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California's SacAnime to Host Toshio Furukawa, Mai Aizawa
posted on by Crystalyn Hodgkins
Voice actor Toshio Furukawa posted on his Twitter account on Tuesday that he and voice actress Mai Aizawa will be attending the SacAnime convention on January 4-6. The convention will be held at the Sacramento Convention Center & Sheraton Grand Hotel.
Furukawa has voiced roles in more than 150 anime, including Urusei Yatsura's Ataru Moroboshi, One Piece's Portgas D. Ace, Soul Eater's Asura, Case Closed's Detective Yamamura, Mobile Suit Gundam's Kai Shinden, Dragon Ball Z's Piccolo, the titular hero in Crying Freeman, and Asuma Shinohra in the Patlabor series and films. Furukawa previously attended Anime Expo in 2011 and Animazement in May 2012.
Mai Aizawa has voiced roles in more than 35 anime, including Lucky Star's Ayano Minegishi, Negima!'s Natsumi Murakami, My Ordinary Life's Mio Naganohara, The Future Diary's Minene Uryū, and Sket Dance's Ayumi Kuramoto. Aizawa has also voiced characters in the Harvest Moon, Suikoden, Super Robot Wars and Yakuza video game franchises, and has performed theme songs for Negima!, Negima!?, and Shining Hearts: Shiawase no Pan-, and she will be performing at an event at the convention on Saturday. Aizawa previously attended FanimeCon last May.
SacAnime will also host animator Tsuyoshi Nonaka. Nonaka served as mechanical designer for the mecha television anime Shin Mazinger Shōgeki! Z-Hen, D.I.C.E. and the Mazinkaizer SKL original video anime. Nonaka has been a boy's toy designer and planner at the Japanese toy company Bandai for more than 20 years. His duties include creating robots, vehicles, and weapons for children's television programs and transforming them into toys. Nonaka has also worked as a designer for the live-action Super Sentai (Power Rangers) and Kamen Rider television series. Nanoka is the head of the American division of the Bandai affiliate company PLEX International Design, where he designs toys based on the Power Rangers, Ben 10 and Thunder Cats kids' programs. Nonaka previously attended Pacific Media Expo in November.
Thanks to Daniel Zelter for the news tip.
