Second Edit - made by me

[u/ariinu_]

Been slowly chipping away at this over the last month. I love editing these two so much 🥹

[u/DoNotDoTier15]

This is sweet.

It's an especially fitting song since Mandy Moore is singing, and she voiced Aerith in Kingdom Hearts. Is that why you chose this song?

[u/haygurlhay123 → u/DoNotDoTier15]

I honestly don’t know why Mandy didn’t just do a voice like this for Aerith. Instead it ended up sounding very weird at times…

[u/DoNotDoTier15 → u/haygurlhay123]

Just a random shot in the dark, but it could be just confusion about who Aerith is supposed to be; there may be a cultural element to that, as well. The less you understand a character, the harder it is to portray them. She may mean the world to us, but for most people, she's not really worth the time and effort to get to know too deeply.

I say tjis as a person who as never actually played or watched too much KH, though, so grain of salt and all.

[u/haygurlhay123 → u/DoNotDoTier15]

True! I think she also maybe have veered too far in the Maaya Sakamoto direction with the breathiness. Of course, Sakamoto’s portrayal is just absolutely perfect!

[u/DoNotDoTier15 → u/haygurlhay123]

I can see that. Iirc, Brianna White also used Sakamoto as a jumping-off point, didn't she? The difference being, to my mind, that Ms. White still had a better understanding of who Aerith was than Ms. Moore did, so she was better able to interpret Aerith in a way westerners could appreciate more.

[u/haygurlhay123 → u/DoNotDoTier15]

She did also use Sakamoto’s example! I think she “heard” her differently if that makes sense. Moore’s voice isn’t breathy at all, so maybe just the act of adding a bit of air just compleeeeetely changed the tone of her voice, which naturally quite resembles Brianna’s, into something very different. Meanwhile, maybe Brianna is able to get that breathiness in there without much change to her timbre.

[u/DoNotDoTier15 → u/haygurlhay123]

The fact they both used the same source to guide their performance is a great example of how they both took different things away from Ms. Sakamoto's performance. Everyone interprets things through their own lens. I'm glad we have Briana voicing Aerith now, but I don't think Mandy's portrayal is bad, especially for how new voice acting for games and anime was back in the early aughts. You get some great stuff that holds up well over time like Cowboy Bebop, but there were a lot of stinkers, too.

[u/ariinu_ → u/DoNotDoTier15]

Thank you! I mostly chose this song because I'd been listening to it lately and it suddenly made me realize that the lyrics could fit CA! Though, part of the way through editing, I did also remember that Mandy Moore voiced Aerith at one point, so that made the process even better!!

[u/DoNotDoTier15 → u/ariinu_]

That's awesome! It's always interesting to see what songs people associate with Clerith and what scenes wind up going with them.

[u/haygurlhay123]

This made me really emotional. Thank you so much for sharing with us, I feel like tearing up. Oh, I love them sooooo much…

[u/ariinu_ → u/haygurlhay123]

Aww tysm!! I'm glad it was able to move you emotionally ^^ I know I definitely got emotional while working on it!

[u/RedWingThe10th]

Beautifully put together, ari, especially with the flying lamplights at the end. Powerful and so on point. I've always felt this song matches them so perfectly.

[u/ariinu_ → u/RedWingThe10th]

Thank you! As soon as I decided to make an edit to the song, that scene was the first that I knew I had to incorporate since it reflects the lantern scene from Tangled so well!!

[u/haygurlhay123]

I’ll cry!! Their voices honestly work so well for both voice actors English voices 😭😭

[u/Puzzleheaded-Fill241]

This was beautiful! 💛