Echo’s Voice Actress, Jeannie Bolet is not Singaporean! Jeannie is Chinese/French and Vietnamese and is from Liverpool, UK. Dr. Mina Liao is a Singaporean scientist, making Echo also Singaporean through her adaptive learning and all these years she spent with Dr.Liao.
The reason why I know this information is because the voice lines she does are not even pronounced right. I’ve also done more research and many people from Singapore don’t even have British accents!? But even if that wasn’t true, Jeannie Bolet (VA for Echo) isn’t even from Singapore.
UPDATE I think Blizzard worked hard on Echo’s kit and design. Props.
UPDATE Jialat and Amalak are not offensive terms. Apologies.
UPDATE Some theorize Echo is not Singaporean, others believe it’s just voice acting.
You must find a Singaporean VA! Because this isn’t even real. She’s not from Singapore? How can she pretend like she knows what she’s talking about in her phrases/voice lines? Blizzard, please explain. Justice for Echo.
Conclusion I’ve read many posts on this page. In the end of the day, it’s my opinion. What I choose to stand for and say is merely up to me. The Overwatch Community always has something to say about heroes in the game, so how is it any different from what I’m saying? It’s called voicing an opinion. I’m not calling out the VA, I’m just stating the facts that are there. Thank you for those who gave some insight and clarification on Echo’s past and her creator and I appreciate those who are from Singapore who informed me that these phrases aren’t offensive.
Here’s a link to an article on Mashable:
4 Likes
Sombra’s voice actress isn’t Mexican but she does amazing work as Sombra.
Hanzo’s voice actor doesn’t speak Japanese so they even struggled to record his iconic Ult line. He still sounds great.
Echo is a robot meant to mimic and learn from those around her. She isn’t really Liao so if she pics up a random accent or messes up a pronunciation it’s as if she’s really “learning.”
94 Likes
Reinhardt’s VA doesn’t even speak german.
Come on people…
65 Likes
im pretty sure genjis VA speaks Japanese lmao I was gonna try and relate
and?
it’s a voice
anyone can make a voice, regardless of where they’re from
14 Likes
The whole point of voice acting, and acting in general, is to portray someone you are not. Stop being so childish.
33 Likes
Jonny Cruz (Lucio) isn’t Brazilian.
Keith Silverstein (Torbjorn) isn’t Swedish-- Torb doesn’t even speak Swedish once in his lines.
It’s just who they think is best suited to do the lines.
31 Likes
Torb? Rein? Mercy? Pharah? Doomfist? Zarya? Zenyatta? Hog? Junkrat? Lucio?
35 Likes
Multiple VAs aren’t from the culture of the hero. And frankly the human character VAs mispronouncing something is more “offensive” than Echo. Echo is a hero that least needs to sound like the country she’s from, alongside Zenyatta, because they are robots and weren’t designed to mimic anyone from their homelande (unlike Orisa).
2 Likes
I have spent months living in Singapore. Almost everything is in English there, everyone is speaking English primarily and Malay is second. The accent they have is closer described as British, as that’s their linguistic influence, than it would be to another dialect imo.
6 Likes
I just think she needs more lah at the end of her sentences.
Also I think her pronunciation for Alamak, Jalat and Shiok(sp?) are not quite on the spot, according to a post I read yesterday.
2 Likes
Torbjörn’s voice actor isn’t Swedish, if my memory isn’t failing me.
Well I dunno where you’re getting your sources from, but your lah sentiment isn’t too far off. I haven’t heard too many of Echoes voice lines but punctuating speech with ‘lah’ is super common.
Using Google translate, Jialat and Alamak in Malay (one of the spoken languages in Singapore) gets “Damn it” and “Oh my God” respectively. You do realize almost every character says “Damn it” when they get discorded right? This is a T for Teen game, not E for Everyone.
It would also make sense as Liao was killed, and most likely had some choice words to say as that was happening. Echo would have recorded anything good or bad she would have said.
And I don’t know anyone from Singapore to confirm pronunciation of if Google Translate is even correct in this instance. It notoriously messes things up.
As others have said, Sombra, Torbjorn, and Reinhardt are not actors from the heroes’ respective countries, but they still do fine. As far as I knew Torbjorn was meant to be a joke stereotype of Swedish-English, which is why we later got Brigitte to be more accurate.
6 Likes
I would like to add, when I was in Singapore, I visited a gaming cafe at the top of a mall, I think it was Bugis, and everyone was playing Overwatch. This was spring 2017.
I love echos VA I think she did great. It’s not like Singaporean VAs come out of no where
You’re just making people who ask for actual representation in media look utterly ridiculous and silly, to the point where I can’t tell if you’re trolling or not.
There are so many reasons why a robot created by someone in a fictional universe wouldn’t have a nationality, on top of the fact that nothing in her lore implies that Echo herself would be ‘Singaporean’ - her doctor creator is. Plus, it’s VOICE ACTING, you know, ACTING, that thing that people can do?
Asking for real representation is IMPORTANT, but what you’re asking for is so over the top and an extreme exaggeration of representation that it makes the entire idea look unachievable. You’re making it look bad by asking for this really niche, tiny, weird little thing, don’t you see that?
It’d be like if women sufferagette’s chief complaint was that men got bigger portion sizes at dinner, rather than the fact that they couldn’t own property or vote. There’s kinda… other, bigger, more REAL fish to fry here, don’t you think?
6 Likes
Gaku Space is from Japan, so 
He’s also really hot. lol
5 Likes
You do realize that Russian players have nothing but bad things to say about Zarya’s VA and the way she speaks Russian? Apparently it’s way off, but the VA tried her hardest.
1 Like