I'll probably be listening to both English and Japanese tracks--not because I think Japanese voice actors are "better" per se, but because I'm sort of attached to the Japanese voice actors themselves...there was a picture from the last Live Letter of Yoshi-P holding up a poster with three Japanese VA names (which I'm assuming are going to be the voices of the three GC leaders...they might even be the three NPCs from the Circle of Knowing from each city, too, but I kind of doubt it unless they decided to not include Yda because Papalymo's the "main" Gridania npc...which I don't think they would do.)

here's the picture:

anyways in one of the other threads it was confirmed that one of the signatures was Japanese VA Rie Tanaka's. (she's done a lot of stuff, the most notable for me though is mitsuru from persona 3.) Anyways if the GC leaders' voice actors ARE the three names on that sheet, then there are two possibilities:

a) she's voicing Merlwyb (which she would be EXTREMELY well suited for--she can do a really good deep/serious voice. and i would probably explode of awesomeness if she did.)

b) she's voicing Kan-E-Senna (and i wouldn't put it past her--she's got good range and could probably do a good calm/cute-ish voice, whatever you want to call it...even though I'd rather see her as Merlwyb, I wouldn't mind her as the Elder Seedseer either since i'm an adder and would probably hear her voice a lot. :D )

...anyways i think Rie Tanaka's really cool and all, as well as other Japanese VAs they've announced on the project, like (i think?) Miyuki Sawashiro and Yumiko Kobayashi...so it's more the voice actors themselves rather than how they act...while their acting is exceptional, it's not the main reason why I would listen.

People always say English VAs aren't as good as Japanese, mostly because of acting reasons--but I do admit, they've gotten waaaaay better over the years and there are still some English dubs of games and anime I've seen that I prefer over the Japanese cast. (some examples: Panty and Stocking's dub was extremely well-done, as was Gankutsuou's a few years back. As for games, I really loved Persona 4's English cast.) Anyways! Part of it has to do with training, I think--in Japan, you can go to acting schools specifically targeted at being a voice actor for anime and games. We don't...really have that here. We have acting schools, sure! But not ones that are specifically designed to be for anime/game voice actors like they do in Japan.

I think the problem with a lot of English dubs is that there are so little voice actors out there with so little range that performances become dull and boring--you want to hear a unique voice for your favorite dubbed character, not just Johnny Yong Bosch/Yuri Lowenthal/Laura Bailey doing their one-trick pony routines. (I have nothing against them, by the way--the problem is they're just in EVERYTHING and i swear to god i will be kind of frustrated if they find their way into the ARR English cast. Usually SE gets a good bunch of "different" VAs, though, so I'm sure we'll be safe...for now.)

anyways, back to the poster, though...my main question is: who do the other two signatures belong to? We could probably find out which one of the three is actually voicing Merlwyb if they're choosing by certain VA "archetypes". For example, if they have a VA who usually does really shy/cute characters, then obviously that one'll probably be playing Kan-E-Senna and we can rule out that yes, Rie Tanaka's playing Merlwyb and no, they wouldn't choose a "kawaii" VA for Limsa's hardcore Admiral. and obviously whichever one is the guy VA would be Raubahn...unless there aren't any guy VAs on there...then my GC leaders theory is messed up.

i don't know why i care this much but i really want to figure out who's voicing who in the japanese cast--a lot of the VAs they picked are really well-known and I like their voices a lot...i might make a separate speculation thread later or something because i'd like to figure this stuff out. :P

anyways i posted too much...sorry! -goes back to lurking-

(*prays that Fumihiko Tachiki is the voice of Raubahn*)