The new agent in Valorant – Neon is extremely proud of where he was born. One of them is the culture of Karaoke.
Thus, the 18th agent of the Valorant universe has also been introduced to all fans through the 2-minute trailer. If you do not know, Neon is Filipino and she is very proud of her birthplace through the following 5 things, all of which have been shown in the trailer:
Entertain Me is a song performed by Ylona Garcia. This song is the song that plays on Neon’s phone and is also the theme song in the trailer introducing the 18th agent Valorant – Neon.
Ylona Garcia is a singer and reality TV show host. Ylona’s name is widely known when participating in a reality TV show called Pinoy Big Brother in 2015. Ylona Garcia has also appeared in ABS-CBN’s Philippine TV shows in 2018. Currently, Ylona is signing a contract with the American international music company – Asia 88rising.
Neon is a basketball enthusiast
If in Vietnam, the most popular sport in our country is football, in the Philippines, basketball is the “king” sport here. Neon is also a basketball enthusiast. This is reflected in her framing and wall hanging of the jersey of the Philippine national basketball team, Gilas Pilipinas. Besides, this shirt has the number 5, the number that both former LA Tenorio and Gabe Norwood players used to wear when playing.
Walis tambo, aspin and bangka
Surely you will wonder what is walis tambo, aspin and bangka right?
In Tagalog, the national language of the Philippines, Walis tambo is a broom. The special feature of this broom is that they are completely handmade.
Walis tambo means broom
Beside her bed was a picture frame with a dog lounging on the beach in front of a small canoe. In Tagalog, Aspin or ‘asong Pinoy’ is the word for dogs bred in the Philippines, and bangka means canoe.
Aspin and bangka mean hybrid dog and canoe
All of this, Neon brought with him when he arrived at the headquarters of the Valorant agents. They will help ease her homesickness as well as remind Neon of where she was born.
The line ‘Hay buhay’
The voice actress for this Neon agent is Vanille Velasquez. She was given full discretion by Riot Games in improvising the Tagalog language when recording for the character Neon. Because of that, she often uses the line ‘Hay buhay’. In the trailer for Valorant’s new agent, we hear the ‘Hay buhay’ line as Neon reviews the videos sent by Agent Sage.
‘Hay buhay’ is an exclamation
‘Hay buhay’ is a Filipino expression that means ‘Oh, life’ in English. This line is used when Neon is feeling stressed or angry. In addition, Neon repeats the line ‘Kontrolado ko’ to!’ – roughly translates to ‘I’m in control’ when Neon is activating his last skill.
In the trailer, you will catch a few scenes of Neon performing the title track – ‘Entertain Me’.
This new Valorant agent loves to sing
This can be thought of as the Philippines being a music-loving country. Filipinos were brought up with music from a young age. In fact, music is extremely important to the people here, so much so that every family has their own karaoke machine at home.
See also: Valorant: Revealing the hegemonic skill set of the 18th agent ‘Neon’
