Yosano Haru
Award Winning
Japanese
Voice Actor
"I had never lived outside Japan, and I had learned English through the standard Japanese education system. Performing a leading role in English meant facing one challenge after another.
Until then, I had assumed that my Japanese accent would be treated as a flaw — something I would need to correct or erase.
But the team at JOGO Games, who created the project,
and the voice director,
Stephanie Garrido, saw it differently.
They valued both my accent and the cultural perspective I brought to Xero as a Japanese performer.
Stephanie recorded pronunciation guides for me, and the team welcomed ideas rooted in Japanese language and culture.
The project gave me far more than another credit on my résumé.
It changed how I understood my own voice. My accent and cultural background were not simply things to work around. They could also be part of what made the performance specific to me.
When I pressed the record button for that first Japanese audition, I had no idea it would lead to performing the role in two languages — or to seeing my own voice differently."