How 'Titas of Inazuma' Anne Yatco, Ratana prepared for Genshin Impact | ABS-CBN

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How 'Titas of Inazuma' Anne Yatco, Ratana prepared for Genshin Impact

How 'Titas of Inazuma' Anne Yatco, Ratana prepared for Genshin Impact

Angela Coloma,

ABS-CBN News

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Filipino-American voice actresses Anne Yatco and Ratana talk in a community panel during the CONQuest 2022 Festival held at the SMX Convention Center. They are the voices behind Genshin Impact characters Raiden Shogun and Yae Miko. Mark Demayo, ABS-CBN News
Filipino-American voice actresses Anne Yatco and Ratana talk in a community panel during the CONQuest 2022 Festival held at the SMX Convention Center. They are the voices behind Genshin Impact characters Raiden Shogun and Yae Miko. Mark Demayo, ABS-CBN News

MANILA -- Among the headlines of CONQuest 2022 was the visit of Fil-American voice actresses Ratana and Anne Yatco, who are behind Inazuma’s dynamic duo Raiden Shogun and fox familiar Yae Miko.

In a community panel with fans, Ratana and Yatco -- collectively known as the “Titas of Inazuma” by the local Genshin community -- walked the audience through how they prepared themselves to portray two of the game's iconic characters.

Yatco, the voice behind Raiden Shogun (her dead twin, Raiden Makoto, and the puppet Raiden Shogun), said she creates a backstory for the characters she auditions for.

“You’re creating a backstory for this character plus the visual, plus the descriptive words and then I kind of just put my roles on it and then see what fits and whatever works best for me is the one I pick for my audition,” Yatco told the crowd at the SMX Convention Center on Sunday.

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Ratana, who voices fox familiar Yae Miko, agreed, adding later on that she and Yatco had to audition for each others’ roles for the hit game.

“We could either not be in it, or we could be with each other. So you just don’t know," Ratana told the crowd packed with cosplayers donning costumes from the game.

Ratana later on said they had to improvise lines, as the game developers gave lines on the fly.

"We went into a booth, they flashed it up on the screen and we say the things [they want us] to say. So you have to be able to make a choice very quickly, "she added.

The duo even imitated their iconic lines, such as Raiden's "Inazuma shines eternal" and Miko's "Right here, right now" -- much to the delight of the crowd -- and answered questions, ranging from how much they earn, to the prospect of having a free five star character in the game.

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These parts contain some spoilers to Genshin Impact’s storyline. Proceed with caution.

 Anne Yatco is the voice behind Raiden Shogun. Mark Demayo, ABS-CBN News; screenshot from Genshin Impact’s trailer
Anne Yatco is the voice behind Raiden Shogun. Mark Demayo, ABS-CBN News; screenshot from Genshin Impact’s trailer

How Anne Yatco voiced the ‘Three Raidens’

Yatco had to voice not one, not two, but three Raidens with strikingly different personalities, converging in Chapter 2 of the Raiden Shogun's story quest.

First, Yatco had to voice Raiden Ei and Raiden Shogun, who exchanged spars and spats in a time-warping battle inside the Plane of Consciousness. Towards the end of the chapter, Ei's dead twin, also voiced by Yatco, manifested herself as a spirit once Ei had come into terms with the right vision in ruling Inazuma.

For the "puppet" Shogun that ruled over Inazuma, Yatco said she had to put up a "cold" voice, while veering away from being robotic. She described the process as putting up a "regal" but "not British" persona to it.

"She’s cold, she’s regal, authoritative. She’s hard, but she’s not a robot so that means she does have feelings, she does have emotions, she does have reactions. So it was treading that line of being very cold and detached but not robotic. That’s not easy," she said.

In voicing the archon Raiden Ei, she had to make it more "conversational and casual" while taking into account the naivete the reigning archon had to deal with.

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"She’s had a lot of naivete to her because she’s been shunned away for 500 years so I like having all those descriptive words in my head as I was reading the lines for each character," Yatco said.

Screenshots from Genshin Impact
Screenshots from Genshin Impact's gameplay and trailer

In voicing Raiden Ei's departed twin, the first electro archon Raiden Makoto, Yatco had to draw a motherly voice, notably different from Ei’s feisty persona as her kagemusha in warfare.

"You have Makoto. She's the warmest. She's the most motherly, she's the most knowledgeable of the world and their ways so she's the wisest of the three," she said, later on calling the reunion as “emotional damage.”

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Yatco was also the voice behind Nobara Kugisaki in the hit anime series "Jujutsu Kaisen," and also walked the audience through how she was able to pull off Nobara's lines, particularly when she does her signature "resonance" move.

"I think it’s fun and I think it’s about the imagination so when I see the footage of the first episode she’s in… And then I had to think about how do you emphasize… like put a little growl in it and that’s the moment of the attack. So it’s making choices that I think tell the story of what’s happening in the moment," Yatco said.

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Ratana, the voice behind Genshin Impact character Yae Miko likened her character to a grown up and mischievous version of Gossip Girl’s Blair Waldorf. Mark Demayo, ABS-CBN News; screenshot from Genshin Impact
Ratana, the voice behind Genshin Impact character Yae Miko likened her character to a grown up and mischievous version of Gossip Girl’s Blair Waldorf. Mark Demayo, ABS-CBN News; screenshot from Genshin Impact

The Lady Guuji, according to Ratana

Yae Miko, the cunning yet sinister [ital] kitsune [end ital] and editor in chief of the Yae Publishing House, could be compared to a grown up yet mischievous version of Blair Waldorf in "Gossip Girl," according to Ratana.

“Like Blair Waldorf but grown up and a puppet master. We just kept playing with that. She is a woman who plays with her food. She knows several steps ahead what’s gonna happen because she’s been around. And her best friend is [Raiden] Ei. So you know she’s seen some things," Ratana said.

"The directors and the writers had so many thoughts.. There are some voice prints that we like and we just workshopped until we found," she paused before following it up with one of the character's signature voice lines -- “Hello little one."

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In Genshin's storyline, Miko schemed with the Traveler (the player) and a bunch of other characters revolting against the vision hunt decree imposed by the puppet Shogun, who ruled over Inazuma, while Raiden Ei locked herself up in the Plane of Euthymia in centuries-long grief over the loss of her friends and loved ones, including sister Raiden Makoto.

The emotion-filled reunion between the two, was Ratana's favorite moment as it finally unearthed Lady Guuji's true emotions and allowed her to let go of her wary personality for just a moment.

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"Like, she kinda keeps her emotions close to her chest. And so I think that was like the warmest and... the veil lifted and they got to see the real Miko there," Ratana said.

Ratana is also the voice behind young Crispin and young Basilio in Netflix series "Trese." She also recalled past roles, particularly that in voicing game characters, such as Chibi Inu Amaterasu of "Smite" and Leone in "Fire Emblem."

With a decorated reputation in voice acting, Ratana had this advice for future voice actors.

"Doesn’t matter what it is, could be the text messages on your phone It could be a book, it could be the words of your favorite manga. Just read out loud every day," Ratana said.

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