The internet has been bubbling with discussion about Yun Jin after her official reveal in the latest Genshin Impact trailer- specifically around the character’s singing voice.
Last night’s livestream featured a deep dive on the character, who runs an opera troupe out in Liyue Harbor. Some fans were reportedly confused by her style of singing, which might seem a little unusual if you were expecting the same kind of raspy soft voices you’d hear performing acoustic covers of a pop song in a cafe.
The reason for this is simple- Yun Jin’s whole theme is built around Peking Opera– a dominant performing art in the country, which encompasses everything from acting, acrobatics to even singing.
This is also reflected in the way Yun Jin is singing in her voice lines- while it may be new to non-Chinese viewers, the style is very true-to-form for the medium.
Twitter users have compiled comparisons of the two, which you can see below:
peking opera performance sample
im p sure this is daomadan (刀马旦) its the role that is the most similar to yun jin’s design (a female warrior)
and if youre wondering why yun jin has 2 va’s for every language, its because theres one for voice acting and one for singing! pic.twitter.com/tKKlyWwD0I
— daily yun jin (@dailyyunjin69) December 26, 2021
It should be noted that Yun Jin is currently the only character with two voice actors- miHoYo has given her a separate VA just for singing, to more respectfully imitate the Peking Opera style.
Considering the Chinese Government has strong opinions about portraying the culture poorly, it makes sense that they would go all-out in getting a character like Yun Jin right.
Yun Jin’s Design
As others have pointed out, it looks like Yun Jin’s design is also based around the Daoma dan- a name given to actors who play a female warrior role.These are usually associated with spears and horseback, and have a heavy reliance on both acrobatics and singing.
Basically, you can see a lot of the blueprints for Yun Jin here, since the character uses a polearm, is incredibly acrobatic and focuses on singing as well.
One other nice feature from the traditional Daoma Dan costume is the flags, which also appear on Yun Jin’s back, further connecting the two roles.
Be it fear of regulatory oversight or just appreciation of the culture, its really cool to see so many people introduced to something new with the addition of Yun Jin in Genshin Impact. It’d be great to see this kind of detail put into future characters as well- especially with the large amount of cultures the game plans to borrow from for its various regions.