Let settle this once and for all. What kind of a accent does Labrys have? At least in her English voice since the Japanese is said to have a accent from the Kansai region.

Most people say it is a Brooklyn accent and I would agree since she would say "you know?" a lot, a soft but rough tone, and is mostly forward with her speeches.

Here are some words she says: Wackadoo, Cockamamie, Shebang, and Numbskull.

Here her sample of her voice to help you choose what it is:

It's definitely a northeastern U.S. accent, though I don't know if it's specifically a Brooklyn accent.

Every time I see the word "Labrys" I think "Labia" so until I deal with that I don't have time to debate her accent.

Every time I see the word "Labrys" I think "Labia" so until I deal with that I don't have time to debate her accent.

I'd go Boston. It's a low-class Northeasten accent (high-class Northeastern sounds more like the snob characters from 80s movies).

She talks like she's in the mafia. Well at least to me she does.

It's a Jersey accent. Sounds like 80's style jewish dialect. Not something you hear that much in translation for a Kansai Dialect, but...fitting.

More fitting than a southern accent anyway.

Man, am I ever glad I had my headphones on for that. Some of those voice clips without context could easily get me a few funny looks from people.

Personally though, I don't really hear much of an accent. Maybe that's just me being from Canada and all.

Actually you know what, nix Boston. Labrys would say "Bow-stin" rather than "Bah-stin" like a real Beantowner.

AH CURYIAN SHAYUM.

It's go with Jersey. That's a totally crazy accent for someone speaking theoretically in japanese, and I am completely okay with it.

She has a Robot Joint accent.

It's kinda hard to judge from short voice clips like that. Anybody have early cutscenes featuring her?

@Chias said:

Man, am I ever glad I had my headphones on for that. Some of those voice clips without context could easily get me a few funny looks from people.

Personally though, I don't really hear much of an accent. Maybe that's just me being from Canada and all.

Not from that video specifically because it's mostly creepy noises and not actual sentences. But in the story mode scenes she does have a strong accent of some kind.

It sounds like a olde movie accent to me. Like an accent you would hear when you would go to the "moving pictures" or I guess the "talkies". So I guess a real old Manhattan or Brooklyn accent that actually doesn't exist anymore.

She comes from the shore of Robo Jersey.

Yeah, her accent reminded me of Joey from Yu-Gi-Oh!

Whatever it is I hate it.

Here some good examples:

It sounds like she bounces around between brooklyn, australia, and british. Agree with Phatmac, hope she doesn't have a huge role in future games

@Brodehouse said:

I'd go Boston. It's a low-class Northeasten accent (high-class Northeastern sounds more like the snob characters from 80s movies).

It's definitely either this or Jersey. My roommate did a tour in Jersey, I should have him listen to some voice samples...

Her voice is the best thing. I hope she is a long-lasting character.

@lordofultima said:

Her voice is the best thing. I hope she is a long-lasting character.

"Well, I'm a robot who's trying to look like a human being, so I better act the part. Guess I'll have to change my voice as well, because my vaguely european voice might blow my cover. Hmm... the only human I've seen is Joe Pesci so I guess that'll have to do."

Labrys's mafia voice is probably the best thing I've seen in video games in quite a while. Big ups to that voice actor for actually being able to deliver those lines without bursting out into laughter.

@Apathylad said:

Yeah, her accent reminded me of Joey from Yu-Gi-Oh!

The strange thing is that I posted that on @Pepsiman's wall in the EXACT same way. It still applies, though.

Labrys' accent skewing Northeast American was probably the biggest and most pleasantly surprising localization decision to come out of the game for me as a translator. Kansai Japanese (versus Kanto, which is considered neutral from a linguistic standpoint and is almost always what's taught overseas) has a tendency to be localized as a Southern US accent when a work featuring it is brought into English. That's not inherently a bad move per se, but considering how certain stigmas still linger today for people from that region, going that route without deep deliberation beforehand can be dangerous. I'll admit that if I had been tasked with figuring out how to treat Labrys' accent in English, I'm not certain Northeast American would have been my first choice, but as somebody who's spent the vast majority of their life in Japan living in Kansai and having Kansai dialect friends, I think a Northeast American accent does best represent their speaking patterns and subtle cultural and life outlook differences compared to their mainstream Kanto counterparts. There's a certain sense of being comparatively unrestrained in how they talk and think that I feel is best represented in English with a Northeast American accent for reasons that are kind of difficult to explain if you don't already have personal living experience with Kansai people. Of course, doing that accent also comes with its own baggage and I was initially hesitant about it myself when I first came across it in the game, but it grew on me a lot and now Labrys' voice is probably one of my personal favorites in the series. I hope at some point to go through the story mode again in Japanese so I can get further insight into various localization decisions, but that's neither here not there. Going with that accent was a bold move on Atlus' part, but I think it massively paid off.

All I know is that it is hilarious and awesome. Best voice work in the game after Kanji.

@Pepsiman: I absolutely hated her voice at first too but grew to love it as well. It still seems very silly at times but I kinda wish I could hear more of it.

@wemibelec90: Yeah, it's definitely an adjustment and it took a lot of rationalizing in my head to really understand why they would use it as a proxy for Kansai Japanese, but I think it definitely adds to her character, especially since her voice is a central point in her origin story. It was definitely a gamble to go that route, but it's one of those decisions that was probably made precisely because her voice needed to draw reactions of some sort from people, so regardless of whether most people love it or hate it, it was probably a successful choice in that regard. At the very least, I know Kansai accents certainly sound distinct in a similar way to native Japanese people when they hear it.

@Pepsiman: I was actually really curious about her accent when I first heard it. Why would they give her an accent at all, especially such a weird one? I went and checked if the Japanese character had an accent and learned it was a Kansai accent. Looking this up revealed it to be one of the most common accents in Japanese.

This made me wonder why they didn't just make her Southern, since that seemed like the closest analog. Looking this up told me that anime has actually done that in the past. Made me feel all smart. :)

I was just glad when I got to Labrys' story in the game and saw that there was actually a reason for her accent. Glad it wasn't in there just because.

@wemibelec90: Yeah, like I wrote earlier, there's definitely a certain precedence when it comes to localizing accents like hers. A Southern accent would have likely panned out okay since there's definitely a distinct shortage of those sorts of characters in English games in general, too, but whether it would have the same sort of impact is probably debatable. As somebody who mostly deals in text translation, the way I usually attempt to convey different Japanese accents in English is to go for a broader dialectical shift and write the characters in question with a different set of standard vocabulary words. Obviously Atlus had to do that, too, to get her accent to work, given her profound use of such fine words as kibosh, but they probably had a little less leeway than me when I do that sort of work since they have to also consider how all of that sounds when it's voiced, too. Accents in general, I feel, aren't usually given much consideration at all in English game writing since Midwestern American English is now largely considered the canonical standard in places where the British Empire didn't have a significant presence, but I hope Arena and earlier games like Xenoblade make localizers and Western game developers more seriously consider giving linguistic variety to their characters in the future. As this discussion has shown, it goes a long way to making your character memorable, for better or for worse. The last time I remember liking a character's accent was when Laura Bailey did a surprisingly pleasant Texan one as Gemini Sunrise for Sakura Taisen V, but considering the niche those particular games inhabit, I'd say it hardly made a dent in most anyone else's collective memory.

It's a very bad Brooklyn accent.

Yeah the accent threw me off for a while. I didn't even know what it was but it's grown on me considerably.

Now that I've played through the whole game, it's not Labrys's accent that bugs me so much as the slang she throws in every so often, which to my ears sounds anachronistic. To be fair, though, it's not like I spend a lot of time around people with that accent, so maybe people really do say "wackadoo" and "kibosh" all the time. The accent itself sounds fine during the more serious material, though.

Also, do we know who voices her, and if it's the same person who does Shadow Labrys? Because any time Shadow Labrys talks, it reminds me of Mimi from the Atelier games, which is hilarious to me (and also somewhat impressive, since I don't get any hints of that voice at all in the normal Labrys).

I would definitely say its a Brooklyn accent.

@chrominance: Both Labrys and her shadow are voiced by Cindy Robinson in English.

Man, that is annoying...

...but I can't stop listening to it.

Yeahhhhh, I don't think people, even from Brooklyn, talk like that any more. I haven't heard an accent like that since I watched the Doctor Who episodes set in depression era New York.

I really really like her accent. Personally I thought it was a Brooklyn one and it reminded me of Joey.

Sounds like a Northeastern US accent but I suck at accents so I can't place it. I don't think it's Boston, I just got back from vacation there and the accent is really subtle(that or I've been living in Taiwan so long I don't have any frame of reference anymore).

Either way I'm glad they at least explained it and pointed it out in the story. It was off putting at first, but grew on me after a while. What a fantastic character.

When I first heard her voice, I described it as "19th Century Street Urchin."

MISTAH JAY~

I hear her and I hear Harley Quinn from the Batman cartoons.

@drew327 said:

It sounds like she bounces around between brooklyn, australia, and british. Agree with Phatmac, hope she doesn't have a huge role in future games

I don't mind the accent, but Australian was the first thing that I went with. The people saying Boston are nuts though, not even close.

Wasn't there a scene where they said it in game? Or was I dreaming that.

sounds like harley quinn from the rocksteady batman games

My first thought upon hearing it was that it was a cross between a bad Brooklyn accent and a bad Cockney accent. Even with all that, I found it endearing in a silly way.

@kerse said:

Wasn't there a scene where they said it in game? Or was I dreaming that.

You're probably thinking of the storyline reason for her accent, that was in a scene.

@kerse said:

Wasn't there a scene where they said it in game? Or was I dreaming that.

They told you the Japanese dialect was from the Kansai region in Labrys' story. That wasn't switched for the English version to what accent they were going for though.

I find it so odd how there's always been different interpretations of "translating" Kansai accents in Japanese media localizations. Brooklyn is probably the most popular, although I've noticed other departures for interpreting Kansai (I've seen/heard a Southern accent used in place of Brooklyn before).

@EquitasInvictus said:

I find it so odd how there's always been different interpretations of "translating" Kansai accents in Japanese media localizations. Brooklyn is probably the most popular, although I've noticed other departures for interpreting Kansai (I've seen/heard a Southern accent used in place of Brooklyn before).

I remember that in Azumanga Daioh, the manga adaptation, Osaka had a New Jersey-style accent, while in the anime dub, she was given a Texan drawl.