Compared with the lofty status of FFX itself in the game industry, the lack of encounters with its main character voice actors is a significant contrast.
In 2001, at the age of 16, Marika Matsumoto was chosen as the voice actress for the role of "Ulke" in FFX. Although the lack of experience and skill in dubbing by the model inevitably brings the emotional emptiness of the character commonly known as "stick reading", her own transparent and beautiful sound quality, combined with the innocent "alien girl" identity of Tulke, has added a special and unique temperament to it.
Matsumoto's journey into the acting world is typical: in 1997, he was spotted by a scout on the streets of Takeshita-dori, a bustling street in Harajuku, Tokyo, and became a magazine model, then began to work on various auditions and began his career as an actor in 2000 by starring in a television series for the first time.
As can be seen from the voice acting of FFX, The voice traits of Marika Matsumoto are quite prominent even among the many full-time voice actors, but she is not a full-time voice actress after all. For theatrical performance, this unique voice has become an obstacle. At that time, she repeatedly auditioned for her dream morning drama, but there was always no follow-up; later, from the side of the agent, she learned that the discrepancy between her voice and the role had always been the direct cause of her failure.
The lack of drama career made her have to focus her work on the voice actress career, but the voice actor industry was not as hot as it was in contemporary times, so she lacked enough visibility to get few voice actor jobs. In terms of the connection with the game, the only thing worth mentioning is probably "Farona of the Firmament". Since this game is a robot animation, her debut 3DS work "Super Robot Wars UX" has also become one of her few experiences in dubbing the game.
The voice actor's own lack of encounters is even more evident in the roles he plays. For example, in the mobile game "DISSIDIA FINAL FANTASY OPERA OMNIA" launched in 2017, which integrates many FF characters, there is no appearance of sulfur grams. At the beginning of this year, Japan's NHK Television held a series of FF referendum activities and announced the results of the vote in the form of a commemorative program. Although FFX undoubtedly topped the popularity charts, as one of the voice actors of the game's important characters, Matsumoto Marika said that no one mentioned the matter to her, but did not learn about it through the Internet until after the show was broadcast. For the audience of FFX, this is really difficult to accept.
Of course, the direction of development in the entertainment industry is difficult to predict. In the second half of this year, Japan suddenly rose a wave of admiration for the "heart machine girl", before the top two female anchors in the national popularity list, Tamami Naomi and Ayaka Hironaka's exclusive program "How about a little heart machine", followed by the idol group Hi xiang saka 46's new single "Careful Machine is also cute". In this trend, Matsumoto Marika, who has a unique voice, finally has a "place to use" and has begun to attract attention, and then frequently appears on the screen. It's just that this year she's 35 years old.
In a recent interview show, the producers did not shy away from summarizing her acting career so far as 18 years of encounters. This is true, but it is not surprising. However, compared to the other heroine of FFX, the heroine in the strict sense, this encounter has at least ushered in the end of this day.
In contrast, Yuna's actor Yuko Aoki (the reason why she uses "actor" is because she is also responsible for Yuna's motion capture in addition to dubbing), in the not so long voice actor career, the unique experience of dubbing the heroine of national works has become her only contact with public perception, so after she chose to retire in 2006, Mu FFX's name and interest in the voice actor of the game character always asked the reason for her retirement, which evolved into malicious speculation.
Obviously, as mentioned earlier, the obscurity of the voice actors of the two main characters is far from proportional to the extremely high popularity of FFX; but in the contemporary era, talking about a popular work cannot avoid the topic of behind-the-scenes participants. Thus, in the introduction of the same series after FFX, the voice actor problem constitutes an unspeakable side.
In fact, in the 2008 PSP platform's spin-off work "Final Fantasy Controversy", Yuna's non-appearance was interpreted by players as influenced by the voice actor's own retirement. Although Yuna was able to appear in the 2011 sequel Final Fantasy Clash 012, Aoki, who is no longer in the industry, seems to be involved in it as a person - this lack of stable connection with the character is probably not what players want to see.