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).

Tales of Festival Tickets are On Sale!

For those of you planning to be in Japan on June 5th and 6th of this year, you could have the opportunity to see Masaya Onosaka (Jadeite, pictured left) and Hikaru Midorikawa (Fiore, Ail/Alan, pictured right)! Tales of Festival 2010 tickets are now on sale, and those two seiyuu will be among a handful of stars from Bandai-Namco’s Tales RPG series appearing at the special 2 day concert. Hikaru played the characters Lion Magnus in Tales of Destiny, and Judas in Tales of Destiny 2. Masaya played Zelos Wilder in Tales of Symphonia and Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World. Tickets went on sale earlier this month and are going for anywhere from 4800 Yen to 7800 Yen ($53-86 USD). There aren’t too many details out about this event yet, but it looks like it will be a lot of fun for Tales fans!

Queen Nehelenia Turns Nice in Cobra: The Animation!

Yoshiko Sakakibara (Queen Nehelenia) reprised her role as Armaroid Lady, Cobra’s android sidekick, in a two episode Cobra: The Animation OVA which aired on Japanese TV just weeks ago. The entire Cobra: The Animation series which stretches all the way back to the 80s, is finally being released on Blu-Ray beginning this April in honor of Cobra’s 30th anniversary! Fans can learn more about the OVA from Mania.com, and also watch subtitled episodes on Crunchyroll!

Some Seiyuu Involved in Ghoulish ParaPara?!

Wataru Takagi (Rubeus, an MC, and Kobayashi), Daisuke Sakaguchi (various supporting roles), and Machiko Toyoshima (Palla-Palla and various supporting characters) are part of an enormous cast doing something special for popular Japanese ghost story franchise, GeGeGe no Kitaro. The cast happily volunteered for a special CD filled with their singing, and dancing – they are all going to be doing GeGeGe-themed Para-Para! They are all featured on the cover next to a monster with a giant eyeball for a head. This will be released on February 19th and looks like it will be a lot of fun!

New RPG Gives Characters the Chance to Have the Voice of Ryotaro Okiayu!

Square Enix’s Concerto Gate Forte, a sequel to the hugely popular MMORPGs Cross Gate and Concerto Gate, has a very special item in it that players can collect. For two weeks as part of a special lottery, players could collect the “Power of Words Candy” and their character would be able to speak with the voice of one of 3 seiyuus. One of those is Ryotaro Okiayu (Tiger’s Eye and various other supporting characters). The other two voices that fans could win are Jun Fukuyama (best known as Lelouch Lamperouge from Code Geass) and J-pop singer Nana Mizuki. Concerto Gate Forte has proven to be popular among Japanese game players for its very interesting art style: it combines 3D characters and maps with hand drawn map elements!

New Doraemon CD Features An Old Favorite…

Mitsuko Horie (Sailor Galaxia) is featured on a special Doraemon movie theme album! To celebrate the 30th anniversary of the first Doraemon movie, a special 2CD album is being released with the best-loved theme songs. Mitsuko Horie’s “Aozora-tte Iina” from 1988 is featured on the compilation. To hear the song, click here!

..As Does a New Gundam Album!

Or rather, old favorites! On February 24th, a limited edition boxset with 145 Gundam songs will be released as a nice touch to the 30th anniversary celebrations which began last year. Chieko Honda (Tellu) and Megumi Hayashibara (Himeko) will be singing Tokyo Boogie Night on Disc 10: Another Story. The Boxset also comes with a 272 page book with a Gundam timeline, interviews, and comments on the music. This is quickly selling out on many online stores so Gundam fans who want a copy of this should go find it quickly!

And To End, Lots of Kikuko Inoue!

Kikuko Inoue (Princess Rubina, Reiko Aya/Sailor Aluminum Siren) is sure up to a lot these days! On February 2rd, she will be appearing at a special “Kodansha Comics Afternoon Festival” for a radio interview that will later be streamed online through NicoVideo. For more information on this event hit the Afternoon Festival blog here! Kikuko’s voice can also be heard in a dating sim: Vector’s Book Of Love. Kikuko plays a high school student in this dating sim for men. This is a dating sim built just for the mobile market, and men who want to play this game can try it for free. We can’t find too much more about the nature of this game (if there is any hentai/ecchi themes involved). The last place that you can hear Kikuko this month is on a CD of music to accompany the popular Zero na Tsukaima series called Nemurenai Fantasy. This CD is full of character songs and dialogues, and is a must for any ZnT fans!