Physical Address
304 North Cardinal St.
Dorchester Center, MA 02124
Ute ghost Available now on PS5, players take their first steps into the opulent and dangerous world of Ezo, joining Atsu on her quest to hunt down the Yōtei Six and discover a life beyond revenge. To celebrate the launch and dive deeper into the process of bringing this new hero to life so vividly, we’re joined in the PlayStation Podcast Studio by Atsu’s voice actress Erika Ishii, who also lends her likeness to the character.
Note: The interview has been condensed for clarity and brevity. You can listen to the full interview on The latest episode of the PlayStation PodcastAvailable now.
PlayStation Blog: By the time this interview ends, players will finally have to step into Atsu’s shoes. But for you, the character has been a part of your life for a long time now. So, how long has this been going on and what did those initial conversations with the Sucker Punch Productions team look like?
Erika Ishiri: It’s been almost three years of my life now. I was a huge fan of Tsushima, so it was a lot of pressure on myself and very exciting. I think the first conversations we had were when we shared how interested we were in samurai movies and video games.
PSB: One of the cool things was when I discovered that Cosplay guideI remember seeing you walking around in a costume, and I think it was Ellie (from The Last Of Us) you cosplayed, and now there’s a cosplay guide to show off your face and personality to the PlayStation audience. That should be really exciting.
Erika Ishiri: Yeah, it’s pretty wild, because I feel like a Cinderella story. I was a fan, and I used to cosplay, and, you know, I used to go to release parties, and, you know, now I got to be a part of that. Who knows, maybe someone will cosplay as Atsu or play the game, and years later, they’ll point to Ghost of Yōtei as something that inspired them to start telling their own stories. I mean, this is the dream.
PSB: Speaking of cosplay, there was also a cameo appearance by Astro the robot. You had a little Atsu robot in Astro. What was that like, seeing that for the first time?
Erika Ishiri: There was, of course, a feeling of triumph that you get when you get the Astro robots, and on top of that… I guess I feel like a broken record, but I’m really amazed and honored to have gotten all of this. I’ve played all of Astro Bot, and owned 100% of the bots until this DLC dropped. He’s so cute. Adorable wolf. And yes, it sounds like a surreal fever dream.
PSB: So obviously Atsu not only looks and sounds like you, but what part of Atsu’s identity, in terms of values, relationships, vulnerabilities, what are the things that are most personal to you, and how have you protected that authenticity in your performances?
Erika Ishiri: From our first conversations, we discussed the character, our love, and the homage we wanted to pay to classic samurai films and classic revenge films. She very much has that legacy. As far as I’m concerned, I think Atsu is still young in many ways, certainly emotionally. They didn’t have a cure at the time, and I think Atsu is what happens if I or any of us really give in to those really angry, scary urges. I think Atsu, like most of her emotional core, is afraid and weak. I think, you know, of course, she’s this incredible warrior, and we can play out a kind of samurai fantasy of Dual Katanas and Muskets and Yari. But I also think what really resonated with me about Atsu was her raw emotional core.
PSB: What do you hope players take away from meeting her?
Erika Ishiri: I really want them to have fun playing this game. Because while the story is really compelling — Sucker Punch does the telling like few game studios do — I think there’s something really fun about really living that fantasy out. Yeah, there’s, you know, the emotional character arc, but I just want people to feel empowered. I think I’m also a big fan of Westerns, and that was something we talked about as well: it’s kind of a spaghetti Western samurai movie hybrid — she feels like the lone wanderer, striking a great pose, silhouetted in the saloon door frame. And I want people to be able to kind of live out that cinematic fantasy.
PSB: You’ve inhabited many characters over the years, both in video games and beyond, but with an improv/TTRPG background, how did that help you shape and find Atsu’s character?
Erika Ishiri: One thing about improvisation is that it’s very much about listening and making a strong choice in response to something you hear. And I think that was incredibly instrumental with Atsu because the script, I have the advantage of an amazing script by great writers who wrote for me for Atsu, whereas in Critical Role or something like that, you have to be the writer, the actor, and in some small ways, the producer of your character. So with Atsu, the script is written, but being able to hear it — and hear the other characters react to it and respond to it in an authentic way — I think that’s where a lot of the improvisation and spontaneity comes in. Because you can memorize lines, but the way you say them, in some ways, has to be a surprise to you, because unless you’re a character reciting a speech you’ve memorized, you don’t know what you’re going to say as a character. So I think that’s always been very helpful.
PSB: It seemed like even on first reads, it was pretty intense at times in terms of those scenes, in terms of the levels of emotion. Were there any moments you can remember where your background in improvisation and in actual playing helped you nail those exciting scenes?
Erika Ishiri: It’s very scary. But I keep saying that this is the duality of excitement and fear. You’re literally, you know, wearing a very weak suit. You know, a mocap suit is spandex, and you’re in a white-lined room. And sometimes, it’s just you. If you’re with other actors, you have to be with other actors. But there were some scenes where it was just me and my horse, or I was having an emotional moment, an emotional beat, and when you know, you have to create all those conditions yourself. There’s something in improvisation and in tabletop called scene drawing, where the DM, or sometimes one of the players, will usually describe the scene, and they’ll set up the scene, and they’ll have all the details of that landscape and maybe some props. It’s like black box theater for theatergoers, where you’re just in a room with a bunch of people looking at you. And you know that every minute those cameras capture, you’re alone.
PSB: Have you had the opportunity to look at conceptual art? Was that any visual aid while filming those scenes?
Erika Ishiri: Really huge, thanks so much Sucker Punch. They kept me informed whenever there were writers meetings, and if I had questions about the character or the story, or about what was happening. I can ask them. I had a dialect coach. And conceptual art, the artists are very exceptional in (the studio). We’ve got concept art for locations and characters. He really helped paint that scene.
I’ve been lucky enough to see some of the cinematics as they’re completed, which is unusual for voice acting, because usually you just do your thing and that’s that. But that’s why, since I was there throughout the production process. I should see some progress. I should see some play. This is crucial as a performer because the more data we have to build up this little database in our minds about what the world is like, the more immersive it is for us. And so, yeah, they did a great job of keeping me immersed.
PSB: So the game launches on October 2nd. Where will you find Erika on October 2, how do you rate the launch?
Erika Ishiri: I’ll get together with some of the actors, and we’ll have our own little kind of celebration. Our director, our fearless leader, who did all the voiceover, kind of brings us together. This again, is an unusual project, as I’ve worked with most people. I have to be in the booth or in the mocap folder with a lot of people. And so there’s this camaraderie that we don’t always get in games. And this cast is really something special. They are all incredibly talented. A lot of them are just video game veterans and also video game nerds, but most of them are Asian and Asian American actors, which is something that doesn’t really happen very often. There’s a kind of shared “in the trenches” feeling with us together. So we will celebrate it this weekend.
As for me, I will be out “sick” a lot this week, playing the game. It’s strange: I’ve never played a game on such a large scale with me; gayLike him. I don’t know what it will be like. I don’t know how I will respond. I think outside of the launch and out of the world, meeting Atsu is a bit of a fog of war for me. I guess I have to navigate it, one piece at a time.
