How Filipino voice actors landed their ideal jobs
By Windie Khyla Pultam
The Titas of InazuManila Anne Yatco and Ratana Therakulsathit visited the Philippines and their fans in the CONQuest Festival 2022 on July 24 at the SMX Convention Center in Manila.
Anne and Ratana voice the two Inazuma best friends and two of the most popular 5-star electro characters, Raiden Shogun and Yae Miko, in the popular open-world action role-playing game Genshin Impact.
During the event, they had the chance to answer the fans’ questions and share their journey before landing their respective roles in the game.
The two shared how their love for cartoons and animations sparked their passion for voice acting. However, living in a household with Filipino parents, they were asked to pick a more ‘practical’ and ‘stable’ than voice acting.
“My parents wanted me to become a doctor,” Anne said, which she partly granted when she took up biomedical engineering at Marquette University in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
“… when I was at Marquette getting my bachelor’s degree, I spent every waking moment that I wasn’t in the engineering building in the theatre, taking classes, doing shows, starring in shows,” she added.
After getting a degree in biomedical engineering and graduating cum laude, she decided to pursue her passion, enrolled at the California Institute of the Arts in Valencia, California, and graduated with a degree in Masters of Fine Arts in Acting.
She then worked as a full-time forensic scientist for seven years to support her expenses and take up more classes and voice acting in the meantime.
Eventually, she quit her job and got herself her agent, which landed one of her notable roles as Nobara Kugisaki of Jujutsu Kaisen, then Raiden Shogun of Genshin Impact.
Ratana’s journey had similarities with Anne’s.
When she was a kid, she shared about not knowing that humans were responsible for the cartoons she watched and voice acting as a job. And so she wanted to do it.
However, her parents also wanted her to pursue a stable job, so she studied marketing and advertising at Michigan State University and became a marketing professional.
But that did not stop her from going after her dream, so she took classes for voice acting and went on auditions.
Other than Yae Miko of Genshin Impact, some of her notable characters were Fire Emblem: Three Houses’ Leonie and Trese’s young Crispin and Basilio.
During their talk at the event, Anne and Ratana also shared advice and tips to the audience on improving voice acting and answered questions about their experiences with their characters.