paimon is the popular “mascot” of the hit open-world role-playing game, Genshin Impact. Although in the versions from various parts of the world it is defined that paimon is a girl, in the Japanese version this is not explicitly defined. In the Japanese dub, Paimon makes use of the pronoun “oira (おいら)”, which is generally used by “rogue boys”. Perhaps because the translators from the rest of the world did not know how to adapt it, they made it paimon It will speak in the third person (for example, “Paimon thinks that…” or “Paimon doesn’t like that…”), but in Japanese it’s pretty clear.
Fortunately, it seems that the Japanese finally decided to establish the sex of Paimon within the video game. It all started with an internal email sent to the players on February 11, the same day that the birthday of “Alhacén, The Severe Instructor“. In said message written by the character, the following is mentioned:
- Sumeru doesn’t have a special day dedicated to reading books, giving some people a convenient excuse to never lay eyes on physical books forever. Speaking of which, Paimon seems interested in reading. I may find some suitable books for her in the House of the Daena. Reading them will set you apart from many others.
Although the writing is typical of Alhacén, who never forgets his books, the use of the term “Kanojo (彼女)”, a feminine pronoun, caught the attention of the players. As the context defines Paimon as a girl for the first time in Japanese, there were comments like: “He called Paimon with a female pronoun, so it’s a girl?»; «Paimon was a girl?»; «Oh God! Paimon is a woman!“, among others.
Yes, maybe as gamers Genshin Impact outside Japan it seems silly to you that the Japanese did not know that Paimon was a woman, but the important thing here It’s not that they didn’t know, but that they weren’t sure.. In Japanese there is a great variety of pronouns and some are exclusive to either men or women. The fact that Paimon has a feminine appearance, but uses masculine pronouns, is something common in Japanese when you want to leave a character’s gender unknown.
Fountain: InsideGames
The Paimon entry is finally revealed as a girl in Japan’s Genshin Impact was first published on Kudasai.
