Kyle Hebert is a Los Angeles-based anime and video game voice actor whose credits include Wreck-It Ralph/Street Fighter (Ryu), Naruto (Kiba), Bleach (Aizen, Ganju), League of Legends (Ezreal, Jarvan, and Graves) 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 Fate/Zero (Beserker), Blue Exorcist (Bon Suguro), Guild Wars 2 (Great Ginz, Ogron, Hamar), Fullmetal Alchemist (Vato Falman), Tales of Symphonia (Richter Abend) and Star Ocean (Dias, Arumat, Crow). Kyle can also be heard in numerous video game franchises such as Sonic, Final Fantasy, World of Warcraft, Skylanders, Devil May Cry, Dynasty Warriors, Soul Calibur and Resident Evil.

He is also the voice of filmmaker, Kevin Smith's Smodco Internet Radio. For more info, visit www.kylehebert.com.

Sean Schemmel gets paid to stand in a sound proof padded room and make wacky voices all day with good reason. He’s good at it. Ever since he was discovered doing so at an undisclosed mental institution (read Marionette Theatre) Sean has been gainfully employed as a voice actor for some of the most popular titles in animation history. He is best known as the voices of Goku, King Kai and Nail in the internationally acclaimed anime series, Dragonball Z Dragonball Z Kai, and Dragonball GT.

More recently, he can be heard as Batman/Bruce Wayne in Gameloft's The Dark Knight Rises for iPad/Android, Bronk in Yu-Gi-Oh Zexal, Amidamaru, and Rio in Shaman King, Constable Biggles, Sh’Okanabo, Master Kahn (and many others) in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Onsokumaru in Ninja Nonsense, about 12 different thumbs in Thumb Wrestling Federation and Gonard in Kappa Mikey. Sean can also be heard as Paradox in the feature film, Yu-Gi-Oh 5d’s Bonds Beyond Time and as Grings Kodai in (Pokemon) Zoroark: Master of Illusions, as well as many other voices throughout the Pokemon series.

Starting from a theater background. Jezeroth became involved with cosplaying and masquerades in 1999. He has judged masquerades contests at many conventions, including Otakon and Anime Expo. In addition he has won major awards for his own work.

Jez gives back by offering demos, panels and lectures at various conventions. In addition, he has some of his award-winning costumes on display this year at Animazement, for a third year.

He worked at Cirque du Soleil as a tailor, but also does freelance work that varies from designing suits for the National Synchronized Swimming Team, to gowns for The Venetian Resort and Casino’s opera singers and nightclubs, special events and ballet productions.

Laugh Out Loud is a modern improvisational comedy troupe that hails from the University of Georgia. The group was founded in 2007, and has been working on their craft ever since.

The group has performed shows similar to the style most popularized by the show Whose Line Is It Anyway?, and last year the group also added a few other styles of improv under their belt.

Very recently started experimenting with a unique style of Japanese comedy called Manzai. Laugh Out Loud will be once again giving you the type of improv show you've come to expect, but also teach what they've learned about Manzai. The group will also be performing some examples of this unique style during the weekend.

Writer, translator, actor, producer—ANIMERICA founding editor Trish Ledoux has been active in anime and manga since the earliest days of the U.S. industry. Before becoming editor of ANIMERICA, Trish was editor of the Berkeley-based ANIMAG, one of the country’s first “professional” anime magazines.

As a writer, Trish has either written, translated or adapted from Japanese into English hundreds of projects. Among the many she has worked on, she counts “Galaxy Express,” “Maison Ikkoku” and, of course, “Ranma ½” as her favorites. A karaoke duet singing the “Chibi-Maruko” theme with Rumiko Takahashi in San Francisco is a career highlight. Trish is also the author, with Doug Ranney, of “The Complete Anime Guide,” and editor, with Julie Davis, of “Anime Interviews: The First Five Years of ANIMERICA.”

As an actor, Trish is known for surprise cameo roles in fan favorites such as “Macross II” and “Fatal Fury: The Motion Picture.” As a lead, she starred as “Princess Kahm” in the L.A. Hero anime adaptation of Johji Manabe’s “Outlanders.” As a producer, she has worked on “Project ARMS” and “Trouble Chocolate.”

Earlier this year, Trish and her frequent creative partner, husband Toshifumi Yoshida (U.S. producer of the animated “Pokémon”), celebrated their 26th year together. Currently, they live in Seattle with their son, Hajime, a fixture on the convention circuit since he was a baby. Spoiled by staff at every con he’s ever attended, to this day, Hajime cannot visit a hotel without asking, “Where’s the green room?”

Toshi has spent half his life reading comic books and watching cartoons for a living. During those two decades, he has worked on an anime magazine called ANIMAG, spent 12 years producing anime at Viz Media and 2 years as a producer at Bandai Entertainment. Of course, he’s also been translating manga along the while.

Toshi’s past credits include producing the English-language versions of “Ranma ½,” “Inuyasha,” “Kurokami: The Animation,” and “Gurren Lagann” as well as numerous amounts of manga translations such as “Negima!” for Del Rey, “Eureka Seven” for Bandai Entertainment, and “Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service” for Dark Horse. He is currently the Producer for The Pokémon Company International overseeing the localization of Pokémon TV Series and Movies into English and 16+ languages across Europe and Latin America.

Toshi has been coming to Animazement off and on since 1999 and is happy to be back. He looks forward to hanging out again with everyone this year. As usual, if you're looking for Toshi, try looking for him in the "office" (a.k.a. hotel bar) first.

Kara Edwards is a voice actor, aspiring photographer, guitar-player wannabe, and mom to the world's cutest dog- most well known for voicing Goten and Videl in DragonBall Z. Additional credits include Nymph in Heaven's Lost Property, Christine in Mass Effect: Paragon Lost, Teddy in Last Exile, Celica in Solty Rei, Murugu in Yu Yu Hakusho, Mina in Darker Than Black, Patty Baldwin in The Sacred Blacksmith… just to name a few.

Outside of anime, Kara can be heard on TV and radio voicing projects for clients such as Barbie, Nintendo, Thomasville Furniture, Coca-Cola, Sports Illustrated, Lord & Taylor, and many more! She also voices and produces monthly audio versions of the popular children’s magazine Highlights High Five and Ask Arizona for highlightskids.com. For more information, check out www.karaedwards.com.

Sho Asano was born in March of 1990. He started playing Tsugaru shamisen at the age of five.

In 2004, at the age of 14, he became the youngest champion in Class A of the Tsugaru shamisen national contest, which is the most competitive of its kind in Japan. Then, three successive victories were achieved between 2004 and 2006, winning him wide acclaim as Japan’s young NO.1 Tsugaru shamisen player.

He has performed in the Netherlands, Canada, the United States, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and France. His new album, recorded in New York in September 2012, is now available in music stores.

Ryuusei Nakao got into voice acting when he was still a child, landing a role in Ultra Q.  His career includes work in radio (as a radio personality) and singing.  Some of his roles include:  Mayuri and Kurotsuchi Mayumi from Bleach, Frieza from Dragonball Z, Caesar Clown from One Piece, and Baikin-man from Anpan-man.

Mr. Nagahama, director of the “Mushi-shi” series and “Detroit Metal City”, started at Mad House as mechanical design for “(The) Cockpit” and as part of the production staff for “Azuki-chan”. After leaving Mad House, he became a freelancer and has worked in many areas of anime production. One of those freelance jobs was working on the conceptual design for the “Revolutionary Girl Utena” series.

Mr. Nagahama was the storyboard writer and animation director for “Sexy Command-Gaiden Sugoiyo! Masaru-san!” and “Ojamaru”. In yet another role, he was the chief director of “Jubei-Chan 2: The Counter Attach of Siberia Yagyu”. Other anime that benefitted from Mr. Nagahama’s many talents are “Fruits Basket” and “Kimi ni Todoke”. He was recognized for his achievements and received the 11th Animation Kobe/Individual Award in 2006. Now, he is working “Aku no Hana” that will be on air from April.

Toshio Furukawa began his career in voice acting in the 1960s.

He is best known for his roles as Piccolo in Dragon Ball, Ataru Moroboshi in Urusei Yatsura, and Portgas D. Ace in One Piece. Furukawa has portrayed a wide range of characters, from comical to serious characters.

In addition to his long list of voice roles, Furukawa also worked on dubbing American movies including Little House on the Prairie, Back to the Future and Scooby Doo. His Hobbies are fishing, creating dioramas, reading and movies.

Masako Nozawa has performed many male roles.

She is best known for her roles as Astro Boy, Goku in Dragon Ball (both child and grown versions), Tetsuro Hoshino in Galaxy Express 999, Dr. Kureha in One Piece, Kitaro in Ge Ge Ge no Kitaro. Nozawa also worked on dubbing American movies including The Poseidon Adventure, Richie Rich, Meet the Parents.

She does narrations on TV and radio personality. Her hobby is watching sports.

Founder & CEO of Mappa

In 1972, Masao Maruyama founded Mad House with Mr. Sugino, Mr. Hata and others. He is involved in many phases of anime production from planning to the music to casting the actors. He is the producer of “Yawara!”, “Card Capture Sakura”, “ Claymore” and “Death Note” and the creative producer of “Hunter x Hunter”, “Chihayafuru” and many more anime by Mad House. Mr. Maruyama founded a new company, MAPPA (Maruyama Animation Produce Project Association) in 2012. He has produced “Apollon on the slope” and others.

Yoichi Kotabe was born in Taipei, Taiwan in 1936. After graduating from Tokyo University of the Arts, Mr. Kotabe joined Toei Animation Studio in 1959. Mr. Kotabe played a main role in masterpieces of the studio like “Little Prince and the Eight Headed Dragon” (1963), “Puss ’n Boots” (1969) and more.

He left Toei Animation Studio and transferred to A Production with Isao Takahata and Hayao Miyazaki. He was an animation director in “Panda! Go! Panda!” (1972) and “Red-Armored Suzunosuke” (1972). After that, he joined Zuiyo and then moved to Nippon Animation. With Takahata, Miyazaki and Okuyama, Mr. Kotabe worked as a character designer and an animation director of “Heidi” (1974) and “From Apennines to the Andes” (1976). He worked on “Taro the Dragon Boy” (1979) with Toei Animation Studio, “Chie the Brat” (1981) with Tokyo Movie, “Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind” (1984) and “The Grave of the Fireflies” (1988).

Since 1985, he had worked for Nintendo Co., Ltd. and joined the project of “Super Mario Brothers”. He left Nintendo, however he still continues supervising “Pokémon” (movies and TV series). His book “The art book of Yoichi Kotabe” is published by ANIDO Film.

Five warriors came from far distant universe in order to protect the peace of the Earth.
Referred live as patrol and tour as a peacekeeping patrol.

The planet is caught up in the swirl of excitement with love and laughter. 
The universe's most powerful live band will be here,
Do not miss the ultimate entertainment!