Welcome back to Otaku Ohana, the blog that I’ve had far too little time to update for one reason or another as of late. I thank you for your continued patience and readership.
One of the combined benefits/drawbacks of not having time to post for so long is that the news tends to stack up. A lot. That’s the way it’s been with guest announcements at various shows and events around town; one minute, you’re hearing that two of the voice actors from your favoritest show in the world ever as you were growing up are coming to town, then the up-and-coming sci-fi convention on another island brings in a few anime-related fan favorites of their own, then a bona fide manga artist shows up, and pretty soon you’re sitting down and writing a blog post that runs for more than 1,600 words. Heck, one of these announcements (*cough*Melissa Fahn*cough*) is so new, it hasn’t even been formally announced in public yet, but it has been confirmed and vetted for release to me by HawaiiCon, so I’m rolling with it.
You’re going to need a scorecard to keep track of everyone who’s coming in, so here’s a roundup of all the guest announcements that have been made to date. Taku Taku Matsuri, Kawaii Kon, HawaiiCon, even a Honolulu Museum of Art exhibit … they’re all here.
Jamie Lynn Lano
Best known for: She’s one of the rare artists from the United States who’s managed to make a go of things in the manga industry in Japan, serving as an assistant to Prince of Tennis artist Takeshi Konomi for about a year as he worked on launching The New Prince of Tennis and chronicling her experience, first on her blog at jamieism.com and then in her memoir released this year, The Princess of Tennis. She’s since moved to Oahu and has become a mainstay with the Nightmarchers, Honolulu’s Quidditch team (profiled in this story, available to Star-Advertiser subscribers). At Taku Taku Matsuri, she’ll be hosting a panel from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. as well as taking part in a demonstration with the Nightmarchers from 2:30 to 3:30 p.m.
Appearing at: Taku Taku Matsuri, Saturday at the Japanese Cultural Center of Hawaii (2211 S. Beretania St.) Presale tickets ($13) and ticket/T-shirt packs ($20) are available at www.gofundme.com/dbi0fc. Prices will be higher at the door, so save yourself a few bucks and order now.
Cristina Vee
Best known for: Mio in K-ON!, Homura in Puella Magi Madoka Magica, Rei/Sailor Mars in Viz’s new Sailor Moon English dub, and Alisa Bosconovitch in Tekken: Blood Vengeance — she’s voiced them all in a career that’s been going strong since she voiced Nanoha in Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha in 2008. She’s also voiced various characters in video games including the BlazBlue franchise, Skullgirls and Ar Tonelico.
Appearing at: Taku Taku Matsuri, Saturday. Her panel will run from 3:30 to 5 p.m. with an autograph session to follow from 5 to 6:30 p.m. There are also seven slots still available for a special lunch with her at noon Sunday; those packages, which also include a Taku Taku ticket and T-shirt, are going for $100. Get them at the GoFundMe link above.
Erica Sakurazawa
Best known for: Remember back in the early-to-mid-2000s, when Tokyopop was at the height of its “throw all the manga and sorta-manga at the wall and let’s see what sticks” power? Among those that got largely lost in that shuffle were six standalone volumes by Erica Sakurazawa published under their “Manga After Hours” banner: Between the Sheets, Angel, Angel Nest, Nothing But Loving You, The Rules of Love and The Aromatic Bitters. As the line’s banner would indicate, these weren’t your average mass-market titles aimed at teens; instead, they were josei manga, mature stories with a target audience of women in their 20s and older. Johanna Draper Carlson has a profile of those books over at Manga Worth Reading.
Sakurazawa is appearing in connection with the Honolulu Museum of Art’s new exhibit opening Thursday, “Modern Love: 20th-Century Japanese Erotic Art,” which will feature a section on manga with one of her works, Love Vibes, translated into English. Art from Moyoco Anno (In Clothes Called Fat, Happy Mania, Sugar Sugar Rune) and Suehiro Maruo (Mr. Arashi’s Amazing Freak Show, The Strange Tale of Panorama Island) also will be featured. As the exhibit title indicates, there’s going to be a lot of imagery containing mature themes in this exhibit, so you’ll want to leave the kids at home for this one.
Appearing at: Honolulu Museum of Art Doris Duke Theater, Wed., Dec. 3, 4 p.m. Admission is free. She’s also hosting a workshop at the Honolulu Museum of Art School on Dec. 7 where she’ll be demonstrating her step-by-step process for drawing manga, but unless you already have an invitation to that, you can’t go. Sorry about that.
Todd Haberkorn
Best known for: The newest addition to this guest roundup (announced by Kawaii Kon Sunday night!), Haberkorn’s no stranger to our little rock in the middle of the Pacific, having been a guest at Kawaii Kon in 2013. He was recently added to the English dub cast of fangirl fanservice magnet Free! Eternal Summer, playing the role of Haruka Nanase. Other prominent roles include Natsu in Fairy Tail, Death the Kid in Soul Eater, Allen Walker in D.Gray Man, Italy in Hetalia Axis Powers, Keisuke Takahashi in Initial D, Keroro in Sgt. Frog and Kimihiro Watanuki in xxxHolic.
Appearing at: Kawaii Kon, March 27-29. Three-day passes are available online for $53 ($44 children ages 5-12) at www.showclix.com/event/3817763/listing. There are still a few Artist Alley tables available for sale at that link. And if you have some extra piles of cash around the house, please give me some there’s still a VIP Package for one person ($750), a VIP Package for two people ($900) and a lifetime membership pass ($3,000) available.
Jess Harnell
Best known for: He’s played a number of roles over the years — he was the voice of Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, Bill Clinton and Isaac Newton in the recent CGI revival of Mr. Peabody & Sherman! — but the one role pretty much anyone who grew up in the ’90s remembers him for is Wakko Warner, the baseball-cap-wearing, giant mallet-bearing Warner sibling in Animaniacs with a Ringo Starr-esque voice.
Appearing at: Kawaii Kon, March 27-29.
Rob Paulsen
Best known for: At Kawaii Kon this year, Jim Cummings filled the role of “the guy who voiced half the characters of your childhood” quite nicely. Next year? Paulsen’s bringing the other half. Consider his resume: Yakko Warner, Dr. Otto von Scratchensniff and Pinky in Animaniacs. Raphael in the classic Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon. Donatello in Nickelodeon’s CGI Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles revival. Carl in The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius. Arthur in The Tick. Throttle in Biker Mice From Mars. P.J. Pete in Goof Troop. Bubsy the Bobcat in those series of Mario/Sonic-esque 2-D platformer games that we’d much rather forget from the Super Nintendo era. The list goes on and on and on.
Appearing at: Kawaii Kon, March 27-29.
Bryce Papenbrook
Best known for: As the first person announced as a guest for Kawaii Kon 2015 — the news came down at this year’s closing ceremonies back in April — Papenbrook is the person we’ve known is coming to Hawaii for the longest time. He’s the voice of Eren in Attack on Titan, Rin Okumura in Blue Exorcist, Kirito in Sword Art Online and Hanabusa Aidou in Vampire Knight, which I understand are four series chock full of the new hawtness that all the young ‘uns have been flocking to in droves in recent years.
Appearing at: Kawaii Kon, March 27-29.
Steve Blum
Best known for: Being the voices of two space voyagers — Spike Spiegel in Cowboy Bebop, Tom the android in countless Cartoon Network Toonami block bumpers — as well as the red-cloaked man with his trusty handgun Cerberus, Vincent Valentine, in Final Fantasy VII offshoots Dirge of Cerberus and Advent Children, and the sinister Orochimaru in the Naruto franchise. Blum’s previous convention appearance in the islands was at Kawaii Kon in 2007.
Appearing at: HawaiiCon, Sept. 10-13 at the Hapuna Beach Prince Hotel on Hawaii island. Discounted four-day passes ($125), VIP passes ($399) and “Five-Year Mission” passes for the next five years of the convention ($500) are available through Dec. 31 at www.eventbrite.com/e/hawaiicon-2015-pre-sale-passes-tickets-13085636491. (Also, if you’re a fan of Farscape, Firefly, Dr. Who or Stargate, you might want to have a look at this Kickstarter campaign that went live Tuesday night. Just sayin’.)
Melissa Fahn
Best known for: Complementing Blum in Cowboy Bebop as the voice of — take a deep breath here — Edward Wong Hau Pepelu Tivrusky IV, ace computer hacker aboard the Bebop. She’s also continuing the trend of Invader Zim voice actors who have visited our fair isles, being the voice of Gaz in that series. Other roles include Eri Ninamori in FLCL … and the Tachikoma in Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex, which links her to someone else who’ll be visiting Hawaii next year…
Appearing at: HawaiiCon, Sept. 10-13.
Mary Elizabeth McGlynn
Best known for: Ten years ago this past September, the long-awaited sequel to the Ghost in the Shell movie, Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence, made its U.S. debut. A quick search on Rotten Tomatoes shows that it wasn’t nearly as well-regarded as the first one. Looking back now, it was notable for one reason: It marked Mary Elizabeth McGlynn’s debut as the voice of Motoko Kusanagi, a role she held throughout the franchise’s Stand-Alone Complex phase. She’s also voiced a number of anime roles under the alias of Melissa Williamson, including Julia in Cowboy Bebop, Urd in Ah! My Goddess: The Movie, Nuriko in Fushigi Yugi and Hilda in Outlaw Star.
And voice acting isn’t her sole talent in the industry; she’s served as ADR director for everything Naruto-related in the United States as well as Cowboy Bebop, and she’s sung a number of tracks on the soundtracks for Silent Hill 3, 4 and Origins. (Also, “Your Rain (Rage Mix)” and “You’re Not Here” in your Dance Dance Revolution playlists? That’s her singing.)
Appearing at: HawaiiCon, Sept. 10-13.
Otaku Ohana 