Final Fantasy VIII - Why does Selphie use Kansai-ben in this way?

Japanese Language
1

I noticed while reading through the text of Final Fantasy VIII that the character Selphie think in Kansai-ben but when she speaks out loud she doesn’t use the Kansai accent. Why would she think with a Kansai dialect? I assume it’s meant to be cute or funny in some way but I don’t get the joke really…

2

Kansai-ben is widely used in manzai so it could just be meant to be funny what she is thinking in reference to that.

3

Isn’t she supposed to come from a “Japan-like” island? They have to do something to mark that she is a “foreigner”.

Doesn’t explain why she would speak “normally”, though.

Edit eh wait, that’s FF7 … Yuffie?

4

I don’t know the details about anything here but isn’t it a common trope for characters to try and converse in standard Japanese even if they grew up speaking a dialect? And if that’s the case it’d make sense that they’d think in their original dialect

3 Likes
5

That makes the most sense to me. Thanks.

6

That does make a lot of sense. The only reason I think it’s not this is because manzai usually has someone play straight while the other plays the comic. She’s funny all the time and pretty crazy outwardly while her inner Kanzai-ben speaking self is more straight but still funny and a bit crazy.

7

I should read through FF7 next. I’m sure Yuffie speaks strangely too in some way or another.

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