Susano and Lakshmi's English Voice Actor

[Nestama]

After listening to both the Japanese and English voices for Lakshmi... I'm going to go with preferring the English voice. It works when you know how emotionally influenced Primals are when summoned. Her Japanese voice just sounds a little... "bored/monotonous," despite being summoned under emotionally extreme circumstances.

She also warned the WoL to stay away. Wouldn't make sense for someone to have a polite and gentle voice towards someone who blatantly ignores their warning and is a threat to their life.

[Daralii]

This.

I also imagined her to sound like a stern mother. She doesn't sound too different to many of the women in their early to late thirties that I knew when I lived in a particular part of the UK.

...minus the whole 'snake' bit, of course.

I feel like it does the game a massive disservice for people to criticise the English voice acting, too. There's been a a massive improvement in it as of 3.0 and 4.0 and the people who claim that the Japanese voice acting is 'better' often don't even understand Japanese to begin with which makes their attempts to compare the two rather moot.

I still miss Gideon Emery as Urianger and whoever Merlwyb's ARR voice actress was.

[Miyha]

I guess I'm in the minority here: I like Lakshmi's English voice.

It's very sultry and rather seductive, almost... dreamy. Like she is trying to lure you into the dream. It is also stern, which suits for the fact that she is trying to prevent you from destroying the dream world she created for her devotees.

So yeah. I quite liked her English voice.

Susano though... A+++. Everything about that primal was fantastic.

[Sylvain]

A bit the same in JP and FR version. She doesn't sound soft nor bubbly. She just sound like a mad matriarch.

Susano tho has an amazing voice over in every version I heard

[Takeko]

The English VA for Susano sounds a great deal like Patrick Stewart, especially that laugh. I could be wrong though on my guess for who the English VA is.

[Ametrine]

It might be my own interpretation, but I always found giving female characters deeper voices is supposed to allude to maturity.

Lakshmi might come off to us as almost sexual in her allure to us, but both tribes of Ananta share the belief that she's their -mother.- Powerful, beautiful, loving, a pillar of reliance and source of unending comfort. Basically, a good mom.

So I think the giant disparity between the actor's cadence is more from a cultural disparity of what Western and Eastern audiences view as their cliche mother figure.

I prefer the English actor, myself.

[ChaoticCrimson]

As much as her fights annoy me, I actually think Lakshmi's English voice was perfectly fine. Her voice has the soothing maternal quality while trying to tempt the WoL into surrendering themselves to dreams while having that harsh, venomous quality when they continue to defy her and her offers of serenity, fitting her subtle snake-like traits.

Still, Susano's voice really takes the cake for me. It's just so joyful and enjoyably hammy. I can't help but to join in whenever he shouts "Wild and pure, and forever free!" every time I fight him. I suspect his VA had a blast voicing his lines. It made learning his EX fight fun for me, actually. Definitely a favorite Primal of mine!

[Destati]

I'll admit at first I felt Lakshimi's voice didn't suit the whole "beautiful enchantress/seductress/etc." aesthetic I perceived her to have but after reading everyone's points and understanding the circumstances under which she was summoned, I think it's actually rather fitting.

Susano's was really fun, and I wasn't expecting him to have that kind of voice when they first announced him. But I was pleasantly surprised. It kind of reminds me of a more jolly Ramuh.

I still miss Gideon Emery as Urianger and whoever Merlwyb's ARR voice actress was.

Oh god Merlwyb's ARR voice was perfect, and I was really upset to see that they changed it. Same with Raubahn's. I feel their new voices sounded so mellow and bland compared to how they were before.

[LineageRazor]

I'm in the camp that feels that Lakshmi's voice was too harsh and imperious in a role that should have been comforting and nurturing. She should be trying to lure the WoL with her promises of peaceful slumber, not commanding hir to submit. She should be a mother trying to soothe her willful child to sleep.

Folks have postulated that her commanding nature is due to the fact that she's frustrated with the WoL's persistent resistance and attempts to free her followers from bliss, or that the circumstances of her summoning have changed her personality. Neither of these arguments takes into account that the things she's actually saying during the fight are clearly meant to be soothing and nurturing - she's just saying them with a commanding tone that really doesn't make sense. If she was really frustrated or angry, she'd have different dialog.

I haven't heard the Japanese version, but the way people describe it implies to me that Lakshmi was, indeed, intended to have a calming and soothing voice, and I don't feel that the English version meets those criteria.

I will, however, join the nigh unanimous agreement that Susano's voice was pretty much perfect. XD

[Okamimaru]

I'd just switch lakshmi's voice with Sophia's