The king of characters and beyound

http://art-eater.com/2011/12/king-of-characters/

After re-reading a pretty good article about kof XIII characterization ( http://art-eater.com/2011/12/king-of-characters/ ), i started thinking about some things regarding kof voice act role in it.

Looking closer, some of thema really aren't straight foward, having a lot of twists and details:

Robert Garcia for example have a big deal of "smothness" in his tone, that is complemented by the melodic, almost singing Kansai accent. It resonates a lot with his appearence, reinforcing his potray as easy going, with a certain sexual conotation. A good example of this are the lines " Donai shitan ya?" and "Ma zatto konnai mon ya?".

Sie Kensou uses the same dialect, but his voice tone gives it a completely different atmosphere. While it's still gives him a atmosphere of easy going/playfullness, the sexual air is gone, giving place to pure younthfull cherfullness.

Incidentely, Chin uses a little of it too, going in the same line of showing of that he don't take things seriously. He's just too drunk.

Kyo Kusanagi uses a lot of "unrefined"/"delinquent" linguo, and his tone reinforce it.
It's very on line with Yuyu Hakusho potray of Yusuke Urameshi/Kuwabara, i'm not sure but i think it's tokyo-ben. While Kyo try to give it a more easy going/mocking tone, he can't hide the raw aggressiveness/unrefinement of someone that can't keep a cool head. This can be saw too as a sign of youthfulness.

Yagami and Vice are similar to Kyo, but with some twists.
Iori lower tone, with fewer and slower words makes him keep the act of mocking and cool headed better. But by the end of the day, he's fighting at every moment to keep this coolness.

Vice uses the same "delinquent" lingo that exaltate the agressiveness, but she playfully adds a childish tone in some phrases. She knows this will be noticed to be a fraud at an eyebat, but keep on doing it as a playfull person that simply don't care.

Choi have a very interesting act. His voice tone and the shiga dialect (marked by the auxiliary verb ansu/yansu) marks a very theatrical act as "friendly" or even "comical". Most of the time it's ambiguous how much is and act to conceal his wickedness/sadism (that he had as a criminal) or if he really has changed to a friendly person.

Shermie and Athena keep an act as "idols" too. While Shermie uses a more laid back and sexually sugestive tone, Athena does everything to appear "cute". Incidentally, Athena act is breaked when she's putted in difficult situations...like when kyo asks if she's isn't too old for using school uniforms or when kensou declares himself for her in the first games (later on she is able to keep up her act in this situation).

Yuri is kind of the reverse, specially in cvs2. She tries her best to imitate her father and brother serious/cocky tone and even body language....but she can't hide her natural cuteness/childness, that's simply too strong.

King is a similar case. She is a strong woman, but very caring and considerate too. But during the fights, she uses a low, slow mocking tone. Almost every line she says is a cold, calculated isult.

Kasumi tries to mantain a well mannered, reserved act...but she have the side of a cocky fighter confident in her abilities that will simply burst out of control very easily. Kim is kind of similar to her.

Kagura is one of the most interesting for me. She uses a extremely well mannered act, pontuated with cold irony and disdain. But some of her lines make it clear that this is an act that she create to press the opponent psychologically.

Goernitz in the other hand uses a even more refined speach, full of pretentiousness. And his ironic-mocking tone is way sharper than kagura, and it isn't a act to hide his uncertainties: he really mean it. He do feels himself as a superior being.


Chris
One of the transliterations to chinese can be readed as "little snake" (while orochi is the "big snake")
Young appearence, beeing the least flashy in the band (drummer) and always absent minded while his partners are fighting  (in the background listening to music with earphones and looking at the ground) and cheerfull to friends gives him the image of "innocence".
But there's something strange/twisted in him. In the intro vs anyone except shermie and yashiro he would say "oh no, this one looks strong". But while admitting that almost everyone is strong, he don't fight with strenght, but with speed. And he really- looks down on people speed- both in the legs and in the head. One cool touch is that he moonwalks in the backwalk animation.
So what happens when someone like this actually receive strenght (orochi powers)? He starts to openly look down in literally everyone.

the king of characters- yamazaki

The crouching/coiling dragon.

and my favorite one: Ryuuji Yamazaki. I think he's the most interesting character of fatal fury series.

In his introduction (fatal fury 3), he first appears as a challenger in the midle of the arcade mode, but don't use any special move and run away after losing 1 round.

This is part of an act, he wants you to believe he's a petulant "all-talk", a small fry between criminals. Before running away, he throws false information at the heroes, putting Mai (and by consequence Andy) against Terry.

Later on, he takes the opportunity of Geese keeping Terry with full hands to deal with Hon-Fu. Rather than killing him, he injured him enought to take Cheng out of the scene (as he had to take Hon-FU to a hospital to save him).

This creates the perfect situation: he taked out of the match Andy, Mai and Cheng without even having to fight them. And Terry was worn-out because of his consecutives fights with Andy, Mai and Geese.

At this point, his act drastically change. He become more petulant than ever, but with a strong twist of madness.

This change was acheaved with his more glamorous coat, and the voice act of his special moves having a high, piercing tone.

In kof, his powers are atributed to beeing part of orochi lineage. So there he end up overlapping a lot with Iori. But his faked, manipulative nature is still preserved.