Tidus
is a character in Square Enix's video game series Final Fantasy and the main protagonist of the 2001 role-playing video game Final Fantasy X. A 17-year-old athlete from the city of Zanarkand, he is transported to Spira after Sin destroys Zanarkand. Shortly after arriving there, Tidus meets the summoner Yuna and her guardians and joins them on a pilgrimage to kill Sin after learning that it is his missing father, Jecht. Tidus has appeared in other video games, including the Final Fantasy X sequel X-2, where he can be recruited as a playable character in the international version. He also appears in various Square Enix crossover games and in the Kingdom Hearts series, where he is depicted as a child.
Tetsuya Nomura designed Tidus with a cheerful personality and appearance to contrast with previous Final Fantasy protagonists. Scenario writer Kazushige Nojima wanted to expand the relationship between player and character with monologues describing the game's setting. The narrative was initially focused on the romance between Tidus and Yuna, but Square Enix instead decided to focus on Tidus' relationship with Jecht to have a greater impact on the setting. Tidus is voiced in Japanese by Masakazu Morita, who also performed his motion capture, and in English by James Arnold Taylor; both actors enjoyed voicing the character.
Tidus has been generally well-received by video-game critics. His cheerful personality and heroism make him an appealing protagonist, contrasting with previous male characters in the franchise and being comparable to messiah figures and other fictional heroes. Tidus' character development and romantic relationship with Yuna are considered among the best in video games, although reviewers and fans were divided on Taylor's voice acting. Tidus has been popular with fans, often ranking in polls as one of the best Final Fantasy characters. Action figures and jewelry related to Tidus have been produced, and he is a popular character among cosplayers.
Creation and development
Before the development of Final Fantasy X, game-scenario writer Kazushige Nojima was concerned about the relationship between the player and the main character in a Final Fantasy title, and wanted to make the story easier to follow. Because the player and the main character find themselves in a new world, Nojima wanted Tidus' understanding of that world to track the player's progress in the game. Nojima felt that Tidus was the easiest character to draw in the first half of Final Fantasy X, because the player and characters learn about the story together. Nojima created a brief description of Tidus for character designer Tetsuya Nomura, from which Nomura created a sketch for input from Nojima and other staff members. Nomura was asked to design Tidus differently from the game's theme so he would stand out. Movie director Hiroshi Kuwabara noted the difficulty of making Tidus and the other main characters realistic. The staff wanted to introduce an undead playable character, but after Nojima saw a film with a similar idea for its protagonist during the game's development, the role of an undead person was then given to secondary character Auron. Director Yoshinori Kitase stated that during the development of Final Fantasy X, one developer focused on the romance between Tidus and Yuna.Nomura stated that the contrast between Tidus and Yuna was established by their names, which are derived from the Okinawan words for "sun" and "night", respectively. This contrast is also shown in the items that power their celestial weapons; the sun sigil and crest for Tidus, and the moon sigil and crest for Yuna. Because the player can change Tidus' name, his name is not spoken in the game. However, a character in Dream Zanarkand uses Tidus' name in a dialogue box, and it appears in Spiran script on the nameplate of an Auroch locker in the Luca stadium. Before Final Fantasy Xs release, Tidus was known to the media as Tida. In early 2001, PlayOnline changed the character's name to "Tidus". Because Tidus' name is never spoken in FFX, its intended pronunciation has been debated. Interviews with James Arnold Taylor and spoken dialogue in the English versions of Dissidia Final Fantasy, Dissidia 012 Final Fantasy, and Kingdom Hearts, in which Tidus makes cameo appearances, indicate his name is pronounced ; in the English version of Kingdom Hearts II, Tidus' name is pronounced . According to Taylor, the name was pronounced during the localization of FFX because the narrator of an early English trailer pronounced it that way.
Nojima said that he cried during the game's ending, when Tidus and Yuna are separated and he vanishes. For the sequel, Final Fantasy X-2, producer Kitase thought that the greatest fan expectation was the reunion of Tidus and Yuna after their separation in the first game. The game generated rumors about Tidus' connection with the villain Shuyin, who was physically similar to him and had the same voice actors. However, according to Square Enix, given Tidus' nature, such a storyline would be too complicated. For the remastering of Final Fantasy X and X-2, producer Kitase's motivation was to have people too young to have played the games experience them; his son was only old enough to know Tidus and Yuna from Dissidia Final Fantasy and its prequel.
Design
Character designer Nomura said that he wanted Tidus' clothing and accessories to suggest a relationship with the sea. Tidus' clothing has a distinctive blue motif; his blitzball team logo, which is based on a fish hook, is an amalgam of the letters J and T, the first letters of his name and that of his father Jecht. Additionally, he and Yuna share the key color blue, suggesting a maritime link.Tidus was designed to be distinctive within Spira. Because of improvements in technology following the previous Final Fantasy games, Nomura wanted to make Tidus' face more realistic and his build more noticeable compared to previous Final Fantasy characters, who looked scrawny. Square Enix wanted Tidus to have an Asian look. Artist Yusuke Naora worked on Tidus' design and his relationship with the sea, which he found difficult to draw and translate into computer-generated imagery CGI.
Because they were unaccustomed to animating romantic scenes, the developers struggled with a scene in which Tidus and Yuna kiss. According to Visual Works director Kazuyuki Ikumori, this was due to the use of 3D models. The scene was revised several times due to a negative response from female staff members. Tidus was initially a rude plumber who was part of a delinquent gang; according to Kitase, Tidus would be a weak protagonist, and he was instead depicted as an athlete.
Personality
After designing serious, moody main characters for Final Fantasy VII and VIII, Nomura wanted to give Tidus a cheerful persona and appearance. Because he wanted to continue the recent trend of sky-related names, Kazushige Nojima chose a name based on tiida, which is Okinawan for "sun". Nojima called Tidus' personality "lively", and compared him to Final Fantasy VIIIs other cheerful characters, Laguna Loire and Zell Dincht.Though Tidus is initially portrayed as ignorant of Spira, his growth during the story was written to make his character arc more notable, especially because he saves the world at the end of the game. The scene in which Tidus saves Yuna from being kidnapped by Al Bhed and proclaims that he and the Guardians will protect them so they should not be concerned is one of their most important scenes. While Nojima wrote the character, the scenes in which Tidus' and Yuna's relationship becomes intimate was written by Daisuke Watanabe because Nojima struggled to write them in a proper romantic relationship. Nojima believes that the scene was well executed and that the couple's comfort helped Yuna complete her character arc.
Tidus' relationship with his father was based on stories such as ancient Greek legends and reveals the key to the weakness of Sin, the game's main antagonist. Kitase noted that in contrast to previous orphan characters in the franchise, Tidus' character arc includes accepting Jecht's wish for redemption for his abuse of him as a child. Kitase felt that Tidus' voice acting and facial expressions were crucial to him at this stage. Motomu Toriyama said that when Final Fantasy X was released, he saw the story from Tidus' point of view: "about parent, child and family". Although FFX was originally centered on the relationship between Tidus and Yuna, the addition of Jecht and his feud with Tidus was added late in the game's development to shift the focus to father and son making a bigger impact in Spira's history rather than the romantic couple. Kitase found the story of the relationship between Tidus and Jecht to be more moving than that between him and Yuna.
Portrayals
Voice actor Masakazu Morita, who voiced Tidus in Japanese, called him a highlight of his career, comparable to his voicing of Ichigo Kurosaki, protagonist of manga Bleach. Morita also enjoyed performing Tidus' motion capture, which gave him a greater understanding of the character's personality; he moved his body when he recorded Tidus' dialogue. Morita said that Tidus was his favorite character and called him "the most outstanding, most special character to me". As his first work as an actor, he has fond memories of voicing Tidus and interacting with other Final Fantasy X staff members.Morita said that there was no difficulty in voicing Tidus, whose personality was similar to his own, and he did not need to study him. Morita was concerned that his career would be affected if fans did not enjoy Tidus. When announcing the Japanese actor, Square Enix said that Morita was chosen because he also did the motion capture for Zell, which would make fans remember previous games. In flashback scenes depicting a seven-year-old Tidus, he is voiced by Yūto Nakamura.
Morita returned to voice Tidus for the fighting game Dissidia Final Fantasy; he was concerned about his ability to perform the character's lines like the original Final Fantasy series because nearly a decade had passed since he voiced Tidus. By that time, Morita was more accustomed to acting as Ichigo as well as Keiji Maeda from Capcom's games Sengoku Basara, characters who have a different vocal tone than Tidus. When Morita returned to voice Tidus, he tried to make his voice match his original performance. When the game's director complimented Morita for keeping the character's tone, Morita was relieved and joked that he felt younger.
In English, Tidus is voiced by James Arnold Taylor. Taylor was offered the role by voice director Jack Fletcher, who believed that Taylor would fit the character, and translator Alexander O. Smith explained Tidus to him. In contrast to Morita, with the staff's approval, Taylor made the character friendlier and less serious. After recording for Final Fantasy X, Taylor said that he would enjoy voicing Tidus again; he said the character is "like an old friend to me now. I know so much more about him now than I did when we first started, knowing hardly anything about him. I would really hate it if anybody else voiced him." Taylor enjoyed recording for the game, which took him three-and-a-half months.
According to Taylor, it would be unrealistic for Tidus to hide emotion. He said that, although there were things he would change about his performance, such as the scene in which Tidus and Yuna begin laughing together, he was grateful for the warm fan reception of his work. Smith felt the forced-laugh scene was adapted well from the original Japanese scene because of how "stilted and out of place" it is in the original version. Smith was confused by Morita's and Mayuko Aoki's performances but, after discussing it with Nojima, found that it well done in both languages, calling it "awkward" and "funny". When Final Fantasy X was re-released in 2013, Taylor said that he was proud to be Tidus' voice. For Dissidia NT, Taylor commented that, while Tidus' new role would seem new to players due to how he is again led into battle, people would still find him appealing. IGN said that the character "has a tendency to speak a little too high and fast when he gets excited". This led to several negative responses. In one scene, Yuna tells Tidus to laugh and Tidus forces a laugh. Although fans criticized the laughter as too forced, Taylor stated that it is an intentionally "awkward, goofy, dumb laugh".
Kikunosuke Onoe V portrayed Tidus in the 2023 kabuki adaptation of Final Fantasy X, including his child self. To promote the play, Morita appeared in commercials, asking fans to go see it. Morita expressed his excitement at the retelling of Final Fantasy X and that Onoe would portray his character as a result of his popularity.