Love ‘Genshin Impact’? Their Filipino English VAs are Coming to Manila This Weekend

“Genshin Impact” is an open-world action role-playing game developed by miHoYo, also known as HoYoverse for its global operations. Released in 2020, it grossed more than US$3 billion in its first year, making it the highest-ever first-year launch revenue for any video game. The game is free-to-play and features a gacha (lottery) system where players get random characters and weapons through a wish.

If you’re among the many players who enjoy this game, you’ll be glad to know that you can meet some of their English voice actors (VAs) — who are Filipino by the way! — this weekend at CONQuest Festival 2022. Who exactly? Check out their profiles below.

Anne Yatco

Anne Yatco is the English voice actress of Raiden Shogun, the game’s Electro Archon and a five-star character released during the Version 2.1 update of “Genshin Impact.” According to her website, she also voiced a few non-playable characters (NPCs) like Chisato, Shouta, and Yayoi in the game.

Describing herself as a small-but-mighty Midwesterner, Anne grew up in a Filipino family and has loved performing “by way of karaoke” from an early age. She revealed in an interview that she became interested in voice acting after watching “The Little Mermaid” and wanted to be the voice of a Disney princess.

While that sounds like a nice goal, she pursued something else (while doing theater at school) and graduated with a bachelor’s degree in Biomedical Engineering. Her love for performing didn’t die, though, as she went to graduate school and got a Master of Fine Arts in Acting. From there, she thought that voice acting was something she could do.

If you’re interested in watching her play “Genshin Impact,” she streams on Twitch. 

Christian Banas

Christian Banas is the English voice actor of Thoma, a four-star Pyro character released during the Version 2.2 update of “Genshin Impact.” Similar to Anne, he also voiced a few NPCs like Ben and Crafty (Treasure Hoarder) prior to being cast as Thoma.

His other notable video game roles are Mango Cookie from “Cookie Run: Kingdom,” Beaky Bot Thoth from “SMITE,” and Professor Luchino from “Identity V.”

Although he was born and raised in the United States, he’s actually Filipino. In a tweet, he cleared some claims saying he’s half Filipino and Japanese. “I'm actually like... a huge percentage [F]ilipino lol. Like 85% or something. The other percentage is Taiwanese. First generation immigrant.”

He doesn’t stop at just voicing Thoma, too, because he streams the game on Twitch and uploads the video on demand (VOD) on YouTube. Here’s a video of him trying to pull his character:

Ratana

Ratana Therakulsathit or simply Ratana is the English voice actress of Yae Miko, a five-star Electro character released during the Version 2.5 update of “Genshin Impact.”

A few days after she announced on Twitter that she’ll be voicing Yae Miko, she tweeted about getting comments that she doesn’t look Filipino. Her response to that? Karaoke and lumpia.

Ratana has loved performing growing up, though she describes herself as a “stereotypically ‘good little Asian girl’ of a student” who ended up studying marketing and advertising. She jumped into the corporate world perfecting her analytical skills by day, while also taking classes in dancing, acting, improv, and voiceover by night. Her talents and interests are so diverse you could ask, what can she not do?

Some of her other notable voice acting roles are Leonie from “Fire Emblem: Three Houses,” and Young Basilio, Young Crispin, Young Miranda, and Dr. Petra Gallaga from Netflix’s “Trese.”

Along with Anne, Christian, and Ratana, LilyPichu (who’s the voice of Sayu) will also be joining as one of the “Genshin Impact” voice actor guests this weekend. For more information about CONQuest Festival, visit their website at www.conquestph.com.