Interview with Kaiji Tang, voice of Odin and Owain from Fire Emblem

In a recent interview with ComedynGaming, Kaiji Tang shared some details about his experience being the voice for the Fire Emblem: Awakening character Owain and Fire Emblem: Fates character Odin. Many subjects are touched on in the interview, as the interview covers many of Kaiji Tang’s roles outside of Nintendo properties. We’ve collected the quotes relevant to his role in the Fire Emblem series below. Minor spoilers after the break for Fire Emblem: Fates.

On how Tang got his role in Fire Emblem, and any similarities he sees between him and his character:

“I got the role of Owain like any other actor! A studio was having auditions for the game, I popped in and boom! Some sword hand talk later, some bit about time travel and they deemed me memey enough to become the fervent voice of Owain. I love the guy because we’re both huge, huge nerds who aren’t ashamed to let their geek flag fly. If I had special attacks, I think I’d come up with some pretty edgy names for them too. I absolutely have a blast!”

On whether Tang knew that Owain and Odin were the same character right away, and how different the role was between the two games:

“I actually did not know at the beginning! When they first sent me a list of characters I’d be voicing, I saw “Odin” on the list and was like “Wha!? What happened to Owain!?” But thankfully the clients explained it to me when I got to the session and relief washed over me, haha. The character may have changed classes, but it’s obvious from his dialogue and personality that he’s the same old goofball of Fire Emblem past. In fact with his new outfit, it appears he’s doubled down on his theatrics. I love Owain/Odin because he’s absolutely true to who he is as a person and knows what makes him happy. If only we could all be a little more Owainish.”

When asked what his favorite line spoken by Owain/Odin was, Tang had this to say:

“Ooooh there are plenty. “Down, sword hand!!” is a classic. “Uhg!! My aching blood!!” makes me laugh a lot. “My Darkness was darker than yours!” because DARKNESS. Though I think my favorite was Odin’s friendship/confession dialogue. We get to hear him drop his theatrics for a little bit and speak from a more earnest place and I think that was just lovely to record. “

You can find the full interview here.