Takahiro Sakurai, the seiyuu voicing Cloud Strife inFinal Fantasy 7 Remake, said he prefers Tifa between her and Aerith. In case you needed more material for the next big best girl war.
Final Fantasy 7 Remakeis available, or will be in a few hours depending on your country, on PS4. To celebrate, this week’s Famitsu magazine included a feature on the remake. The feature summarized everything Square Enix revealed prior release. Through the 77 pages of material, Director Tetsuya Nomura and Producer Yoshinori Kitaseshared some new comments as well.Famitsu magazine also included an interview withTakahiro Sakurai,the Japanese voice of Could Strife. He’s among the most popular seiyuu, Japanese voice actresses and actors, with an incredible amount of roles.
In the interview, Takahiro Sakurai shared many interesting anecdotes on his relationship with Cloud. As you might already know, he first voiced Cloud inKingdom Hearts I, released in 2002. Before that, in 2000, Sakurai voiced Sion Barzahd, the protagonist ofThe Bouncer,another game with Tetsuya Nomura’s touch. This is how Takahiro Sakurai got involved with Square Enix, and how he was picked to voiced Cloud.
Takahiro Sakurai also chatted about his own impression ofFinal Fantasy 7 Remake: Overall, he’s impressed with the huge content the game has to offer, and he’s particularly bluffed by the cool battle system. Dubbing is recorded very early in Japanese games' development, meaning he didn’t see much, if anything of the game while he was doing his job. He’s purely judging from the script he saw, and discovered what he knows through the game’s promotional material. Just like any of us. However, he pointed out how even by just reading and acting the script, he saw just how different and how impressive the story of thisRemakeis.
Takahiro Sakurai’s thoughts onFinal Fantasy 7 remake,Cloud, Barret, Tifa, and Aerith
Most of the rest of the interview deals with Cloud’s differences between his various iterations: the original game, theRemake, Advent Children, Kingdom Hearts… In a nutshell, Takahiro Sakurai mentioned how they are all different, so he voiced them differently as well.Just like Tetsuya Nomura in another interview, he also stressed out Cloud in theRemakeisn’t cool but lame. He also pointed out Barret’s personality became hyper.
And here’s the funniest part of the interview and why you probably clicked on this article for:
Famitsu:“In theRemake, players control Cloud doing exploration, but you can switch to the other party members during battles. Which character will you use the most? I guess Cloud, right?”
Takahiro Sakurai:“No… I’ll use Tifa (laughs). I like Tifa.”
Famitsu:“Which one you like the most between Aerith and Tifa?”
Takahiro Sakurai:“Definitely Tifa (laughs). Since the original game, I’ve always liked Tifa the most. I wouldn’t admit it to Maaya Sakamoto though (laughs). In theRemake, Tifa feels and looks even more like a strong woman. Meanwhile, Aerith gives off a stronger feminine and delicate vibe than ever, so there’s an interesting contrast between the two.”
Maaya Sakamotois the seiyuu voicing Aerith. Tetsuya Nomura talked about this contrast between Aerith and Tifa’s designs and personalitiesin another interview we covered.
A few weeks ago, Dengeki Online published another interview with Takahiro Sakurai. This interview covered more or less the same themes as the Famitsu one.you may read about it here.Be sure to check ourwritten review ofFinal Fantasy VII Remakeas well.Nomura also shared apretty cool Cloud illustration for theRemake’slaunch.
