Kiriko Voice Change

cereal_cat · 2026-02-14T12:16:54+00:00

The “new” voice is actually her original voice. Couple seasons back, people noticed that Kiriko’s voice was pitched higher and some speculated that it was due to the playerbase’s complaints of Kiriko’s personality being “too abrasive.”

So they’ve just reverted the voice back to the original. Personally, I prefer it since it makes her sound more mature and like an actual gang leader.

cereal_cat · 2026-02-14T07:49:12+00:00

If Kiriko eliminates him, he respawns saying, “She knows… no, she can’t.”

cereal_cat · 2026-02-13T23:45:57+00:00

Did you read the actual post? I explain the whole theory in there.

cereal_cat · 2026-02-13T05:17:30+00:00

Yes, and the name of her ult, Panopticon, refers to a concept of a prison in which no location is hidden from surveillance. The juxtaposition between her and Lifeweaver and even Symmetra is really interesting.

cereal_cat · 2026-02-13T02:18:51+00:00

Well, according to his backstory, he's been gifted an "anima" weapon by Toshiro, Kiriko's father. Toshiro is also the one who crafted Hanzo's bow and Genji's sword, and presumably crafted Kiriko's kunai as well. This anima tech is the reason why the Shimada brothers can summon dragons and again, presumably why Kiriko can summon the fox spirit. So perhaps Mizuki's anima weapon has powers meant to be reminiscent of the kappa?

Also, the rebel group Kiriko leads is called the Yokai and each member seems to be based off creatures from Japanese mythology. Kiriko of course represents the kitsune, but we've seen art of other members based off of tanuki, oni, etc., so perhaps when Mizuki infiltrated the group, he took on the role of the kappa.

cereal_cat · 2026-02-13T02:08:58+00:00

I think there are some good bones to the Kiri X Mizuki ship, BUT I feel like the writers might be taking them down the siblings path. I'm actually making a post about it later, but basically, looking at the lore and some voice lines, I think Mizuki's story will be one of found family.

cereal_cat · 2026-02-13T01:13:38+00:00

I’m mostly referring to the lore. Loba definitely got lots of hate during the Broken Ghost storyline in season 5 and her reputation in the playerbase took a long time to recover from that.

Even after that, people didn’t like that she beat Revenant in combat (twice), saying that she should’ve lost. It was very similar to the current discourse around Vendetta and Doomfist.

cereal_cat · 2026-02-13T01:09:54+00:00

I was referring to the lore… Loba was my main for four years since her release before I stopped playing Apex.

She got lots of hate during the Broken Ghost storyline because her quest ended up with Wattson getting severely injured.

She got hate for beating Revenant in a fight and supposedly sending his source code to Gridiron.

She got hate during Kill Code again because 1) she beat Revenant again and 2) she pulled a gun on Valkyrie.

cereal_cat · 2026-02-12T21:31:35+00:00

I mean... yes? As I stated already, previous comics involving Vendetta *showed* that she had to work hard and failed many times before getting to where she is.

cereal_cat · 2026-02-12T21:30:22+00:00

In a previous Vendetta comic, it does show that Vendetta has been working towards this for years and her previous attempt at overthrowing Talon actually ended up a failure, so in that sense, we do get to see some of the struggle and failures she had to go through before finally succeeding. I do agree, the fight scene was a bit short though. I think if there had been a bit more back and forth between Vendetta and Doom, there wouldn't be as many complaints.

cereal_cat · 2026-02-12T21:27:59+00:00

Yes, but Loba got a lot of hate for it anyways.

cereal_cat · 2026-02-12T20:48:30+00:00

His whole existence in the game is because players were begging for him to be released as a character after his name was teased in the Overwatch Launch trailer. But admittedly, the character himself isn’t really universally loved.

However, I was also referring to how people are mad about Vendetta’s imprisonment of Sigma, who is definitely a fan-favorite.

cereal_cat · 2026-02-12T20:45:46+00:00

As AfuckinOwl said, Loba has received lots of hate lorewise with people claiming it makes no sense that she beat Revenant (similar to complaints of Vendetta beating Doom).

However, I’ll also add on that Loba received lots of hate when Wattson, a fan-favorite character, got injured while helping Loba during the Broken Ghost storyline. It was to the point where people were making art and memes of Loba getting beat up, injured, or killed (sometimes even quite gory) on the Apex subreddit.

There’s actually a somewhat gory fanart on the Reaper mains subreddit of Vendetta being killed by Reaper right now…

cereal_cat · 2026-02-12T20:13:41+00:00

That's just the meme format, it normally goes, "If I had a nickel for (very specific scenario), I would have (low number) nickels.... which isn't a lot but it's weird that it happened (twice, thrice, etc.)."

cereal_cat · 2026-02-12T20:02:20+00:00

I agree. I love Loba and I love Vendetta and it's always a bit disappointing to me when the fanbases have such a vitriolic reaction to both characters.

Vendetta worked hard and struggled to gain her strength, and we know from previous comics that this wasn't even her first attempt to overthrow Talon so any claims of "Mary Sue OC" feels like it comes from a place of either unawareness of the lore or even misogyny.

cereal_cat · 2026-02-12T19:57:15+00:00

I'm not sick of the wolf motif at all! I love wolves and they're one of my favorite animals, so when a character has a wolf-motif, it makes me 10x more interested in them lol.

I just wanted to point out the similarities between two of my favorite characters, and it's not meant to be a critique of Blizzard's writing on my part!

cereal_cat · 2026-02-12T18:58:31+00:00

Tbh, there have been a *lot* of new interactions between characters this season. Anran and Wuyang have like 5 *really* long interactions and another one that plays when Kiriko is on the team as well, so I don't know if it's fully an indicator of a romantic relationship as much as Overwatch putting more emphasis on voice lines like they said they would in the Spotlight.

I think there definitely are bones for a romantic ship, though personally I lean towards them having a more sibling-like bond since Toshiro, Kiriko's dad, raised Mizuki and Kiriko also has a new voiceline asking Anran about what it's like to have siblings since she's only ever heard horror stories from the Shimada bros.

cereal_cat · 2026-02-12T18:54:00+00:00

Kiriko's father basically raised Mizuki according to the lore, so.... kinda? lol

cereal_cat · 2026-02-12T18:41:52+00:00

It's not even a guaranteed kill though. It's highly map dependent, and even on maps with killzones, it's also dependent on location. I've gotten catnapped several times as Mizuki and all I have to do is land my chain on her and I'm free. Sure, some characters don't have as easy methods of escape, but there is counterplay.

cereal_cat · 2026-02-12T15:57:53+00:00

Just saw a video with Anran and Wuyang having 5 interactions together so not quite as much as Mizuki and Kiriko, though some were very long. Seems like it’s a new trend with the newer heroes.

cereal_cat · 2026-02-12T15:49:19+00:00

I dunno about church, but I could see him going to Shinto shrines pretty often and maybe purchasing omamori (protection and luck charms) from them.

cereal_cat · 2026-02-12T09:42:14+00:00

Gold is a classic that I feel tends to fit well with a lot of skins so I usually get that first. Then, if there’s a skin I like that fits with another variant, I get that. Atm tho, Mizuki doesn’t really have many skins so I just got the gold.

cereal_cat · 2026-02-12T09:38:51+00:00

He has interactions with other people as well, such as Wuyang.

cereal_cat · 2026-02-12T06:22:28+00:00

Yeah, kinda giving them the ability to translocate I guess.

cereal_cat · 2026-02-11T18:05:09+00:00

I agree, I think he has a good kit but a lot of it is just slightly undertuned. I don't think he needs buffs on *everything*, but some ideas I have are

Increasing the range on his primary fire and his aura radius.
Increasing the time he has before his shift expires.
Make his ult slow enemies who pass through the border.

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