Numerous guests announced at five conventions
Now fully recovered from Anime Boston 2004, we're able to catch up on some guest announcements which were sent in from Bakuretsu Con, FanimeCon's GakuFest, Anime Central, PortConMaine, and AnimeNext.
Bakuretsu Con, to be held April 23 through 25 in South Burlington, Vermont, has announced that voice actor Marc Matney will be making an appearance. Marc is best known for playing Ken Nakajima in You're Under Arrest. His full bio can be found on Bakuretsu Con's web site.
FanimeCon has announced that Nami Tamaki will be joined at "GakuFest" by Camino, Duel Jewel, Blood, and Monkey. GakuFest is scheduled for May 30th as part of FanimeCon in San Jose, CA.
Anime Central recently unleashed a massive wave of Japanese guests that is lead by "the new J-rock sensation", SID. Other recently announced guests include Koji Masunari (director of Read or Die), Hideyuki Kurata (the original creator of Read or Die), Chiwa Saito (voice actress for "Anita" in Read or Die), Taraku Uon (character designer for Read or Die), Masashi Ishihama (character designer for Read or Die), Taku Iwasaki (musical composer for Read or Die and Witch Hunter Robin), Noriyuki Zinguzi (production designer for Read or Die and Trigun), Tomonori Ochikoshi (producer of Read or Die), and Satoshi Ishino (character designer for Excel Saga). Anime Central runs from May 14 through 16 in Rosemont, IL.
PortConMaine has announced an attendance cap of 1000 people. They do not anticipate hitting the cap, but wanted to play it safe as they announce two new guests: Ian McConville and Jes Weigand from the popular web comic, Mac Hall. PortConMaine has also announced that Mage Warefare creator, Chris Barrett, and the authors of the Liaden Universe series, Sharon Lee and Steve Miller, will be guests of the convention. PortConMaine runs from June 18th through 20th in South Portland, Maine.
AnimeNext has also announced additions to its guest list. Voice actors Richard Cox, Kelli S. Butler, and Bill Rogers will all be in attendance. Rob Malda of Slashdot has also been announced as a panelist guest. Cosmicity has been added to the list of musical guests scheduled to perform. AnimeNext is scheduled for June 18th through 20th in Secaucus, New Jersey.