Been sitting on this for a while but I need to talk about the English dub direction for Pomefiore before Book 5 rolls around and it's too late to course-correct.
I've been a twst fan since it launched on JP and was pleasantly surprised by how on point the EN dub is. Everyone has been wonderful, the range is insane and they were dream picks on paper.
However, seeing the way Rook, Vil and Epel have been directed in a way that completely goes against their characters that I enjoyed in the original JP is disheartening and I'm really surprised at how so many things have just outright been changed and missed by the EN for a lot of the characters, but I'm focusing on Pome for this.
- Vil is calm, grounded and refined, he wears a "beautiful" front and is strict with himself, while still having a soft and loving side for those closest to him like Rook and eventually Epel and Ortho. He's androgynous and gender-non-conforming and a great representation of it! He's harsh and in business mode for everything pre-book 6, and can be a total jerk too, but cares about making things beautiful and cares about how people are seen.
What he isn't is a campy diva doing jazz hands, he's a young man who has sacrificed every part of himself to be "the fairest one of all," and when that ideal cracks in Book 5, it destroys him. The dub's current "over-the-top drag queen" energy completely undercuts that character despite the EN VA otherwise sounding great for him.
- Rook Hunt is a poetic and eccentric young man and hunter who uses a handful of (sometimes grammatically wrong) French phrases for flair (iirc the words are from Fleur City in twst which he's using). France does not exist in Twisted Wonderland's world except from the world Yuu comes from (outside of Fleur City as seen in Glorious Masquerade, and Rook learning to present his speech like how they spoke there) and when Rook speaks with flair and poetry, he also is shown to speak gently and bluntly, but in a very grounded way. Giving him a "hon hon baguette" Frenchman accent completely does a disservice to the character while undermining his theatrical behavior and turns him into a joke.
- I already had issue with how the EN Localisation of the game did Epel's dialect, which in the original JP is supposed to be thick and hard to understand, and it's why Vil makes him speak in standard because *no one can understand him* otherwise and it's rude. The Localization gives him an American country boy accent which ends up making Vil look classist, which he isn't at all (despite appearances) also the dub doesn't consider that Rook's thick French accent getting a pass but Epel's dialect being restrained is not something Vil would be behind as a character!
- Another change in the dub is that Epel is fully aware of what macarons are in JP, but the EN dub has him go "what even is a macaron". That changes an entire meaning! They even do this with Vil calling hunting "uncouth" which he'd never said in the original. (And Rook is a hunter, as well as his best friend/vice-housewarden!)
Pomefiore feels like they've been reduced to punchlines and tired tropes before we even reach their main arc, and it feels like a betrayal of everything that we learn in Books 5 and 6 about them. They have their problems and are definitely not what they appear on the surface, but this isn't how to go about it.
The EN voice actors can 100% deliver the canon nuance and we've heard their range. Matt Mercer is known for his range and could definitely do Rook closer to how he's written rather than a Lumiere caricature, and from what I've heard of Nick Monteleone's natural speaking voice, that suits Vil better than what he's currently done for him. This isn't about the talent, it's about the direction and script choices right now.
I hope the dub script and direction consider dialing back the caricature and letting Pomefiore be the elegant and fun characters they were written to be. The team is still early in production for future seasons so feedback now can actually matter.
Yes, I might be taking this too seriously, but Pomefiore is my favourite dorm and if every other dorm has been getting care given to them, I don't see why Pomefiore is being turned into a campy joke. I know some people love this take of them, but I also know many including myself do not, and don't feel it to be true to their personalities or characters. There were better ways to show it, and I hope they do change course with them.
