Guests of Honor

Chris Cason – Voice Actor/Director Guest of Honor

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Stan Sakai – Artist Guest of Honor

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dave Merrill – Fan Guest of Honor

 

 

 

 

 

Tadao Tomomatsu – Toastmaster

Other Guests and Program Participants

Kyle Hebert – Kyle Hebert is a Los Angeles-based anime and video game voice actor whose credits include Ultimate Marvel Vs Capcom 3 (Ryu), Naruto (Kiba), Bleach (Aizen, Ganju), X Men Arcade (all male voices) and Gurren Lagann (Kamina).  He is best known as the Narrator and Teen Gohan from the Funimation dub of Dragonball Z.  Other notable roles include Soul Eater (Masamune), Ouran High School Host Club (Kazukiyo Soga), Fullmetal Alchemist (Vato Falman), Tales of Symphonia (Richter Abend) and Star Ocean (Dias, Arumat, Crow).  Kyle also provides voices in numerous video games including Saints Row:  The Third, Sonic, Final Fantasy XIII, World of Warcraft, Devil May Cry 4, Dynasty Warriors, and Resident Evil.  He writes and voices all the promos for filmmaker, Kevin Smith’s Smodcast Internet Radio.  He also provides private online voice acting critique sessions for beginners.  For more info, visit www.kylehebert.com.

 

Jon Allen – Jon is a professional actor, voice actor, and touring comedian. A veteran of ten years in the world of voiceover, he has contributed his voice to every niche of the business, including everything ranging from animated series and video games to radio commercials, corporate narration, and telephone messaging. He’s perhaps best known as of late for being the voice of Jarvis, the main character in PAIN, the Playstation 3 Network’s most purchased title. He’s also been heard in over a dozen other video games, including Warhammer Tactics, High Velocity Bowling, Jack Keane, Elvira’s Monster Stack ‘N Match, and many others. On television he’s been seen in the series “The Ex-List” and Comedy Central’s “My Profile Story,” and such award winning films as Donut Shop Hero and Save Ron Jr. Jon’s also worked as a voice actor on the anime titles Dragonball Z (the most Googled anime of all time) and Ergo Proxy, and was a contributing writer for Beckett Magazine. Jon was also responsible for most of the comedy MP3s of DBZ that were circulating the internet from the late 90′s into the early 2000′s, including the very popular “Krillin Prank Call.” When not busy with other acting pursuits, he also contributes to the independent pro wrestling scene in California, having done everything from announcing and color commentary to being a bad guy manager, and contributing to False Count Radio. He can be seen in the best selling book “The Art of Voice Acting,” as well as performing at various clubs throughout the country, speaking on his many adventures in life and the entertainment industry.

 http://www.JonAllenComedy.com

 

Lauren Landa – Lauren is thrilled to be returning to Anime LA once again! It’s become a new tradition!

Outside of the Voice Over world, Lauren first began acting at the age of 11 in the stage production of Annie, and continued with shows including; Rogers and Hammerstein’s Cinderella, Bye Bye Birdie, Comic Potential, and the Greek Comedy Lysistrata.Lauren has also Assistant Directed for stage productions such as: Stephen Sondheim’s Merrily We Roll Along, Batboy the Musical, as well as the Greek comedy, Lysistrata.

As a Voice Over Actress, she is most known for the role of Litchi Faye Ling in the popular fighting game BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger as well as the Sequel BlazBlue: Continium Shift . She has had several roles in Anime and video games such as: Arf and Chrono Harlaown (Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha/ A’s), Kirche Van Zerbst, (Familiar Of Zero) Aegil, Cotton, Sasha (Rondo of Swords), Lila (Summon Night Twin Age), Rina (Luminous Arc 2), Yoko (Sakichi Satô’s Tokyo Zombie) Sy-Fy channel’s anime addition Monster, Boiboi (REDLINE)

 

Stephen Weese – Stephen Weese is a film and voice actor who recently wrote, starred in, and produced his own sci-fi film, Broken Spirits, due out this winter. This film stars many popular anime voice actors in live action roles. He got his voice break in the Hellsing OVAs and was recently in Sengoku Basara 3. He is co-host of the web TV show Anime Olympics with Cristina Vee. Also a writer, he created the web comic The Great Space Race, now being marketed to be produced into an animated series. He appeared as a LARPer in Role Models and a sword fighter in Legend of the Red Reaper.  In 2006 he won one of the the first ever LARPY awards. He is also a true fan, gamer, geek and a sword fighter. You can keep up with Stephen at www.steveracer.com.

 

 

 Panda Cubed – Hailing from the land of sand, Arizona panel Group Panda Cubed brings it’s unique brand of entertainment to Anime LA.Combining informative content, lots of lols, scathing sarcasm, and occasional trolling, Fuu and Joe create a panel experience like no other. From anime, to kpop, to cosplay, to trolling, their panels cover an great range of subjects for everyone. Also, they like facebook, so join them there at facebook.com/pandacubed

 

Jonathan “Jake” Tarbox – Editor, translator, producer and teacher—Jonathan “Jake” Tarbox has done it all during his career in international media and content production. He’s worked for DC Comics, Time Warner, VIZ Media, Kadokawa Publications and the NFL to produce print and video content for both the Japanese and American markets.

While working for NFL Japan (the National Football League’s Tokyo office), he was recruited to join the staff of Coamix Inc., the publisher of Weekly Comics Bunch, as the senior editor of their new manga magazine for the North American market, Raijin Comics.

From 2000 to 2002, Jonathan was a cast member of KOKO GA HEN DA YO! NIHONJIN (This is strange, Japan!), along with award-winning Japanese actor/director “Beat” Takashi Kitano.

In 2004, after 14 years in Japan, Jonathan returned to America, joining DC Comics to manage the CMX manga line. In 2005, he formed Arashi Productions, a manga and anime production company. The company has since developed a wide range of print and video media projects.

Jonathan is also a martial artist, holding black belts in Aikido, Hontai Yoshin Ryu Jujutsu, and Toyama Ryu Iaido.

 

 

Kaiji Tang – Kaiji Tang is a voice/screen actor and writer currently living in Los Angeles. When he’s not wrestling bears or pile driving sharks, you can hear him in such shows as Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha as Graf Eisen and Shiro Takamachi, Kite Liberator as Sputnik and The Familiar of Zero as Derflinger. He’s also been involved with such shows as Flag, Karas, The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, Tweeny Witches and Monster. If you’re a gamer and know how to rock those tier lists, you can hear Kaiji in Fist of the North Star: Ken’s Rage as Kenshiro, Dynasty Warriors 7 as Sima Zhao, Kamen Rider: Dragon Knight as Strike and Thrust. He’s also been involved with such games as Blazblue, Sakura Wars and Sengoku Basara: Samurai Heroes. If you enjoy Tekken, then you may have heard Kaiji as the troll-eriffic Lee Chaolan in Tekken: Blood Vengeance. And though at the moment of this bio he has so much more he wants to share, he’s been sworn to secrecy lest the National Destroy-Voice Agents of America (N.D.A.) comes after him for breaching his contracts.

 

 

Julie Rei Goldstein – Julie Rei Goldstein got her start in the anime industry after winning the AX Idol 2005 Voice Acting competition, which in turn led to her first chance to step into the booth and play Risa Nagase in one of her favorite anime series “Paradise Kiss.” She landed her first major role as Precia Testarossa, the tortured villain of “Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha (A’s),” and shortly thereafter voiced the evil Biris of the Fairy Retrieval Squad in “Tweeny Witches.” Since then, she’s appeared in the Xbox360 game “Magna Carta 2″ and the Award Winning Claymation Short “Ketchup” as the Evil Manager and Tomato Plant. She has also performed as various furry creatures in “Majin and the Forsaken Kingdom” and gave voice to the burly Mute in “Ar Tonelico Qoga.” On camera she appeared in the first season of the webseries “TrishPattyPat” as the mildly bipolar assistant Kitty and in the feature film “He Who Finds a Wife: Thou Shall Not Covet.” She recently finished shooting the short film ”Billie Speare,” which is part of the Anti-Bullying Initiative and “It Gets Better” projects, a few causes very near and dear to her heart.

For Julie Rei, being a part of this industry is a dream come true, and she hopes to help other talented fans pursue their dreams of becoming creators as well. You can keep up with her current projects via Twitter @JulieRei as well as her website http://www.julierei.com.

 

Jessica Straus – Jessica Straus is currently best-known for her voice over work as the red-eyed, sexy, kick-ass, bad-girl, Juri Han, from the well-known game “Super Street Fighter IV”.  Jessica loved voicing this role, amongst many other game roles, including: Sasha in “Infamous”, Pi in“.hack”,  Ina in “Samurai III”, Slipstream in “Transformers: War of Cybertron”,  tons of  gods & demons in the “World of Warcraft” series, Cherry in “Sakura Wars”, and in the recently released RPG game, “Rune Factory: Oceans” Jessica voices Sonja.  Some of her first jobs in voice over were in games such as “Diablo 2” (Amazon) and “Command & Conquer Tiberian Sun” (EVA).

As Jessica started her acting career as a character actress on stage, she really loved the wide variety of roles she got to play on numerous Anime series.   In “Code Geass: Lelouch of the Rebellion R2”, she voiced the little girl, Princess Tianzi, and Zhou Xianglin, a tough military aide.  In “Monster”, she voiced Milos, a young boy, and a prostitute, among others.  One of Jessica’s favorite Anime roles is Blue in “Wolf’s Rain”. (Although she probably laughed the most when playing Taruto, the magical kitten in “Meow, Meow, Taruto”.)  Other Anime roles include:  Gidget in Eureka Seven; Tsubaki Oribe  in “Please Twins”!, Mikako Kouda in Paradise Kiss, and Junko Miyaji in FLCL.  Jessica was also honored to voice the lead, Deunan Knute in the theatrically released movie,  “Appleseed”.

Currently, Jessica is having a blast voicing two little boy penguins for a pre-school animated series (yet to be released in the states) and has voiced more games which are all hush-hush, of course.  To learn more about Jessica’s voice credits in anime, animation, games, commercials, toys, etc.,  please visit her website at www.jessicastraus.com.

 

Danielle McRae – Danielle McRae is a new blooded voice over actress residing in Los Angeles, California. Being a native to the Los Angeles area, she found her theatrical calling at the age of 23 years old which then led her to learn about the technical side of ADR training and Character Development with ADR Director, Tony Oliver. Danielle continues on with her journey in making a name for herself as a diverse and versatile voice actress. Being a freelance voice over performer, some of her most notable credits have been in Metal Gear Solid: Philanthropy, Nightmare House 2, Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego, The Underbelly “an ongoing webseries”, and League of Legends.

Danielle has also just wrapped up with recording for several awesome video game projects which are currently top secret, but you can expect them to be released very soon!

 

Derek Stephen Prince – Derek Stephen Prince, aka Steve, has been in the voiceover industry almost 20 years. His career spans across such shows as Digimon: Seasons 1-4 playing such favorites as Digimon Emperor, Veemon, Beelzamon, Impmon and Piedmon to name a few; Love, Hina where he played Keitaro; Nartuto, where he plays Shino Aburame; and Bleach, where he plays Uryu Ishida. Video games include the Kingdom Hearts series as Vexen, Odin Sphere as Oswald, and Operation Darkness as Adolf Hitler and Jack the Ripper. He has a passion in his voice and he ain’t afraid to show it…

 

 

 

 

Craig Miller – Craig Miller is a well-known and respected writer/producer with over 200 credits.  He has worked in live-action and animation, written scripts, developed series, pitched to studios and networks, produced, cast, approved storyboards, character designs, and animation – the entire gamut of what goes into creating, selling, and producing a TV series.

 

 

 

 

 

Mark Allen Jr. – Mark Allen Jr. is an American actor who specializes in voice over. Mark was officially bitten by the acting bug in High School, explored the creative worlds of musical theater and drama, and began his love affair with Improvised Comedy. Mark found his calling when someone brought to his attention the fact that people actually got paid to voice those cartoons he liked as a kid. With this in mind, Mark flung himself into the quest to obtain this heavenly profession. Mark has spent his days since taking every opportunity to explore himself as an actor and learn all he can about people and the art of entertaining. This love for entertaining has fed Mark’s approach through writing stories, vlogging online, and of course, acting.

Mark is a co-host on AnimeTV, an anime and Japanese culture show. He can also be heard in Squid Girl, Redline, and the upcoming Magnum Farce. He’s also currently in the recording process for a top secret children’s cartoon, looking to release sometime in the coming year.

 

Keep watching here for even more updates.