This week’s Granblue TV Channel featured the voice of Lyria, Touyama Nao! She talked about her long relationship with Lyria as a character, and much more – join us for the usual translation thread.
The opening gag has Lyria coming on to the show for the first time, and Sierokarte suggests that they introduce her by reading Lyria’s official profile on the game’s website.
Lyria’s fine with it – until she realizes that “The Main Character” is listed on her ‘likes’ column. Out of embarrassment, she summons Albacore to take out Gran’s smartphone before he gets to it. “W, we don’t need to do any introductions anymore! Let’s get to the episode!”
In a segment discussing the opening gag, Touyama Nao notes that this is the first time in a while that Lyria has acted like a romcom protagonist – she usually summons things or eats everything in sight, but this gag focuses on her being a cute, normal girl.
Katou: “Lyria and Gran are so cute, maybe I’m a third wheel this episode…”
Touyama Nao starts the episode by cheerfully high-fiving her old Granblue Channel co-host, Katou Emiri. She’s been watching Granblue TV Channel every week, and is extremely excited to be on the set.
“My good friend Lyria has been on the show so many times, but this is my first time as Touyama Nao!”
Here, have some excited Touyama Nao gifs before we continue:
Touyama also drops some of her old lines from GBF’s old web radio show, prompting nostalgia from Katou Emiri.
Touyama jokingly accuses Ono Yuuki of stealing Katou Emiri from her, but has been very impatiently waiting for her turn on TV. Her first stop on the set is the cork board that has a rotating cast of Valentine’s Polaroids.
She stops at Jade, from Ranger Sign Bravo! and drops a few lines in Jade’s voice, drawing a laugh from the hosts.
Looking back at Lyria
Katou Emiri starts the first conversation by asking Touyama Nao about her experience portraying Lyria.
Touyama: “Can you believe that I’ve been playing Lyria for 5 or 6 years now? She talks the most out of any character in Granblue Fantasy, and between events, the anime, recording for Granblue Fantasy Versus, I spend a lot of time every month on this role.”
Katou: “Lyria talks in almost every character’s fate episodes, in every event – it must be a huge script every month.”
Touyama: “It’s about the size of a dictionary. And when I say I’ve been playing her for 6 years, that’s actually half of my career as a seiyuu now. When I started, I was still pretty new, and there were a lot of bumps along the road. The longest session was when we recorded the fate episodes for all the Eternals; we recorded all ten characters worth of fate episodes at the same time. Recording for the ten Evokers came close to it in sheer word count, but these days the sessions go much more smoothly. It’s like Lyria and I are just as linked as Lyria and Gran/Djeeta.”
Moving on, they talk about the plethora of skins that Lyria has received recently, from Cooking Lyria to Daughter of Pearl.
Touyama: “It’s like putting cute children’s clothes on my precious daughter, they make me so happy.”
Ono: “Huh. Do skins make the character stronger? I don’t really care unless the attack number goes up.”
Touyama: “Your happiness number goes up! That’s what’s important!”
Touyama Nao’s Six Elements
On to the talk show segments! First up, Touyama Nao’s six elements, which are supposed to be represented in kanji. Shiraishi Minoru, the narrator, scolds her for using so much katakana.
Touyama’s six elements, and their explanations:
声 (voice)
Touyama: “Every week when I saw the other seiyuu going through these segments, I kept thinking about what I would write when I got to it. But I love doing my job so much, my first draft was all about work. So all of that falls under Voice.”
ア – アフレコ (dubbing)
ゲ – ゲーム (games)
ナ – ナレーション (narration)
ラ – ラジオ (radio)
ピ (pi)
Touyama: “Wait, what did this stand for, again? Oh yeah! It’s Pi for Pierrot (clown).”
Katou: “Ohhh, Pierrot, I remember that.”
Ono: “What’s it supposed to mean?”
Katou: “OnoYu wasn’t on radio, so he wouldn’t know.”
Touyama explains that Granblue Fantasy was the first game she’s ever really gotten into, so when she was a newbie, she made mistakes that players would laugh at her for. She would use every single skill on turn one (even heals and Delays), she would read 5/10 as “May 10th” instead of “5 items out of 10”, and those mistakes led to such fan nicknames for her as Pierrot Touyama (Touyama the Clown) and The Eternal Newbie.
As of now, she’s rank 130, and extremely proud of it. But she still remembers the nicknames.
ペ (Pe)
Stands for Penguins. Touyama Nao loves penguins, and owns an annual pass to the aquarium so she can see them whenever she wants. She would love more penguins in GBF since most of them are monsters you can fight, while the only other penguin is Pengy, who wears an armored penguin suit.
酒 (alcohol)
OnoYu: “A lot of our guests seem to have this one listed.”
Touyama: “I was so jealous when I saw the Yuishishu episode (where Tachibana Rika and Imai Asami went out drinking and talking about GBF). I wondered why they didn’t call me in!”
ダ (da) – short for Dance.
Touyama: “I am awful at sports. During PE classes, I would come in last in the races, and I would throw the balls so badly that they’d fly backwards. Dancing is the one physical activity that I’m any good at.”
肩 (shoulder)
Touyama: “I have really stiff shoulders. Here, listen.”
At this point in the episode, they cut to the studio audio, and the microphones indeed pick up the sounds of her shoulders popping as she rotates her arms.
Katou: “You shouldn’t hear that from here most of the time.”
OnoYu: “The studio got really quiet all of a sudden while everyone was listening to her shoulders.”
The Dreams of Skyfarers
Touyama Nao comes fully loaded for this segment, where the seiyuu get to make requests.
Touyama: “They gave me 5 flip boards, so I used them all.”
OnoYu: “Hey, don’t put them on Lancey’s head!”
Touyama Nao’s first request: a segment where she goes to Cygames and infiltrates the office to see what a working day is like there. She would love to see the art, writing, programming, merchandising, and many other teams at work.
Katou: “I wrote the same kind of thing when it was my turn at this segment. I said I wanted to see the artists!”
Touyama mentions seeing the artists’ working area once, where they were kept in relative darkness so they could concentrate on their work, and the staff confirms that her account is true.
Touyama’s second request: Star Character T-shirts. That way, at events like Granblue Fantasy Fest, people could walk around and show off their favorite characters. When OnoYu says that it would be logistically impossible to print 350+ T-shirts, Katou Emiri suggests that they could be printed to order, and some less popular characters would be able to get their spotlight that way.
Touyama’s third request: a live reading of a Granblue Fantasy event. This one has been requested multiple times before, but she would love to give this the deluxe treatment as its own event. There could be Stella Magna providing live music, and Touyama Nao suggests that Ranger Sign Bravo would be an amazing story to hear performed live.
Touyama Nao’s fourth request, which she admits is a bit of a joke: Qigong. She would love to make a pose like Lyria and have something supernatural happen.
Touyama Nao’s fifth request: a session with mentalist. She wants to learn how use mentalist’s tricks to help her read minds, especially Gran’s mind.
Mailbox segment
The first mail is from Haiyoru Sebire, and asks what the hosts consider to be beginner level, intermediate level, and advanced level in GBF.
Touyama: “Where do I sit?”
Katou: “Intermediate.” (Touyama Nao flexes)
Katou’s definition of of intermediate level: a player who has played an Impossible level raid.
Ono’s additional definition of intermediate level: a player who as unlocked at least one Tier IV class.
Touyama: “I… I only have Chaos Ruler unlocked.”
Ono/Katou: “That counts!”
Touyama: “Ono, you’re pretty advanced, aren’t you?”
Ono: “I’d say I’m on the upper end of mid-level.”
Katou: “I don’t consider myself an advanced player, either.”
Touyama nearly walks off the set when Katou says that, and Katou explains:she considers an advanced player to be one who has taken on, and possibly cleared, the latest raid. In other words, whether or not they’ve cleared the Dark Rapture Impossible raid. She herself hasn’t done it yet.
Touyama Nao: “If that’s the case… I think I’m okay being a newbie…”
Ono Yuuki’s definition of an intermediate player makes Katou Emiri laugh, as he defines it as a player who has 10 or more Gislas uncapped to 4 stars.
The next mail is from Tantantatatan, who asks about the Daughter of Pearl skin. Are those real starfish on Lyria’s hair, and does she really walk around dragging all these shells?
Touyama: “I thought the same thing when I saw the skin, I thought that the shell was tied to Lyria’s legs. It looks like she’s ready to run on the beach with a tire tied to her for resistance training. I also thought that the swimsuit was just her old school swimsuit with a transparent blouse over it, but it turns out that it’s a whole new outfit!”
The third mail comes from Midorin, who says that she is a woman in her 50s. She wonders how many other women her age play the game, since she hears so often about men playing the game, and thinks that the female population of the game might skew younger. She ends the mail by saying that she is currently working on soloing Ultimate Bahamut Impossible, drawing impressed reactions from the hosts.
Touyama: “I think there are plenty of women in their 40s and 50s who play GBF. Young and old, male and female, I feel like it appeals to everyone. My mom and dad play, after all. They’re a bit older than that, but they play every day. And my mom is the strongest player in my family.”
Katou brings up the story that Touyama Nao’s mother (affectionately known in the community as Mamabou) has all 10 Eternals, which shocks Ono Yuuki.
Touyama: “My mom told me that it was embarrassing to hear about, so she doesn’t want me to talk about her anymore.”
Touyama Nao will be back for the August 25th episode! The preview for next week includes more talk about Touyama Nao’s family and their GBF playing habits. It will also be a news episode, so we’ll see you then!