With all this news pouring in from Japan, we’re sure some of you are wondering what the English VA’s are up to! We’ve got a few sightings this month and some big, big news for all you Stephanie Beard fans at the end!

Malachite in Gangster Movie!

Set to come out later this year or perhaps next, is a movie called Gangster Exchange. We can’t find a thing about this movie, but after (WARNING DO NOT CLICK HERE IF YOU ARE UNDER 18) we saw a few clips on a cinematographer’s site , we think it has something to do with an Asian gang. Dennis Akayama (Malachite) plays mobster Takayama in the film.

New Care Bears Movie – But Wait, It’s Not From Nelvana!

2007 marks the 25th Anniversary of those cute, colorful, and cuddly Care Bears! In the past few years, we’ve seen a new 3-D computer animated generation of Care Bears. A new movie out on DVD this fall continues that tradition. But sadly, we will not see this new production come from Nelvana, which has brought the series to children since 1985 – and many future Sailor Moon VA’s were featured in the original cartoon and subsequent movies. The new movie, Oopsy Does It! will be produced by SD Entertainment and released by 20th Century Fox. And we’re a little scared… the bears don’t look like the bears that we grew up with. They look more like people than cuddly bears, and also look a lot younger than they did in previous incarnations. There will also be three new characters introduced, the evil Grizzle, the bilingual Amigo Bear and the hero, Oopsy bear. Grizzle attempts to take over the Bears’ amusement park “Funderland” after Oopsy ruins it, and threatens to steal all their belly badges (we grew up knowing them as tummy symbols). It’s up to Oopsy to save the bears and the park! The movie will be released in select theaters this August, and will hit DVD sometime this October. It also looks like this movie is going to be part of a series according to SD Entertainment, and we have to wonder if this was the new series that Katie Griffin was talking about when Sailordees met her last year. Tracey Moore will be voicing one of Cheer Badge (pink) or Share Badge (purple). You read right, Badge. We don’t know why Badge is a part of some bears’ names and not others. “Badge” doesn’t quite fit the bears to us. We’ll be waiting to see how this film ranks among Big Wish Movie and Journey to Joke-a-Lot.

Some other, smaller, sightings:

☼Bob Summers (Theme Composer) will appear as himself in a documentary about the late, legendary Canadian Jazz Trumpeter Maynard Ferguson.

☼Congratulations to IMDB for setting off a false alarm – Jennifer Gould (Sailor Saturn, Himeko) did not appear in John from Cincinatti last month. They have gotten her confused with Sports Broadcaster Jennifer Gould.

Moon Chase Exclusive: Stephanie Beard Takes on a New Role as Assistant Producer!

Over the last few weeks, fans have been suspicious of whether or not an IMDB credit to Stephanie Beard was true. She is credited as an assistant producer on the upcoming independent film, A Life Less Gone. A Life Less Gone is based on a true story, and explores the lives of two interconnected people affected by drugs. One is a high school student, who finds solace in a friend as she struggles with her identity – but this friend leads them both on the road to addiction. The second is of a narcotics officer whose marriage is on the brink of destruction. He finds love in the comfort of a heroin-addicted exotic dancer. Now given IMDB’s tendencies to miscredit actors, we went on a search to confirm this sighting. Last night, we heard back from the Director of the film , Jason Lupish and are able to bring you an exclusive! He told us that Stephanie is very involved in this film, and were it not for troubles with ACTRA, she would have played the lead role of Karen. The film opted for a non-union shoot in light of these troubles and Stephanie helped in whatever way she could. Stephanie had been an integral part of this movie since the inception, and it was only fitting that she was given an associate producer credit. So , there you have it Stephanie Beard fans, look for A Life Less Gone in a theater near you sometime next year.

Other than that, she’s been pretty mum on whatever else she’s been up to. The only thing we know for sure is that she’ll be a magician’s assistant on a new magic show in 2008.

Tune into Teletoon June 29th!

Canadian Moonies should tune into Teletoon beginning at 4PM ET/PT to catch sneak peeks of two new cartoon shows (maybe more?) featuring Sailor Moon VAs! The internet has been mum about the other shows on the previews that day – so we will be watching (and will keep you posted if we see any other actors)! Tell your friends to watch too!

Emilie-Claire Barlow (Sailor Venus #2, Sailor Mars #2) will be playing Courtney on Total Drama Island. This Flash-animated cartoon is like the popular reality show Survivor but there’s a twist: it’s played with 22 teenagers at a camp in Northern Ontario! This show will have it’s official double-episode premiere on July 8th at 8PM, and then will play at its regular time slot Sundays and Thursdays at 8:30 PM. Total Drama Island is the brainchild of 6teen creators Tom McGillis and Jennifer Pertsch – fans may recall Emilie-Claire played Chrissy, the manager of the Khaki barn in that show! The show’s official production blog has put up a lot of animation masters and other goodies for fans to check out before the show hits the airwaves.

Coconut Fred’s Fruit Salad Island will finally have it’s long-awaited Canadian network premiere on July 2nd! This one is about a coconut named Fred who can materialize anything he thinks about. Fred’s imagination knows no bounds, and he takes his friends (who are also different fruits) on the strange adventures he conjures! And it looks like video gamers could get something out of this as they are dressed up as some well-known characters in an episode. Tracey Moore (Sailor Moon #1) plays the scaredycat Bingo Cherry! This show will air Monday through Friday at 10AM ET/PT, and then on Saturdays at 7AM ET/PT. The other thing about this show is that it is not a newer cartoon – it was once part of Kids WB’s schedule from 2005-2006.

A Winner of a Gracie Award is…

One other production involving a VA also won a Gracie! Why I Wore Lipstick to my Mastectomy won the Gracie for Outstanding Drama-Special. This made-for-TV movie starred Harvey Atkin (various Monsters of the Day) in the supporting role as Harvey. Congratulations to Lifetime Television on this win!

Hey Viz, Where’s Mirmo?

Mirumo de Pon! (or rather its English Title, Mirmo!) was a 172 episode behemoth of an anime that aired in Japan from 2002-2006. The anime, based on the popular manga of the same name, is about Kaede Minami, a typical, teenaged girl who is shy around boys and finds it difficult to date them. One day while coming home from school, she picks up a blue mug from a mysterious store. When she gets back home, engraved in the bottom of the cup is a message that reads “if you read this message aloud while pouring hot cocoa into the mug, a love fairy (“muglox”) will appear and grant your every wish.” She doesn’t believe this message, but tries it anyway. Lo and behold, a fairy named Mirmo appears, and he grants Katie’s wishes! Later we find out that there are hundreds of Muglox, some good, and some downright evil! The English cast for this show is huge featuring a few VA’s. Terri Hawkes (Sailor Moon #2) plays Anna, Mirmo’s classmate and the smartest fairy of the fairy school, Stephanie Beard (Rini #2) plays Momo Umezono (Kaede’s rival) , and Loretta Jafelice (Diana and Eudial) plays Rirumu, Mirmo’s fiancee. There’s lots of other famous voice talent in this show, including Veronica Taylor, Monica Rial, Wendee Lee, Brian Drummond, Tiffany Grant, and Nancy Cartwright (better known as Bart Simpson)! With all this talent, we have to wonder why Viz hasn’t released this popular series on DVD yet – or why the show isn’t on Kids WB anymore. The WB turned into the CW in fall of 2006, and considering that the anime ended in Japan in 2006, we doubt the series was shown in entirety on Kids WB since many things changed with the network. We encourage fans who want to see this show in more markets or on DVD to contact Viz!