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Anime Central to Host Wake Up, Girls! Singing Group, Producer, & Director
posted on by Lynzee Loveridge
Anime Central announced on Friday that the Wake Up, Girls! voice actresses, supervising producer Hiroaki Takeuchi, and director Yutaka Yamamoto will attend the Chicago-area anime convention this May.
Wake Up Girls! is a seven-member voice actress group who voiced the characters and sang songs in the series of the same name. The group consists of Airi Eino, Kaya Okuno, Mayu Yoshioka, Minami Tanaka, Miyu Takagi, Nanami Yamashita, and Yoshino Aoyama. The production company Avex and the voice talent agency 81 Produce held open auditions with over 2,000 female candidates in 2012. The group is listed as musical guests for the convention.
In the story, Green Leaves Entertainment is a tiny production company on the verge of going out of business in Sendai, the biggest city in Japan's northeastern Tohoku region. The agency once managed the careers of magicians, photo idols, fortune-tellers, and other entertainers, but its last remaining client finally quit. In danger of having zero talent (literally), the president Tange hatches an idea of producing an idol group. On the brash president's orders, the dissatisfied manager Matsuda heads out to scout raw talent. Matsuda makes a fateful encounter with a certain girl...
Crunchyroll streamed the series as it aired in Japan.
Director Yutaka Yamamoto helmed the series at animation studio Ordet. His other works include Senyū., Fractale, The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, and Kannagi: Crazy Shrine Maidens.
Hiroaki Takeuchi worked as supervising producer for both the Wake Up, Girls! film and television series. He has worked as a producer on a number of Shonen Jump animation projects including Yu-Gi-Oh! and Dragon Ball before establishing CoMix Wave Inc. and joining Marvelous Entertainment Inc. as executive producer.
Anime Central is also hosting Serial Experiments Lain character designer Yoshitoshi ABe, musical duo angela, and Final Fantasy composer Nobuo Uematsu.
Anime Central will be held on May 16-18 in Rosemont, Illinois.
