Tales of Festival Adds More Seiyuu!

More seiyuu have been announced to appear at the upcoming Tales of Festival! In February we told you that two seiyuu that were involved with Sailor Moon were going to appear, and we can now add a third to that list! Joining Masaya Onosaka (Jadeite) and Hikaru Midorikawa (Fiore, Ail/Alan, pictured right) is Nobuyuki Hiyama who had two small roles as Yosaku Eda and Tsunawataro. Nobuyuki Hiyama plays Veigue Lungberg in two Tales of titles, Rebirth and Graces. This is the third year in a row that the festival is being held. Since February, fans have had the option to help decide what will be performed at this 5-day festival and are currently voting on their favorite skits. Tickets are selling fast, so fans that are in Japan (or will be) had better hurry up and get them quickly as there are only 12,000 available!

And there are even more connections between Sailor Moon and the Tales of Franchise – the brand new PSP game Tales of Phantasia: Narikiri Dungeon X, features Mika Kanai (Mimete) as Arche Klaine, a playful half-elf. She feels doomed that because she is a half-elf she lives forever, and loses many of those who are close to her in her life. No release date has been announced yet, but the game has been teased around the Japanese media since March.

Daisuke Sakaguchi On New Daisuke CD and in New Gin Tama movie!

In Japan, a bunch of seiyuu with the first name “Daisuke” all got together and recorded a drama about the lives of 5 different young men, united by their first name: Daisuke. Among the real Daisukes is Daisuke Sakaguchi, better known to Sailor Moon fans for his very small roles in the show including a Cat, a Boy, a Young Man, and Kyuusuke Sarashina. In Daisuke, he plays the cute, younger Daisuke of the bunch, Daisuke Toma. His character is very close to that of Mitsukuni “Honey” Haninozuka from Ouran! A new drama cd was released on April 24th, and revolves around the birthday of Daisuke Toma. Buzz among fans is pretty good for this comedy! Daisuke also reprised his role as Shimura Shinpachi in the new Gin Tama movie Gintama: A New Retelling Benizakura Arc and attended the premiere. The theaters have been packed since the movie’s release, and over 2000 fans attended a special event weeks before the premiere. He is pictured here in the green-striped shirt! Kazuya Nakai (Oranja and Ittou Asanuma) and Akira Ishida (Fisheye) also appeared at the premiere, and reprised their roles as Hijikata Toushirou and Kotaro Katsura for the movie.

Kazuya Nakai sings with Nobuo Tobita and is So Not A Hero!

Just released in Japan is a brand new character single devoted to the villains Shade and Torch of Kiddy Girl-and, the sequel to the popular anime Kiddy Grade. Kazuya Nakai (Oranja and Ittou Asanuma) plays Torch (left) and Nobuo Tobita (Pupuran, Jinta Araki,Honjou and Yamagishi) plays Shade (right). The two are partners in crime ’till the end, and the songs of Kiddy Girl-and Vol. 6 Phantom of Rainbow are supposed to reflect that.As of this writing we were unable to find any samples of the songs online. And for those of you who are big fans of the Wii Game No More Heroes, did you know that the role of the Video Game Otaku Travis Touchdown is played by none other than Kazuya? He is set to reprise his role in the upcoming port of No More Heroes to the PS3 and XBOX No More Heroes: Heroes Paradise, and will probably play Travis again in the Japanese sequel No More Heroes 2: Desperate Struggle when a Japanese release is announced.

Machiko Toyoshima Can Finally Play an RPG That She Is In!

For ten years now, Machiko Toyoshima (PallaPalla) has been the voice of Misha (the love interest of the main character Carmaine) in the Growlanser RPG franchise for Playstation. A year ago, an adaptation of the RPG was finally released to PSP, and Machiko was excited at the chance to finally play this RPG since she couldn’t before. In honor of the franchise’s tenth anniversary, a special series of drama CDs are being released and Machiko reprised her character in them. She was happy that ten years later this franchise is still going strong. The CD will be released on May 26th.

JunJun Invades Space!

Kumiko Watanabe (JunJun) is the voice of the lead character in Keroro Gunso (Sgt. Frog), Sergeant Keroro. The fourth movie Keroro Gunso the Super Movie: Creation! Ultimate Keroro, Wonder Space-Time Island just premiered in Japan, and Kumiko attended the premiere event held at Ikebukuro Sunshine Cinema. On stage, she was joking around with her other castmates and told the critics to give the movie a good review so that the fans can be as excited to see the movie as they were making it!She also made special mention that it took a lot of teamwork to make this movie special and acknowledged her fellow castmates. This movie also has a second connection to Sailor Moon, in that it was directed by the same animation director, Junichi Sato! As of this writing we do not know if any of these movies will be released by FUNImation, as officially we understand that they have only dubbed the first 51 episodes (first season).

Hideo Ishikawa to Appear at Kawaii-Kon!

Honolulu’s Kawaii-Kon made their final announcement of Japanese Guests of Honor this morning, and on this list is seiyuu who has had much bigger roles in other anime, but did play some small ones in Sailor Moon. Hideo Ishikawa will be making his first non-Japanese appearance at this convention, and plays Itachi Uchiha in Naruto, Jushiro Ukitake in Bleach, Auron in Final Fantasy X, X-2, and Kingdom Hearts 2. He had a few one-off roles in Sailor Moon, playing a driver in episode 73 and a man in episode 79 (R-season), a reporter in episode 143 and Tobikiriyarou in episode 155 (SuperS-Season). Yes, these are smaller roles, but in our endless pursuit to bring you everything we possibly can to do with Sailor Moon, this does qualify. More than that, Hideo was also part of a band known as the Entertainment Music Unit (E.M.U.) which included other stars of Sailor Moon, Hikaru Midorikawa, Ryotaro Okaiyu, Daisuke Sakaguchi and Nobutoshi Canna (formerly, his last name was (Hayabashi). Kawaii-Kon takes place from April 16-18 and if any of our readers are planning to attend, we would love to hear from you!

For those of you wondering, here’s who everyone else in that group played:

☽Hikaru has played both Fiore in the Sailor Moon R-movie, and Ail in the first part of the Sailor Moon R season.

☽Ryotaro played Tiger’s Eye in the SuperS Season, Yuuji in episode 2 (first season), Achiral in episode 81 (R-season), and George in episode 108 (S-season).

☽Daisuke played a cat in episode 31 (First season), a boy in episode 105 and a young man in episode 93 (S-season), and Chibi-Usa’s classmate Kyuusuke Sarashina in the SuperS season.

☽Nobutoshi played a guard in episode 20 (first season) and an official in episode 50 (R-season).

Fans can watch a short concert of E.M.U here (Warning, lots of boyband cheeziness)

Naoko Takeuchi and Yoshihiro Togashi Dominate Mania’s list of Top 10 Anime Series that Need a Reboot!

Just a short sighting here, but Mania.com posted a list of Ten Anime Series that Need a Reboot (image credit: 10 Anime Series That Need a Reboot © Mania/Bob Trate ). Both of Yoshihiro Togashi’s anime series, Yu Yu Hakusho and Hunter X Hunter began the list at 10 and 9 respectively. We don’t think an OVA for either of these series would be such a bad idea, since the Hunter X Hunter manga has had some great stories published when Togashi was not on his hiatus, and Yu Yu Hakusho was just released on Blu-Ray. Yu Yu Hakusho also had a new picture drama instead of a full episode included on the first Blu-Ray boxset. Topping the list is none other than Sailor Moon! With all this great reception towards the revival all over the world, why not make a new OVA or a movie? We’re so pleased that Naoko and Yoshihiro’s animes are on this list! While campaigning for a new Sailor Moon production of any kind would probably be futile, we aren’t giving up on bringing what does exist back to North America. And maybe, we’ll have a different campaign coming…

We saw the new episode of Slayers Revolution last night and it was just like nothing had changed for any of the characters. Lina was still explosive, Gourry was still an airhead, Amelia still had her long justice speeches, and Zelgadis is still always the last piece of the puzzle who can crack even the hardest of situations. Fans of the old series will not be disappointed! Every blog review we have read was positive so we think that this will be a big hit. No word yet as of this writing if Funimation has considered to pick up this series. A brief summary since we anticipate most of you will go hunting for fansubs very soon (SPOILER ALERT AFTER THE JUMP).

Congratulations to Megumi Hayashibara and Hikaru Midorikawa on their success with the return of Slayers!

So our tale begins on the high seas, and there’s these pirates that have a huge mountain of treasure on their ship. Lina crashes their celebration over their victory by casting a fireball, and along with Gourry, they move with their ship towards the pirates and kick their butts. Amelia, Zelgadis, and Wizer are on another ship, and they eventually join in the fighting. The fish-lady from seasons past has returned and tells the pirates that Lina has destroyed villages aplenty. Of course, that ticks Lina off and she blasts the ship to oblivion (no Dragon Slave T_T). Lina and Gourry feast at an Inn, and wait for Amelia and Zelgadis to arrive… along with a mysterious new character named Wizer, who is there to arrest Lina Inverse just for being herself. The gang manages to escape Wizer, but only to be confronted with a tank/turtle and an army. They are left with no choice but to fight, and at the end of the episode, the final blow is handed down by a little green monster who uses… DRAGON SLAVE?! But that’s Lina’s Attack?! Lina freaks out at the end of the episode wondering what just happened. Ahh, we can only wait and see what this new season brings! Fans can check out a fuller summary with pictures here.

As we speak, the new Slayers series, Slayers Revolution, is airing on Japan’s TV Tokyo. When we first heard about this news months ago, we were really excited. Slayers ranks right up there with Sailor Moon among our favorite anime. It has been 7 years since we last heard from our favorite sorceress and her friends… it gives us a little hope that after some time, perhaps even Sailor Moon could make a comeback (hey, anything is possible?). Megumi Hayashibara (Himeko Nayakotake in the S Movie) returns in her title role as Lina Inverse, as does Hikaru Midorikawa (Ail, Fiore in R Movie) as Zelgadiss Graywords! In this series, Lina and Gourry travel to find a replacement weapon after the Sword of Light was lost in the last battle they had fought. Of course, nothing is ever easy with the Slayers, and expect some troubles and hardships (along with humorous filler episodes) along the way! We will be following the blogs today for initial reaction and we will keep you posted all about the new series!