Miriam voice actress? o.o

As long as we're still talking about this, my two cents.

I normally stick with Japanese dialogue.  But I make the occasional exception, for various reasons.  Given that Belgrade will be in this game in some capacity, plus the not entirely unrelated fact that I played SotN in English back in the day, I will probably go with English the majority of the time, in this case.

Now, I need to rant a bit.  English voice acting is, on the whole, poor.  There are very good reasons for this, from Hollywood soaking up most of the available talent, to the unavoidable truth that the overwhelming majority of media that appeals to English-speaking populations is already in English, resulting in a miserable pool of voice actors.  That is one factor.  Also, since the topic is Miriam's voice, I feel compelled to bring up my other gripe: Western female voices are almost always lower in timbre and considerably lower in pitch than the original Japanese voices they are meant to replace.  It's partly a physical inevitability and partly a speech habit - starting sometime in the latter 20th century, women in the West began to habitually talk at the lowest register their voices could handle, without realizing they were doing it.  These days, many Western women speak with an annoying "vocal fry" that you cannot un-hear, because their voices are simply going too low.  I think I've made my point.

The TL;DR of that is that I fully expect any hypothetical dub of Miriam's voice to be older-sounding than the Japanese original, unless special care is taken to avoid this typical outcome.  Not only would the voice need to be chosen with care, but the voice actress would need to be specifically instructed to try to match the vocalizations of the original speaker, rather than simply read a few lines in whatever voice comes naturally.

And with all that being said, while it would be great if this is how things turned out, ultimately I will not be personally bothered if Miriam's English voice ends up being a poor replacement.  Such things can be modded.  For example, I can and will alter the pitch of a given voice myself, just as I have done with a few other games.  In the worst case scenario, I can simply replace the dub with the Japanese original for Miriam alone.

I'll stand by what I said.  As a case-in-point, if you happen to be watching Re-Zero, picture in your mind just what it would take for an English voice cast to be able to convincingly dub the most recent episode (that would be 15).  I'm going to tell you right now: It would be comical.  The demands of that episode are quite simply beyond any possible established English voice talent you could name.  Keep it generic and cartoony, and you're in business. Require some acting chops and you're asking for trouble.  Meanwhile, the far more robust Japanese seiyuu industry has got you covered with no trouble whatsoever.  It's just a fact of how the two entertainment industries differ in talent distribution.

Which is why my chosen case-in-point mostly features dramatic and emotional elements which cannot be pigeonholed as culturally unique.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but I did specify a particular episode.

Anyway, I changed my mind. It wouldn't be comical, because the cringe would make that impossible.

How good is your Japanese? Are you fluent? Because my experience has been those who sing the praises of the "glorious Nippon!" and decry the quality and talent of English voice acting in broad, sweeping strokes often don't actually speak Japanese very well (maybe this doesn't apply to you I dunno but boy does it describe most of those people I've encountered). This isn't the 90s anymore. You can critique specific actors/actresses/directors/studios/whatever but English dubbing overall has made leaps and bounds over the years and consistently produces superlative work. Recent dubs like Kill la Kill, Fate/Zero, Space Dandy have absolutely knocked it out of the park to say nothing of classics like the well known Cowboy Bebop. Hell even TERRIBLE shows like Sword Art Online have gotten good dubs recently. Saying "Show X has a bad dub" is fine though debatable depending on the show. Saying English dubbing as a whole or overall is bad is just wrong.

I'm also concerned (and perhaps a bit weirded out?) that something that bothers you, so much so that you are interested in modding, is a critique of pitch. One of the worst aspects of Japanese dubbing is the tendency for women to speak in abnormally high pitches. Such characters or roles can often time border on insufferable. I'm not entirely sure if its down to an over-emphasis on being cute/moe or maybe a bit of latent cultural sexism or whatever  but it certainly isn't always appropriate or good to listen to. Not every single English VA is a perfect fit for a Japanese VA but then again not every Japanese VA is a perfect fit for their character either. That's why you get people, even long time anime fans, saying sometimes they like an English VA/performance over a Japanese VA/performance.

With Miriam's English VA, the goal shouldn't be to try to match the Japanese but rather do the best work that is fitting for the character. Ideally you'd think they would be the same but sometimes that hasn't been the case in VA work. As I've said before, I'd much prefer Miriam was a person with a personality and not just some brooding, stoic character but I'm going to be annoyed if her JP VA sounds like its inhaling helium (a bit of hyperbole ) or "uguu"ing all over the place. Thankfully, there are female Japanese VAs that can do personality + badass so hopefully they choose one of them <3

He was actually the thing I specifically didn't mean.  I mean the performances of pretty much everyone else who had anything to do in the show.  So I'll tell you what.  Find me a clip of a non-cringe effort to dub
and I will use that to gauge how wrong I've been about English rent-a-dubs.

Good enough that I don't think twice unless it's going to literally be 75%+ reading.

Let's be clear on this one.  It's mostly a critique of accuracy.  If a character is a teenager and looks like a teenager, she probably sounds like one too, in Japanese.  There aren't enough female English voices out there to be picky, and the brutal fact of the matter is that almost none of them can make themselves sound like anything but a 30-something trying to sound younger.

It helps to recognize that almost every single anime made in the last decade+ has been made for and almost exclusively features characters of schoolgoing age.  If you go back far enough - and I'm talking the early 80s - this is manifestly not the case.  I'm not defending this - hell, I could go for more Space Adventure Cobra.  Just saying what is.  Second thing to bear in mind is the aforementioned observation that female voices in Japan are higher in pitch and timbre in the first place; it's what they're used to and not what we're used to.

Going to have to disagree on this point, but again, I have solutions on standby so it's ultimately just a matter of personal convenience and perhaps a concern about the shared experience.

Precisely.  Bloodstained looks like it's aiming to be just as down-to-earth as Castlevania has always been, so a comically high-pitched voice would be utterly out of place and is thus essentially impossible.  Miriam looks like she's supposed to be about 17, but there's nothing visual to suggest she has arbitrarily become Warrior Woman after undergoing her ritual, so I expect a neutral, demure voice.  I still pretty much guarantee you that the hypothetical English voice will be about three or four semitones lower.

Slightly off topic i know but are we gonna get the choice in options menu for japanese w/ subtitle, or is it only english language version that will be available to us westerners?

Taken from BS's Kickstarter campaign FAQ: