AURORA ~ princess ashe of dalmasca ( from dusk to dawn )

voice

It's a an understatement to say that the voice acting in FFXII was anything short of incredible. Coupled with an amazing script localized by Alexander O. Smith, the voice acting offered a plethora of different accents and dialects that really made Ivalice seem like a diverse and immense world. You've got everything from the upper-class British dialects of the Archadian nobles to the mysterious (Icelandic?) accents of Fran and the Viera to... whatever Occuria were supposed to sound like. There's even a Cockatrice with a Cockney accent! Trust me, it's awesome. But enough gushing about the localization, let's move on to Ashe's voice actresses.

Kari Wahlgren provides Ashe's English voice. Ashe's voice sounded very familiar to me when I first heard her speak, and I soon found out that Wahlgren also voiced one of my other favorite game characters, the lovely Raine Sage of Tales of Symphonia. Nifty. Wahlgren was born in Kansas in 1977 and has provided the English voice for many notable characters: for example, Haruhara Haruko in Fooly Cooly, Robin Sena in Witch Hunter Robin, Fuu in Samurai Champloo, and many more. Her talents aren't limited to anime and video game voiceovers; she provides voices in many western cartoons as well. You can check out a full list of her work at IMDB. I thought she did a really great job as Ashe; I liked how her voice was stern and serious without being overly harsh. If that makes any sense at all. Wahlgren's official website can be found here.

Mie Sonozaki provides Ashe's voice in the Japanese version of the game. I'm clearly biased and prefer the English version a million times more, but Sonozaki did a good job as Ashe from what I've heard. Ashe sounds very... commanding, which is appropriate. Anyway, Sonozaki was born in Tokyo in 1973 and is a singer in addition to being a voice actress. I can't say I'm familiar with any of her roles aside from Ashe, but you can read a list of them here. You can also visit Sonozaki's official website here!