Spoilers ► What's wrong with Riku's Voice actor?

[AR829038]

There's another dimension to this: The animation could be difficult to work with. It's not just that David is being directed to act more stoic, but the animation itself is also depicting Riku that way. His model is rarely very mobile, and not very energetic like his younger model was. This actually started way back in KH2, but back then we saw much less of Riku, so I think a lot of people simply didn't notice.
People have to remember that a VA in a dub is restricted by the movements of their characters on screen—both their body and lip movements. This isn't necessarily a problem in Japanese, because Japanese body language TENDS to be more reserved and stoic by custom, so a Japanese VA would have an easier time of inflecting accordingly in a way that sounds natural. But for English dialogue, Riku's body language is too rigid, and that puts real limitations on what an English VA can get away with in terms of energy or inflection on their end. It was the same problem with Terra, and with Aqua. Haley Joel Osment and Leonard Nimoy/Rutger Hauer/Christopher Lloyd can get away with much more because their characters are so much more visually animated. So, it's not David's fault, and it's not all the director's fault. It's mainly a disconnect between cultures on a very microscopic scale.

 

[Clue.Less]

Also, watching the MoM scenes in Japanese, I found that the original lines are veeeery long compared to the English ones, so you'd have to slow down a lot to make it work?

 

[redcrown]

Also, watching the MoM scenes in Japanese, I found that the original lines are veeeery long compared to the English ones, so you'd have to slow down a lot to make it work?

I get the feeling that was a huge problem with Re:CoM too; lots of misplaced awkward pauses and slowed down dialogue to compensate for translating long lines to english without majorly reanimating the cutscenes.

 

[*TwilightNight*]

It's Riku that's the issue in my opinion. He can't fully go back to how he was as he has matured and grown throughout multiple games. Again, it's about when a character has come full circle and peaked. He's not interesting any longer, and the adamant insistence to force him into more journeys is the culmination of why everything about him has been like watching paint dry. They should just focus on another character that still have a ways to go in terms of development, but will Nomura lower that boner for the guy? Of course not.

 

[Elysium]

I don't think main characters are decided by who has an arc or not. Otherwise Sora wouldn't have been around for 20 years despite never having had one.

 

[Cumguardian69]

^TwilightNight

Riku isn't the issue, it's the lack of character inclusion. Riku fits in many of the subplots throughout KH3 (and minorly in MoM) but he's just barely there. If he ain't anime grunting, he's monologing information better placed in a text glossary instead of having real interactions with characters on screen. A Nomura and scenario team problem, really, not a Riku problem.

 

[Raz]

His motivations for an engaging character were already there:

•Save Aqua to repay his debt to her
•Save Terra to keep his promise to him
•Expel Xehanort to prove his worth as a Keyblade Master
•Guide Sora his boyfriend to reclaiming the PoW
•Communicate with Kairi to prep her for the upcoming Keyblade War

None of these were abundantly clear to me. Maybe the Aqua one. There's only so much sense of motivation you can get from a few Facetime scenes.

 

[Cumguardian69]

None of these were abundantly clear to me. Maybe the Aqua one. There's only so much sense of motivation you can get from a few Facetime scenes.

I meant more along the lines of plot threads that were set in motion with BBS and DDD (and even KH2). Instead, they were all turned into the Sora Power Hour despite constantly saying Sora's bullheadedness kept him from being a TrUe MasTEr.