She is meant to be mischievous as fox spirits in asian myths are usually depicted as such. Also she combines both the old ways her grandmother taught her and the modern ways her mother taught her.
For me her personality is just something to get used to in time. I don’t expect any of you to share these thoughts with me.
She is meant to be mischievous, but she just comes off as inconsistent between her three appearances, and her VA sounds bored in the booth recording these lines. I’ve gotten used to it but I still think its badly done.
The definitely feels like she’s two different people. Her voicelines are perky and reverent, while her interactions are bored and annoyed. I think Blizzard changed direction on what they wanted Kiriko to be and it ended up with this mismatched set of voice lines.
It doesn’t help that she sounds like the Tiktok voice-over robot.
I thought exactly the same thing:
- cinematic: a little impulsive but affectionate. an anime-style girl;
- short story: a very thoughtful “sensei” on how to move before acting;
- Game: wary, slightly presumptuous;
hate to say it but despite the great Jpop appeal… Kiriko has had a bad job of consistency in her media, and it is even more serious than what we perceived in the past for D.Va between her public figure and her private figure .
and maybe this is the problem: make her a presumptuous and rebellious girl for the new generation or responsible and respectful of the old generation? it annoys me a lot to see in Kiriko a very poorly mixed combination in two extremes and never in an optimal middle ground, I have very few vocal lines in which you can “guess” that it is the same kiriko of the cinematic (perhaps the best).
depending on the dubbing it is very different, I think it is a matter of vocal timbre. But the original voice actor did an excellent job in cinematic, I’m sorry that I don’t feel the same natural feeling enough in game. the voicelines proposed in season 2 give the worst of kiriko’s grumpiness.
I feel like Kiriko suffers from something a lot of the characters tend to suffer from, which is that there are so many different people writing her who all have their own take on her that it gets lost in translation when you try and join them all up to a single, unified vision of her character.
So a character who is supposed to be a little cheeky, but ultimately level headed and kind gets twisted up by three different writing teams (Cinematics, short stories and in-game) who all select different bits of her character to use as the primary, defining trait.
It happens with D.VA too. Cinematic D.VA is a moody soldier, in-game D.VA is a little gremlin and comic D.VA sits somewhere in the middle. It’s a pretty odd phenomenon.
I agree on the Kiriko defense. I love the character and her personality. I believe they conveyed the character very well, and I don’t find her boring or lacking delivery at all.
I think the biggest issue with the character is that many of us in the West won’t catch the humor or the personality of the character because of the cultural disconnect.
To understand Kiriko you have to understand that Genji and Hanzo are both from a criminal family. Their personalities are less refined, less traditional, and more independent to their own ideals which is something we here in the West can relate to.
But even Genji can be seen as lacking personality because he was trained by the Shambali Monks.
Kiriko on the other hand; was trained her whole life by her mother and grandmother to be disciplined in her art. This discipline is supposed to convey the traditions of the Samurai and for many of us, we will never truly understand the effort that the traditional Japanese culture imposed on themselves to break the young warrior of all external influence and center themselves.
Traditional Japanese culture is soft spoken and their words are well thought out. They have trained to free their minds of negative emotion that will burden their soul and come between them and their art. This was Kiriko’s mother’s teachings. Still mind even in turbulent wind. Body that flows like the subtle waves of the ocean crashing upon the sand. Solid footing that ground yourself and remember your being. And a will of fire that burns through the soul like a toppled paper lantern in the wind.
This training would make a very reserved individual and give a character a disciplined demeanor, though Kiriko’s grandmother was not a Samurai, she was a respected medicine women providing her people with emotional, spiritual and physical healing. She likely seen war and bloodshed throughout her life and felt that her friends and family needed something more, something only the Fox spirit can provide them.
But because Grandma was a fortune teller; a gypsy, and mom was a respected martial arts instructor, Mom didn’t approve of Kiriko diving into Grandma’s believes. For mom, the way of the sword is the only way to keep yourself safe. No Fox spirit can stop bullets and bring back the dead (in her mind.) thus she was tough on Kiriko, even tougher on Kiriko than she was with Genji or Hanzo. Kiriko’s mother was forced to train the Shimada. This comes at a time when the people of Kanazaka Japan were at war with their own people. So Kiriko was disciplined in her mother’s art and her mother attempted to break her spirit to keep her safe.
The Lore we know
But this came to a head in Kiriko’s teen years. Kiriko found herself being more and more rebellious. Kiriko often followed Genji in petty theft and skipping class to play at Genji’s arcade we all know very well if we have played the Hanamura map.
It was her father’s forced enlistment that finally broke the young Kiriko and started her on her own path of discipline. Here is her father’s letter (Taken from PlayOverwatch Twitter) :
[CORRESPONDENCE] As winter leads to spring, let me write a letter of lightness. Perhaps it will grant us both a little peace, even as I turn my blade to keeping the peace here from shattering altogether. – Asa
Kiriko went back to train with her mother, this time with the Fox spirit guiding her!