Back in February, Yu Namba from Atlus USA sat down with Famitsu to talk about his involvement in localizing Persona 4: Golden. Finding the right voice actors for each character was a significant task in localizing the game into English, Namba says, but the hardest one was finding a suitable voice actor for Marie’s character.

Famitsu pointed out to Namba that voice acting isn’t quite as recognized of a profession in North America as it is in Japan. To this, Namba replied, “Although it’s not quite as recognized as it is in Japan, it is definitely getting better. I recently went to an event that was host to the English voice actors of Tiger & Bunny, who were signing autographs, and there were so many people. Games and anime aside, there’s been more instances of talented voice actors featured in dramas.”

Many of the voice actors for Persona 4: Golden were part of the original cast from the PlayStation 2 version. The development of Persona 4: Arena provided an extra rehearsal for the Vita game. As Namba said, the only problem was finding a voice actress for the new character, Marie. The localization team couldn’t find a person who had the voice and could act out Marie’s parts as they had imagined.

After a number of interviews and auditions, Namba was introduced to Eden Riegel, who was also responsible for Sherry’s voice in Resident Evil 6 and has also been part of countless other games, movies and television shows.

“She was just perfect for Marie’s role,” Namba said. “I was very surprised. Her acting ability was excellent, and before we knew it, we finished recording all of Marie’s lines.”