[Image: Nintendo]
Musubi is a rare Blade in Xenoblade Chronicles 2. She looks like an angel, but certainly doesn’t sound like one. Her voice is a total mismatch.
Have a listen for yourself.
「ムスビ」の同調シーンですも。ムスビは回復タイプ。モノポンの疲れた心も癒してほしいですも…！ pic.twitter.com/m7Kpv5IlwZ
— ゼノブレイド２ (@XenobladeJP) November 4, 2017
Redditor WildToeFu put it best: “I was expecting some angelic lady voice, but then I was hit with a little sister voice.”
Comments
22 responses to “This Xenoblade Chronicles 2 Character’s Voice Is Complete WTF ”
That’s disarmingly out of place…
Hopefully they fix that in the localised version with a nice British accent.
I hope they cast Brian Blessed as the voice actor.
From the headline I thought this was going to be a Dr. Girlfriend situation…
I find a lot of Japanese voices like that though.
Take Zelda’s voice in Breath of the Wild as another example. I heard complaints about the English voice actress for Zelda, but did those complainers even listen tot he Japanese one? It’s yet another high pitched squeaky voice – she doesn’t sound like someone that’s about to become an adult and is trying to prevent her Kingdom from collapsing, she sounds like a whiny schoolgirl.
It depends on the character….
Musubi has that oneesan look character and even fans jn jp would be expecting an older/sexier voice. Hearing a kawaii/cute tone on that character is a total mismatch..
So far I’m not keen on the voices in the English localisation at all (especially the main character), but this is one case where I reckon the English voice will probably fit far better.
I don’t think the voice is much of an issue when the facial animations are creepy as fuck.
And here I was expecting the character to be a trap.
If you’re implying you thought the character may have been trans, was it really too much effort to type the extra letter?
Why does a trap have to be trans? Whatever happened to simple cross dressing?
The character is female. Regardless of whether the slur you used is applied in or out of an anime context it still carries strong transphobic meaning. If you didn’t know it at the time, you do now.
You’re projecting mate. No slur was used. Signal your virtue elsewhere thanks.
Leaving the character in question behind for a second, you don’t see how the term “trap” is pretty horrible and offensive? Genuinely asking because it concerns me that you don’t see a problem with it.
Trap is generally used to refer to very convincing cross dressers, they are entirely different to trans people (ok obviously some amount of crossover, but overall a different group of people)
But you do see that calling them a “trap” carries a negative connotation, right? I guarantee you no one would appreciate being called a trap. It’s born from the connotation that they are trying to trick heterosexual men into becoming sexually attracted or involved with them. It implies that whoever is being describe (whether they are crossdressing, trans, nb) are deceitful and untrustworthy by nature. That’s why it’s considered a slur.
I think the comment chain has gone too deep, gotta reply back here.
I get where you are coming form, but as far as i’ve seen online its more like a compliment to crossdressers than a slur. its saying you are so convinvcing in your crossdressing that guys would think you are a girl. I’ve never ever seen the crossdresser/trap take it to mean how you explain, only ever people like you ‘defending’ their feelings taking it to mean that.
Even then it doesn’t make sense, calling them a trap isn’t implying they ARE trying to trick people, its saying they COULD
Would it be offensive to actual trans people, probably yes, because as i said they are a different group of people, some traps may end up realising they are actually trans, but it seems most dont. Some trans like to be called traps because they take it as meaning they pass very well as who they feel like (obviously wouldn’t say its a good thing to call most trans people that as im sure a lot might be offended). Like i said some crossover, but generally different people.
I initially brought it up with @simocrates because generally KotakAU is a fairly inclusive place that has a minimum of exclusionary and insulting language, and I know the term to be used in a dissociated manner within anime and gaming contexts. That means people may not be aware the language they are using is hurtful.
In this instance neither of our experiences change the general usage of the term: trap is a common insult towards trans women. There are specific uses where it can be a compliment and none of those uses are well represented here.
Arguing for a purportedly innocuous usage in this space is little different to arguing that gay as a pejorative is fine. It was a facile and self-indulgent argument a decade ago and it remains so now.
EDIT: have to reply here because of Kotakus weird comments system, that only lets you reply a few times in sequence.
I almost never see it used towards trans women (other than on like pornhub, but its porn, its never going be socially sensitive), its basically always used to address convincing crossdressers and characters (anime, games etc).
Even then, if it were an insult aimed towards trans women in some cases, this would obviously not be one of those, trap is literally the only word that could be used in this context. He wasn’t expecting they’d be trans, he was thinking they would be very convincing crossdressers. I mean you could say that but trap is literally the word used to describe that exact thing.
A word by itself is not offensive, its how its used. If this was an article about a trans women and someone called them a trap, sure get angry (though even then theres a decent amount of trans women that think it can be used as a compliment). But this was about a character and where trap is literally the most accurate word to use
I guess both our experiences with the usage and perception of the term are different. I’ve only ever heard it used in a negative way or as a way to demean whoever is being described. And I’ve only ever heard people who would be described this way refer to it as an insult. But there’s as many experiences out there as there are people so that’s not me saying you’re interpretation is wrong in all cases. I would just caution the use of it as, from what I’ve read/seen/discussed with people, it is overwhelmingly more often an insult than a complement. From my point of view you’re arguing the exception to the rule and I would be surprised if simocrates’ comment was intended to be positive.
I’m not convinced that ‘trap’ was the most accurate word, either. If the comment really had to be made, then ‘drag queen’ or ‘cross-dresser’ would have been less offensive (intent allowing).
Even if you were right that its more often used as an insult (i definitely still don’t agree). Like i said a word in and of itself is not offensive (especially this one, where it definitely started as being for convincing crossdressers, and is still mostly used for that meaning online). It is the target and intention behind the word that can be offensive. This was said about a video game character. If a trans woman was reading here and got offended by just seeing that word used you surely can’t believe that isn’t being overly sensitive.
Trap is just a quicker and more specific way of saying very convincing crossdresser, so if simocrates was expecting this character was a very convincing crossdresser there is no reason not to use the term trap.
People are literally trying to find ways to be angry about everything nowadays. Just taking a quote from what you first said.
“It’s born from the connotation that they are trying to trick heterosexual men into becoming sexually attracted or involved with them. It implies that whoever is being describe (whether they are crossdressing, trans, nb) are deceitful and untrustworthy by nature.”
It was not born from that at all, that was never the normal usage of the word, its always been a very convincing crossdresser (and of course some people would use it for trans woman, but like i said mostly porn where they aren’t exactly known for their politeness).
This whole idea has literally been made up by people so they can get offended at this word. I have never once seen people who use the term trap describe it in this way, only people ‘defending’ trans woman, they made up the idea that the word trap was being used in that way and then got angry people were using a word they’d been using for years.
I disagree, everything I have seen points to it 100% originating from the literal negative definition of a trap: a trick, a deceit and a negative outcome. There is no other way the word could have originated.
The fact that the term was coined in a time when trans and nb identities were far less understood or acknowledged, and it was initially used to describe fictional anime characters might have meant that people didn’t consider it offensive at the time, but in the current day context you can’t just cling to the origin of the word as a justification to use it.
You can say that it was not meant to describe trans people but the fact is that is indeed used in that way in society and across the internet. The use of words change with time and context and they adopt different meanings. I guess the question for me is, why would you want to use a word that could potentially offend when there are other more appropriate words to use that do nothing to obscure what you are trying to say? If you want to keep using it then you are free to, but you can’t feign ignorance when you do offend someone.
Perhaps the times you saw it being used negatively were another misinterpretation like now. Either way I won’t justify this false outrage over the use of the word because my eyes can only roll so far before I get a headache.