Guests

Special Guest of Honor RICHARD EPCAR is well known to Anime fans, starting with the original ‘Robotech’ series- in which he played ‘Ben Dixon’, ‘Lunk’, and ‘Gruel’. Most recently he can be heard as ‘Bobobo-bo Bo-bobo’ on Cartoon Network, which he also helps write and direct. He is ‘Batou’ in the ‘Ghost in the Shell’ movie, CD rom game and is now playing ‘Batou’ in the series, ‘Ghost in the Shell-Stand Alone Complex’. And he just wrote-directed and did the voice of Batou in ‘Ghost in the Shell 2-Innocence’. He was ‘Guld’ in ‘Macross’ and ‘Mac’ in ‘Teknoman’, which he also wrote and directed. He wrote for ‘Transformers’ and did the voice of ‘Armorhide’. He’s directing the new ‘Lupin the Third’ series and does the voice of ‘Jigen’. He just did the lead in two new original animated shows, ‘Robotech: The Shadow Chronicles’, which he also directed and ‘Morocco in the original series, ‘Avenging Apes of Africa’. He just directed an original animated movie with an all star cast-‘Sharkbait, in which he plays ‘Moe’.

He wrote and directed into English ‘Azumi’, ‘Fearless’ with Jet Li, ‘Patlabor III’, ‘The Returner’, ‘Omyoji’, ‘The Secret of Mamo’, ‘Toy Warrior’, ‘Fighting Spirit’- doing the voice of ‘Kamogawa’, and directed the CGI series ‘Zentrix’. Some of you will remember him from ‘Lain’, ‘Serial Experiment’, ‘Trigun’, ‘Wings of Honneamise’, Fists of the North Star’,‘Fushigi Yuugi’ as ‘Mitsukake’, ‘Capt. Harlock’, ‘Ninja Scroll’ ‘Steroko’, ‘Bastard’, ‘Street Fighter’, ‘Daigunder’, ‘GTO’, ‘Samuri X’, ‘Rurouni Kenshin’ as ‘Seijuro Hiko’, ‘Macron’ and ‘Macross I, II, III, Macross Plus’, ‘Gundam’, Mobile Suit Gundam’, ‘Witch Hunter Robin’, ‘Racer X’ in ‘The New Speed Racer’, ‘Count of Monte Cristo’ and ‘Cyber Soldier 009’-as ‘Black Ghost’, to name just a few.

He was named ‘Favorite Actor’ by DVDVisionJapan.

Not many people know that he directed the first season of ‘Digimon’ and did three lead voices on that show, including ‘Etemon’, Myotismon’ and ‘Apemon’. He also wrote and directed and did lead voices on several animated series, including, ‘Noein’, ‘Eagle Riders’, ‘Flint the Time Detective’, ‘Mon Colle Knights’ and directed ADR for ‘Power Rangers’, and many, many other anime shows too numerous to mention.

Some of the games you’ve heard him on are: ‘Star Wars-Empire At War’, ‘Kingdom Hearts 2’, ‘Xenosaga I, II and III’ as ‘Ziggarat 8’ or ‘Ziggy’, ‘Black Hawk Down’, ‘Robotech Invasion’, ‘Samurai Warriors’, ‘Dynasty Warriors’, ‘Warcraft III’, ‘Jade Cacoon’, ‘Galerians’, ‘Street Fighters’, ‘Star Ocean 3’, plus ‘Shadow Hearts II’ and ‘Lupin III’ which he also directed. He is starting work voice directing on a huge game-‘Smack Down vs. Raw 2007’ in which he will travel all over the U.S. directing the Super-Stars of Wrestling.

As an actor he’s been recurring characters on ‘Days of Our Lives’, ‘General Hospital’, and ‘Santa Barbara’. On film he co-starred in ‘Memoirs of an Invisible Man’ with Chevy Chase and Sam Neill, and just starred in a short film entitled, ‘Threesome’. On television he’s done several shows, including ‘Columbo’, ‘Diagnosis Murder’, ‘Guns of Paradise’, ‘Beverly Hills 90210’, ’Matlock’, ‘Who’s the Boss?’ and ‘Cheers’.

Live action feature films that he has adapted and directed into English include many, many foreign films, including Academy Award winners ‘Cinema Paradiso’, ‘Belle Epoque’, ‘Eat, Drink, Man, Woman’ and ‘Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown’, ‘Fencing Master’, ‘Widow of St. Pierre’, ‘Amores Perros’, ‘Mission Kashmir’, ‘The Emperor and the Assassin’, ‘Oldboy’ and ‘Shiri’, to name a few.

He also does tons of voice work on many shows including: ‘Gilmore Girls’, ‘Jag’, ‘Devil’s Rejects’, ‘Diagnosis Murder’, ‘Xena’ & ‘Hercules’, ‘Gladiator’, ‘Independence Day’, ‘Inspector Gadget’, ‘Seven’, ‘Rumble in the Bronx’, ‘Man in the Iron Mask’, ‘Rounders’, ‘Crime Story’, ‘Hell Raiser III & IV’, ‘Hard Target’, ‘Operation Condor’, ‘Hopalong Cassidy’, ‘ER’, ‘Nash Bridges’, ‘Babylon 5’, and many others.

As an International Supervisor for Universal Pictures and DreamWorks, Richards work has taken him all over the world supervising the foreign dubs and mixes of feature films such as: ‘Gladiator’, ‘Madagascar’, 'Galaxy Quest', ‘Chicken Run’, ‘El Dorado’ and the 20th Anniversary release of ‘E.T.’.

He is presently starring in ‘Rumors’ by Neil Simon at Theatre 40 in Beverly Hills.

Special Guest of Honor ELLYN STERN has spanned a large and versatile range of characters in animation. She started in anime with the original ‘Robotech’ series- in which she played several characters. Most recently she can be heard in the forth coming game ‘Blue Dragon’ as Maru’s and Jiro’s Mom. She voiced the crazy exotic dancer on the ‘Ugly Betty’ English version of the tele-novellas. She can also be heard as ‘Yu’s Mom’ on ‘Noein’ and ‘Jack’s Mom’ in ‘Mar’. She voiced ‘Haraway’ the tough CSI doc in ‘Ghost in the Shell 2-Innocence’, ‘Rosalind’ in ‘Armitage III’, ‘Himeno’ in ‘Fight!! Spirit of the Sword’, ‘Sayaka’ in ‘Mental Fighter Miku’, ‘Moru’ in ‘ Vampire Princess Miyu’, and ‘Hiroshi’s Mom’ in ‘Zenki’.

Other shows she’s voiced include: ‘Zentrix’, ‘Mini Pato’, ‘Digimon’, ‘Bobobo-bo Bo-bobo’, ‘Parome’ in ‘Genma Wars’, in which she did a variety of characters. She also voiced ‘Mobile Suit Gundam-The Movie Trilogy’ “Metal Fighter Miku”, ‘Lupin the 3rd’, ‘Patlabor 3’, Onmyoji, ‘Wings of Honnesmise’ as Rosalind, ‘Samurai X’ (which she also co-directed), ‘The Little Punk’ in which she played most of the female roles, ‘Honey Bee Hutch’, ‘Wisdom of the Gnomes’, ‘Macross I, II, III’, ‘Tom Sawyer’ as Aunt Polly, ‘Captain Schnauzer’ as the Frog, Gigi’ as Madame Alvarez and ‘Fighting Spirit’, to name just a few.

Some of the games you’ve heard her in are “Shadow Hearts II” as ‘Veronica’, ‘Paraworld’ as ‘Ada’, ‘Sylpheed’, ‘Bushido Blade 2’, ‘Inherit The Earth’ and ‘Abby’. Games she’s directed and voiced are: ‘Aero Wings 1 and 2’, ‘Jade Cacoon’, ‘Super Magnetic Neo’ and ‘Galerians’. On film she starred in ‘Jessie’s Girls’, co-starred in ‘Duchess and The Dirtwater Fox’, co-starred in ‘Fatal Charm’, ‘Prisoner in the Middle’ aka ‘Warhead’, and The Man Who Loves Women”.

On television she’s done numerous shows, ‘American Carrott’in which she starred with Jasper Carrott of BBC fame, ‘Charlie’s Angels’, and recurring characters on ‘General Hospital’, ‘Santa Barbara’ and ‘Days Of Our Lives’. She has voiced lead voices in many live action feature films that have been adapted into English including Academy Award winners ‘Cinema Paradiso’,‘Belle Epoque’, ‘Eat, Drink, Man, Woman’, ‘Kika’, ‘Mostly Martha’, ‘Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown’, ‘Fencing Master’,‘Widow of St. Pierre’, ‘Amores Perros’, ‘Mission Kashmir’, ‘Iron Monkey’,‘The Emperor and the Assassin’, ‘Onmyoji- Ying-Yang Masters’,‘Le Femme Nikita’,‘Tae Guk Gi’, ‘Babbette’s Feast’ and ‘Shiri’, to name a few.

She recently starred with her husband Richard Epcar in the hit play ‘Rumors’ by Neil Simon which had a very successful run at Theatre 40 in Beverly Hills. They also starred in an episode of ‘Clean Sweep’ together. She starred as Jacqueline Kennedy at the Kirk Douglas Theatre, in ‘We’ll Never Be Young Again’. She is set to star in the play ‘California Suite’, on stage in November. She will be starring in A DOLL’S LIFE’, filming begins in October.

Special Guest of Honor VIC MIGNOGNA is a professional music composer/producer and veteran actor most well known as the voice of Edward Elric in Fullmetal Alchemist. Currently he is playing the role of Fay in Tsubasa Chronicle and just finished Ikkaku in Bleach. Vic is also known for such roles as Dark in DN Angel, Kurz in Full Metal Panic, Broly in Dragonball Z, Kougajai in Saiyuki, Tatsu in Peacemaker, Virgil Walsh in Trinity Blood, Mamoru in Raxaephon, Hiroki in Princess Nine, Goemon in Legend of the Mystical Ninja, Shougou in Megazone 23, Gawl in Generator Gawl, and Hikaru in Macross. Vic has appeared in more than eighty titles including Streetfighter, Sin, Spriggan, Gasaraki, Noir, Steel Angel Karumi, Orphen, Excel Saga, Evangelion (director’s cut), A.D. Police, Aura Battler Dunbine, Rune Soldier, Neo Ranga, Yu Yu Hakasho, Gamera, Those Who Hunt Elves, Nagica, Dirty Pair, Nuku Nuku Dash, Nuku Nuku TV, St. Seiya, Kino’s Journey, Dragonball GT, Angelic Layer, Gravion, Bastof Syndrome, Aquarian Age, Kaliedastar, Case Closed, Kitty Grade, Princess Tutu, Shadow Skills, Moby Dick, and many others.

Guest of Honor ASHLEY CLARK is a multi-media artist and writer, and has been working in the anime style for nearly a decade. Her first webcomic, 'Shades of Red', debuted in 2003. She has since turned her attention to her newest literary project, 'Tales of Asajima'. You can enter the world of Asajima through the webnovel 'Nowaki', and continue your journey with the first of her print novels, 'The Yukari'. Ashley has won numerous awards as not only an artist, but also as an AMV creator, cosplayer, and film editor. Within the anime community, Ashley is widely known as Anna May Belle, webmistress of AnimeBelle.com, one of the most highly regarded and popular anime websites in the south. AnimeBelle hosts a gallery containing 24,000 photos with hundreds more added after every convention she attends. The website also hosts forums, guest interviews, event reporting, and a convention schedule of southern anime conventions. If it's of interest to southern anime fans, it interests AnimeBelle, y'all!

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