[gamescom asia 2023] Voice of Luocha, Bailu, Clara & Seele of Honkai Star Rail Embrace Their Simple Destructive Side to Follow Daddy Nanook 

What makes a character memorable is not only the visual designs and backstories but also their voice and Honkai Star Rail has some amazing talents in bringing these characters to life.

Having opened its doors just earlier this year, HoYoverse’s space epic quickly garnered a passionate fan base, each with their own favorite characters and many would attribute their love for certain characters because of the voice acting. Indeed, Honkai Star Rail has a diverse cast of characters each with a unique voice, ranging from the cheerful March 7th to Blade’s rougher tone.

During our time at gamescom asia 2023, we got a fortunate chance to catch up with some of the voice actors of Honkai Star Rail, namely Craig Lee Thomas (Luocha), Su Ling Chan (Bailu), Emily Sun (Clara), and Molly Zhang (Seele), and have a fun chit-chat.

The voice cast certainly knew how to liven up the mood as they shared jokes and laughs throughout our conversation. Without further ado, here is our fun exchange with the voices of Luocha, Bailu, Clara, and Seele.

Character Hangouts

The first question we asked the cast was how they would like to spend their time hanging out with the characters they voiced if they got the chance.

Almost immediately and without hesitations, Molly responded to the question jokingly by saying, “Go to the mines! Manual labor!” Noting that she absolutely wouldn’t mind joining Seele at the Great Mine of Jarilo-VI to dig up Geomarrow.

“What a diplomatic answer. I like that,” said Craig.

For Emily, she said, “I think I would take Clara to an amusement park. She has definitely never done that before.” A rather wholesome answer as Clara is an orphan child who grew up on a planet covered in frost, so a fun time at the amusement park will surely change her life. 

Of course, Su Ling was quick to point out that Clara would need to wear shoes, but Emily counter-responded with, “We can go to a waterpark” and laughed.

In the case of Bailu, Su Ling said “I would go eat with Bailu because she wants to eat and I love to eat, and Singapore is a food country. Off we go to Lau Pa Sat.”

A fitting choice as the adorable dragon girl Bailu is quite a foodie and Lau Pa Sa is a huge food court in the Central Area of Singapore, almost like Aurum Alley at Xianzhou.

Lastly, Craig said that he would love to have a spa day with Luocha, adding “You know, hair care treatment. Go shopping. I think that would be really nice.”

Molly then laughed and told Craig “You don’t have as much hair so it would not take you as long.” 

However, Craig said that he would be waiting around a lot since Luocha has long silky blonde hair. Then, Su Ling responded with “You will be aging far by the end of that. All that hair.” 

Letting out a laugh, Craig replied “Exactly. I want all of that! I want to accentuate the Luocha!”

The VA’s Chosen Aeons & Paths

Keeping on with fun questions, we then asked them which Aeons or Paths they would pick for themselves.

Emily started first by saying “I will say Clara is Destruction and I think that fits me as well.” 

The others then soon follow, each saying that they want to follow the Path of Destruction. “I am converted. I will change religion to that one,” said Molly. 

“Why do you have to take my answer? I was gonna say Nanook as well,” responded Su Ling. 

As Molly put it, “Unison across the board. We are simple creatures.” 

Craig then added “I think we are all pretty destructive. If today is anything to go by.”

As everyone laughed, we asked once more if everyone was in favor of Nanook, and everybody shouted “Yes! Daddy Nanook!” with absolute joy.

Seele as Jing Yuan?

We later asked the cast if there were any characters they would love to lend their voice to, aside from characters they have voiced.

Again, Molly is the quickest to answer and without hesitation said that she would love to voice Jing Yuan, “He’s hot!”

“Anyone gonna contest me on Alejandro Saab’s character? No, okay. Jing Yuan! I think I will do a great job.”

The cast then went back and forth, discussing the lines that Jing Yuan said when casting his ultimate.

Of course, to lighten up the atmosphere, the cast also started doing some voice impressions of the characters they had chosen.

While trying to recall Jing Yuan’s lines, Molly expressed that he has too many wisdom lines and proceeded to imitate him by quoting Forrest Gump instead, “Life is like a box of chocolates.” 

Leading to everyone in the room bursting out in laughter. Molly then added, “His other lines are too complicated.”

As everyone was having a fun time laughing and trying to do a Jing Yuan impression during his Ultimate animation, Molly stood by her Forrest Gump quote and said “But life is like a box of chocolates should have been his ultimate.” 

For Craig, he chose March 7th but he insisted on not impersonating her as he noted, “I don’t imitate March 7th anymore because I get made fun of every time I imitate March 7th. In the game, and also in real life.” 

Meanwhile, Su Ling chose Blade and started to act as angsty as him, “I think he’s great and his line… Don’t heal me!”

Molly chimed in with a joke about Sasuke Uchiha from Naruto, noting that both Blade and him are equally angsty, and added “Is my eyeliner straight?”

While everybody was having a good time laughing, Su Ling made an impression of Blade and shouted, “Where is DAN HENG!”

Leaning into the joke about angsty boys, Emily told Su Ling, “Then I will be the Dan Heng to your Blade. So that way we could have a big face-off. First, we were children and now we are angsty men.”

Another Cover? 

Speaking of Dan Heng, his voice actor Nicholas Leung did a cover of “Interstellar Journey” alongside other Honkai Star Rail voice cast shortly after the game’s launch, gaining quite a fanfare in the community. Taking this opportunity, we decided to ask whether there are plans for another Honkai Star Rail song cover from the voice actors, such as one for “Wildfire”.

At first, the cast was very hesitant about the idea of another song cover as both Emily and Su Ling noted that there was a lot of work put into the project. However, Molly said “It will happen. Just don’t ask when.” 

Craig then joined in the conversation and said that he wanted to have a shot at it since he was not in the initial cover song because Luocha was not part of the launch roster, saying “I hope they do it ‘cause I wasn’t announced yet. So I’m not in the first one.” 

Upon hearing Craig, the others jumped on and were willing to do another one just for him. “Just to have you in it, we will do it. You don’t even show up in Belobog for the Wildfire song. But, self-insert! I will make the story happen,” said Molly. 

While canonically, Luocha did not show up in the fight against Cocolia, Emily suggested that they could justify him being part of the song as Luocha is a traveling merchant.

They then jokingly questioned Craig about Luocha’s sales catalog, asking “What do you sell? Bodies?”

Craig smugly replied, “Don’t worry about it.”

Given Nicholas Leung’s effort in making the first cover a reality, the cast gave him a big shoutout and Molly reminisced about her experience and said, “He made us sound a lot better. We joke that the raw lines, the raw recording. If that ever gets leaked to the public. It’s blackmail material. We do not sound good in the raw material. But he made it work!”

Love from the Fans 

With the player base of Honkai Star Rail growing at a steady rate and the passionate community being extremely active on social media and online forums. We asked the Honkai Star Rail voice cast how they feel about seeing so much love the fans have put into the characters, from cosplays to fan art.

Upon hearing the question, they all expressed gratitude and Emily highlighted “I think the fact that this game has such as big global reach is really awesome. Like, everyone is so creative. People would tag us on Twitter and Instagram all the time. It’s really humbling to just see how much love there is for the game and also for us.”

As part of gamescom asia 2023, the voice actors were also having a meet-and-greet session with the fans and they expressed how excited they are to meet up with everyone.

“There’s been a lot of people that say that the game is really important to them. It gives them an escape, or how they really identify with the story. And that always hit me really hard.” said Craig.  

Molly added, “Yeah. Some of us stream too. So, we often have people coming in, talking about the characters and stuff. It was really cool.”

For those unaware, aside from voice acting, some of the cast members also stream live regularly and Molly has been streaming on Twitch.

The Forbidden Knowledge of wikiFeet 

As we got towards the end of the interview, we began to direct questions to individuals, starting with Emily with a question regarding Clara. We asked her, “What are your reactions to the internet making fun of Clara for not wearing any shoes?”

She responded with a feeling of awe, saying, “It was very interesting is all I will say. To put it lightly. I constantly get questions asking if Clara will get a skin that will have shoes. And people said that the moment there is a skin with shoes, they will buy it.”

Emily also expressed that people had asked her if she cosplayed as Clara, would she be going barefoot, to which she responded with “Pay me a lot of money and I will do it. I will go barefoot.”

Hearing that, Molly said, “It might be a health hazard though.”

“Hey, no barefoot for free. That is a good policy.” Craig responded jokingly.

Out of nowhere, Molly brought up the topic of wikiFeet, an actual website that collects and rates pictures of celebrity feet. She asked the rest whether they were aware of its existence while pointing out how fellow cast member Xanthe Huynh, who voiced Pela, had some pictures on the site. This caused others to be perplexed at the idea of such a website’s existence.

“Ever since I found out that website existed, I always wear closed-toe shoes because I don’t want my feet to be on wikiFeet. ‘Cause I will get a little rating.” Molly expressed. 

She then noted that it would be rather inappropriate if Clara ended up on the website, saying “That is slightly concerning if she is on wikiFeet. She is an underaged character.” 

Su Ling then added, “We do not condone underaged characters being on wikiFeet.” 

Imbibitor Lunae Bailu 

Going along, we asked Su Ling what she would love to see if Bailu got the same treatment as Dan Heng in his Imbibitor Lunae form since both of them are Vidyadhara, a race with draconic features.

At first, she was unsure how she would love Bailu to evolve but later noted that perhaps she could gain small wings and larger horns.

“Wings, fur. Oh, maybe she could have puffy ears and stuff like that. Maybe she should have horns. Wait, she already has horns. She can get that Dan Feng level of horns.” 

Hearing that, Molly responded with “She is going to be like that Forest Spirit from Princess Mononoke. She would just be expanding branches of horns.”

E6 Seele or Not? 

For the next question, we directed it to Molly and asked her if she would recommend players to repeatedly pull for Seele, get her Eidolons, and E6 her as she is getting a rerun banner rather soon.

After the question, Molly gave a thought and said, “Yes. We are going to stick with a yes.”

With some hesitation, Molly then proceeded with saying “I E6 her and S5 her Light Cone. This was a financial decision that I looked back on… fondly. I streamed the game regularly so I can… I can get my money back.”

Further explaining, she described Seele as “a good enough of a character and has a good enough gimmick that even though all these other characters outlasted me on the tier list. There is longevity! I will market this. I sponsored this message to pull for her. Responsibly! Don’t do what I did.”

“BRONYA APPROVED!”

What’s the Deal with Luocha?

For the last question, we asked Craig about his character, Luocha and if he knows what is inside the coffin he carries around all the time.

Even before finishing the question, Craig immediately knew what we were going to ask and jokingly said that he would win a lot of money if he had bet on what we would be asking him.

“What’s the deal with Luocha? I think it is a great question because… he says it himself, he is just a traveling merchant. Why does everybody think he’s shady?”

Emily then described Luocha as a giant cave, shady and Craig agreed somewhat while still continuing to defend his character, “Yeah! He does a lot of shady things. I think he is just a guy looking for his place in the world. And I think what is definitely inside the coffin is… something… hopes? Dreams? Mochi perhaps?”

“Emergency food supply?”

We, of course, chimed in and asked whether it was Luocha’s loved ones in the coffin and Craig gave a stare and said “I don’t know about that…”

However, Molly jumped in and said Luocha loves no one, which prompted Craig to respond jokingly, “What are you talking about? I love all sorts of people. I love reviving Blade. I love arguing with Jing Yuan. I love staring deeply into his eyes and… Let’s have a talk like this. Yeah, I love all sorts of people. Just that none of them are in this conference.” 

E6 Responsibly 

Closing off the interview with the Honkai Star Rail voice actors, they expressed gratitude to the fans, with Emily blessing everyone with good luck on pulling characters, “Thank you so much for supporting Honkai Star Rail. Thank you for having us and we hope you have great pulls in the future.” 

Molly then jokingly added “E6 your Seele… but responsibly.”

“Yes. If you do E6 Seele, please E6 responsibly.” Craig coming in with the support. 

It was certainly a chaotic and fun session. We would love to thank Craig Lee Thomas, Molly Zhang, Su Ling Chan, and Emily Sun for answering our questions.

We have previously interviewed Su Ling Chan on her career journey as a voice actress and her part in Honkai Star Rail as Bailu, which you read here.

For more Honkai Star Rail content, such as a guide for Luocha and many more, you can check them out on our website.

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Honkai Star Rail

Publisher: miHoYo

Developer: miHoYo

Release Date TBC

Android, iOS, Microsoft Windows

Honkai: Star Rail is an all-new strategy-RPG title in the Honkai series that takes players on a cosmic adventure across the stars.

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