On December 15, 2021, Genshin Impact Aether voice actor Zach Aguilar streamed the game alongside Itto voice actor Max Mittelman. During it, insight came up into the English voice recording for the character. Most notably, Mittelman expressed a concern ahead of Itto’s debut that people might think he sounded too similar to Ryuji Sakamoto in Persona 5. However, he expressed relied and delight at people being enthusiastic about how similar the two characters sounded. [Thanks, Memo_HS2022 on Reddit!]
First, Mittelman talked about the work that went into being Itto. He noted, “Like my first four sessions on this game was just recording the giant monologues.” He also cited the birthday line as one people should hear. (It involves a birthday rap song with beatboxing.)
After that, Mittelman talked about the concerns about Itto and Ryuji.
One thing I got a little concerned about, I remember thinking, “He does sound a little bit like Ryuji.” And I knew people were going to make the comparison, if people played Persona 5. And I thought, “Man, I guess they’re going to hate that. That he sounds so much like Ryuji.”
And the opposite thing happened, where everybody was like, “Yes! He sounds like Ryuji!” I was like, “Whew! All right. Cool, cool.”
You can hear Mittelman talking about his stint as the Itto voice actor at the 44 minute mark of the Genshin Impact stream. The portion involving his concerns about him sounding like Ryuji come up at the 50 minute mark.
In addition to being the voice actor for Itto in Genshin Impact and Ryuji in Persona 5, Mittelman also voices Red XIII in FFVII Remake, Shigure in Tales of Berseria, and Leo in Fire Emblem Fates.
Genshin Impact is available for the PS4, PS5, PC, and mobile devices. A Switch version is on the way. The Itto banner will be available until January 4, 2022.
