By: Christian Sebastian Lao Cipriano
Published: February 22, 2022
Genshin has had such a large influence on mainstream media and has certainly caught the attention of numerous kids, teenagers, gamers, and content creators alike.
Genshin Impact is a game released by MiHoYo in 2020. It has gained massive popularity worldwide and is no doubt one of the most played games within the past 2 years. Genshin has had such a large influence on mainstream media and has certainly caught the attention of numerous kids, teenagers, gamers, and content creators alike. The game has a massive open-world filled with all sorts of monsters and enemies to fight, characters to interact and play with, and beautiful areas to explore. One of these areas being Liyue Harbor, which is MiHoYo’s depiction of China.
Out of the 3 major areas that are currently in Genshin, I find Liyue to be the most interesting. It has spectacular sceneries, amazing soundtracks, and most importantly, interesting characters. One of the recently introduced characters in Liyue is Yunjin, the director of the Yun-Han Opera Troupe. She is personally one of my favorite characters in the entire game and in my opinion has one of the best character designs.
Yunjin is often found performing at a local tea house where dozens of people flock over to watch. Her overall design is MiHoYo’s own little way to promote Chinese opera. Yunjin is modeled after the beautiful costumes of traditional Peking Opera. She mainly takes on the role of the *Daomadan* which depicts a female warrior. Everything from her flowy garments, the flags she gets from her elemental burst, all the way to her method of handling her spear all paints a picture of a passionate and dedicated opera singer who aims to entertain and tell meaningful stories.
When I first heard Yunjin’s voice actor, I had negative feelings. It was the first time I was exposed to Chinese Opera and it just wasn’t my cup of tea. The high pitched nature of Opera was a foreign concept to me. After having done a bit of research on Yunjin and playing her story quests, I finally learned how to appreciate her style of singing. When she was performing “The Divine Damsel of Devastation”, I actually found it to be really beautiful. The way that she portrayed the story through nothing but her movements and her singing really captivated me.
Yunjin’s case in terms of controversy was a rare one in Genshin Impact. There are only a few characters in the game who were met with such criticism upon release then ended up being loved by a large part of the community afterwards. I dare say that Chinese Opera is an acquired taste. Many people didn’t like her unorthodox way of singing at first, but over time, people learned to love her and appreciate the culture that she represents.
It’s really a pleasant surprise to see that in spite of the exploitative nature of Genshin Impact (and Gacha games as a whole), MiHoYo still took the time and effort to design such an amazing character that every player can practically get for free. They even went as far as to hire a professional opera singer just to record voice lines for a fictional character. Having said all this really begs the question, why did MiHoYo go through all the trouble of spending so much time and money as well as risking controversy all for a 4 star character?
A possible answer to this is it may be a way for MiHoYo to draw attention to Chinese Culture. Genshin is a popular game after all and it would make sense to use it as a platform to hype up their culture, especially to the younger generation.
If this is the case, then I’m all for it. I think that Chinese culture itself is already really beautiful and pairing it up with a very likable character is practically a match made in Heaven. It’s either that or MiHoYo genuinely just wanted an opera singer as a character for no reason and we’re just overthinking this.
Whatever MiHoYo’s reasoning might be, Yunjin is no doubt a well-thought out character and is in my opinion one of the most interesting characters in the entire game. Having gone through controversy, mixed emotions, and various speculations and assumptions from different people, Yunjin has definitely stood the test of time.
Yunjin has given me a new perspective on Chinese culture and opera and I am hoping that with this article, more people shall know of her. I am looking forward to seeing more of her and her troupe’s performances within the stories to come!