ashfhjdg i've seen a number of people be surprised to learn that klee and albedo are adopted siblings, because in english i believe one of the only instances (outside of events) of that being clear is on albedo's profile after you've boosted friendship with him and he calls klee his little sister. something that requires having albedo, which many people don't!

xiao's interactions definitely feel way different with context on what honorifics he is using in other translations. with how tight the update schedule has been and how the development team is being shuffled around between projects, i don't think the translators really have the time they need to cover those details.