The next morning, instead of going to 'Yosuganosora' Animation Studio, Kamiyā Yuu headed to the sound department, located more than half an hour away from the company.
'Yosuganosora' Animation Studio had already accumulated a considerable amount of capital. Once the production of 'Fate/Zero' was completed and the commercial value of 'Puella Magi Madoka Magica' had been fully realized, the company would be able to move into a new office building.
Although the first four episodes of 'Fate/Zero' had already been completed, voice recording had fallen behind schedule, with progress only reaching Episode 3.
It was actually rare in the industry for dubbing to lag behind animation production.
What happened far more often was the opposite—unfinished animation being rushed into voice recording sessions using key frames or even rough storyboards.
The reason for this delay was one of Kamiyā Yuu's ideas for the anime.
It was also intended to fully showcase the unique appeal of the series' premise.
The issue lay in language.
When watching anime or movies, viewers often joked with comments like:
["The whole world speaks Japanese again."]
or
["The entire universe speaks English."]
In Kamiyā Yuu's opinion, those complaints were overly nitpicky.
For example, Hollywood blockbusters were primarily made for American audiences, most of whom spoke English.
Even if the setting involved a being transcending the universe itself speaking English, it could simply be understood as a method of clearly conveying information to the audience.
On the other hand, forcing half-baked foreign-language voice acting often created more problems than benefits.
Whether through replacement voice actors or having actors learn unfamiliar languages, various issues inevitably arose.
However, as an anime director, Kamiyā Yuu cared about this detail.
At the very least, he wanted the Heroic Spirits to speak the languages of their own eras when they first appeared.
Doing so would strengthen characterization and deepen the feeling that legendary heroes from different periods had truly arrived in the modern world.
In his rebooted version of 'Fate/Zero,' every Heroic Spirit's summoning scene included a unique line spoken in the language of their own time.
Saber:
"I ask of thee, art thou my Master?" (Old English)
Lancelot:
"ROOOOOOOAR!" (???)
Gilgamesh:
"Answer me. Art thou the magus who dares commit such insolence merely to behold the radiance of thy king?"
Just one or two lines in their original languages were enough.
Afterward, switching to Japanese could easily be explained by the Heroic Spirit synchronizing with their Master's language or learning Japanese through the Holy Grail.
The original 'Fate/stay night' game had actually provided explanations for this aspect.
The fact that it wasn't reflected in the original 'Fate/Zero' adaptation had always seemed somewhat unfortunate to Kamiyā Yuu.
Back in his previous world, there had even been a popular joke online about the languages spoken by Heroic Spirits in the Type-Moon universe.
...
Inside a church rendered in the art style of 'Carnival Phantasm,' Emiya Shirō sought out Kotomine Kirei, the overseer of the Holy Grail War, to learn about the Holy Grail system.
Shirō frowned and voiced a question that had bothered him for a long time.
"Why can every Heroic Spirit speak Japanese!?"
Kirei replied with a strangely subtle expression.
"The miracle of the Holy Grail."
Seeing his expression, Shirō sighed.
"I knew you'd say that. Whenever something is troublesome to explain, you just blame it on the Holy Grail."
Kirei answered seriously,
"No. Returning humanity's linguistic state to a common point is one of the Holy Grail's important functions. Otherwise, communication between Masters and Servants would not be possible."
"That's just an excuse."
Kirei smiled calmly.
"Heh. Since you insist on saying that, let me suppress that particular function of the Holy Grail. Then you can experience the result yourself."
"Wait, that's not what I—"
From that moment onward, Emiya Shirō could no longer understand anything happening in the Holy Grail War.
Illyasviel von Einzbern:
"Schiro! Hörst du auf mich!?"
Assassin (False) Sasaki Kojirō:
"ぬかったな剣术士の主よ.我が発言は辛うじて当世でも理解されしか." (Classical Japanese)
Lancer Cú Chulainn:
"Seduirtsiliombheithsuaimhneachmarafhasannduilliurisblath."
Caster Medea:
"Χαραζουμεακοματοιδιοαστεριπουειδαμεμιαφορα."
Rider Medusa:
"∑ΗΘΔΜΚΘΓΡ∏ΟΞΝΜ∧ΘΖΕΧΦΥΩΜ∧ΘΖΕΧ."
Archer Gilgamesh:
Meaningless to modern humans, cuneiform symbols are impossible to represent through standard writing.
Shirō clung to one final hope and looked at Saber.
"This is getting more incomprehensible by the minute. Wait... Saber is British. She should speak English, right? At least I can sort of understand English."
Saber Artoria Pendragon:
"Byyonbonniebanksandbyyonbonniebraes,' Twastherethatwepartedinyonshadyglen." (Old English)
Shirō completely surrendered.
"It's Old English!?"
Tohsaka Rin looked at Archer beside her in confusion.
"But I can communicate with Archer perfectly fine."
Archer EMIYA laughed awkwardly.
"Haha... that's true."
...
With the assistance of his consciousness space, Kamiyā Yuu could master even extremely difficult languages in a short period of time.
Using it, he accessed information from the internet of his previous world and gathered a vast amount of linguistic material.
He then attached recordings of himself speaking lines in the various historical languages to the sound department's scripts.
The voice actors were required to learn those foreign-language lines and use them during recording.
To prevent issues such as "Japanese English," "Japanese German," or "Japanese Greek," the voice actors spent a full two weeks practicing using Kamiyā Yuu's recordings before they could deliver the lines properly.
One thing worth mentioning was Zhao Yun's voice.
Kamiyā Yuu intended to perform it personally.
As a native Chinese speaker in his previous world, he was naturally very familiar with Chinese.
Of course, the Chinese spoken during the Three Kingdoms era was not the same as modern Mandarin.
One of the major attractions of the Holy Grail War setting was watching Heroic Spirits from different eras arrive in the modern world and clash with contemporary values and beliefs.
That cultural and ideological collision was precisely the kind of thing audiences loved to see.