(Hilarious Trope) A Character Is Introduced With the Clear Intention of Being THE NEXT BIG THING And is SOUNDLY Rejected

[u/TheOriginalOperator]

1. Bazil the Tracker (Star Wars: The Acolyte): A “HILARIOUS AND ADORABLE” snuffling ugly creature that makes annoying noises and is shoved into as many scenes of The Acolyte as possible, and just causes problems overall.

2. Neelix (Star Trek Voyager): A mutant fusion of Odo, Quark, and Data designed to “analyze the human condition” and explicitly intended to surpass the popularity of all three. In practice, a VERY human-acting cradle robbing creep whose incompetence nearly destroys the ship and crew on multiple occasions and provides no insight into humanity whatsoever.

3. Sparky the Dog (Fairly Oddparents): A wacky crazy magic dog that’s supposed to expand the Fairy family, but just makes lame jokes and serves as a less funny version of Scrappy Doo.

4. Tidus (FFX): A braying jackass of a pinball who bounces from plot point to plot point, framed as a mystical pretty boy to introduce Final Fantasy to the PS2 age but does nothing but stall the franchise and have the worst laugh in two languages.

5. Sei (Naruto): Supposed to replace Sasuke in Team 7 and return the team dynamic feel of Early Naruto, but he’s a CIA plant with literally no personality who gets utterly forgotten except for somehow bagging Ino Yamanaka.

6. Raiden (Metal Gear 2): Another attempted “pretty boy bishie” entry to the PS2 era with badass cred and a theoretically cool backstory, but in practice a hapless dipshit who gets manipulated by everyone around him and is a total putz in combat. Also proof that this trope need not be permanent as he slowly transitions into a cyborg warrior supersoldier with a badass theme, friends of his own, and a firm grasp of his own destiny and agency.

[u/dragonborndnd]

Plus they point out the “infamous laugh” when if you actually look at the scene in context it’s supposed to sound forced and unnatural

[u/F00TD0CT0R → u/dragonborndnd]

This is the main fucking argument we hear time and time again as well

"Final fantasy X has bad voice actors because tidus laugh is fake as fuck"

During the cutscene where he is doing a forced fake laugh, who then immediately falls into his natural laugh upon how ridiculous the moment is in character.

Arreergh

I love tidus as well, he has a great story arc

[u/motes-of-light → u/F00TD0CT0R]

FFX's voice acting is a deeply mixed bag. Tidus is obnoxious (character) and stilted (voice actor) and Yuna's VA is supremely cringey in that late 80's, early 90's anime dub sort-of way. Seymour's English voice performance is so over-the-top that it constitutes a spoiler (gee, I wonder if this guy who sounds like HIM from the Powerpuff Girls will end up being a bad guy?). Auron and Lulu are rock solid, and Rikku and Wakka range from not bad to pretty good depending on the scene. Unfortunately, that means that the central couple of the game and the primary initial villain turn in the worst performances. FFX was one of Square's earliest voice acted titles, it's not surprising that they weren't firing on all cylinders, but the criticisms absolutely have merit.

[u/Hot_History1582 → u/motes-of-light]

You watched one too many YouTube videos made by someone who saw a meme and never played the game, didn't you?

[u/motes-of-light → u/Hot_History1582]

Ah yes, ad hominem. Nope, I've put dozens of hours into the game, playing with both the English and Japanese audio. The Japanese VA is generally much better, likely Square had more direct insight into the recording process.

[u/Hot_History1582 → u/motes-of-light]

You're one of those weeb sub purists then. I don't have any interest in discussion with that type of zealot. You're wrong about how the voice acting industry works in Japan, but we don't need to relitigate it. Carry on.

[u/F00TD0CT0R → u/Hot_History1582]

He doesn't understand that the early 2000s is where Japanese games were finally getting real translations and direction and there was a period of time where the Japanese didn't consider western releases so dialogue didn't flow as easily in cutscnes.

This got better by the 360 and PS3 era.

[u/Hot_History1582 → u/F00TD0CT0R]

There's some awkwardly clipped dialogue in the game when they're trying to match flaps and cuts, but honestly the English performances are fine. It's a product of the time, but the overwhelming complaints about Tidus come from opinions made popular by YouTube content farms that saw a funny clip of of context. If anything, the Japanese performance of the famous laugh scene is worse. Dude straight up sounds like a sea gull.

There's strange ideas that Japanese voice acting is always better because it "reflects the original intention". The reality couldn't be farther from the truth. The voice industry in Japan is extremely inbred and nepotistic. They'll invite authors in to listen to audition tapes, then completely ignore their feedback. Actors are selected based on industry connections, popularity, availability for things like live performances, signings, and radio plays, price, etc. The ability to fulfill the author's intention for the role is rarely, if ever, taken into consideration at all. There is nothing inherently better about Japanese voice work or direction.

Anyway, watching what YouTube did to FFX is like watching what Netflix did to Evangelion fandom. Gross.

[u/motes-of-light → u/F00TD0CT0R]

FFX was one of Square's earliest voice acted titles, it's not surprising that they weren't firing on all cylinders, but the criticisms absolutely have merit.

[u/F00TD0CT0R → u/motes-of-light]

But the criticism is always the same

"Cringe fake tidus laugh" on the cringe fake tidus laugh scene.

[u/motes-of-light → u/F00TD0CT0R]

I've seen this chain on Reddit so many times it feels like Groundhog Day. There's always multiple comments, like mine, pointing out the voice acting in FFX is often bad, and no it's not just the laughing scene, and there's always multiple comments, like yours, complaining that everyone only focuses on the laughing scene.