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Skip Beat's English Dub Kickstarter Campaign Casts Cristina Vee, Mela Lee

Voice actress Cristina Vee announced on Monday that she and Mela Lee (Fate/stay night's Rin, Durarara!!'s Erika) will join the cast of Pied Piper, Inc.'s planned English dub of the Skip Beat! television anime series. Vee will play Erika Koenji, and Lee will play Maria Takarada. The Kickstarter campaign for the show's North American release revealed the voice actresses once the campaign hit US$145,000. The campaign already revealed that both voice actresses will also be producers for the dub.

Vee and Lee join Richard Epcar (Durarara!!×2's Sloan, Lupin the Third's Daisuke Jigen) as Lory Takarada, Vic Mignogna (Dragon Ball Z's Broly, Ouran High School Host Club's Tamaki) as Yukihito Yashiro, Robbie Daymond (Sailor Moon's Tuxedo Mask, The Seven Deadly Sins' Gilthunder) as Ren Tsuruga, Grant George (Fate/Zero's Lancer, Kill la Kill's Uzu Sanageyama) as Sho Fuwa, and Erica Lindbeck (Coppelion's Ibara Naruse, Magi's Gyokuen Ren) as Kanae Kotonami (Moko).

In addition to Vee and Lee, Jason C. Miller will also produce the English dub. Deborah Crane (Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Crystal, Ikki Tousen: Xtreme Xecutor) will handle the ADR scripts.

The Kickstarter campaign will end on April 16 and has an initial goal of US$155,000. Pied Piper had originally launched an Indiegogo campaign for the franchise on March 1, but then relaunched the campaign on Kickstarter on March 17. The Indiegogo campaign had a goal of US$210,000. The Kickstarter campaign's base goal no longer includes a Blu-ray Disc release, although the Blu-ray Disc is still a stretch goal at US$185,000. The Japanese release was DVD-only.

Pied Piper acquired the license from TV Tokyo, and TV Tokyo is requiring the English dub as a condition of release. The company will not be able to release the series on a subtitle-only format. The license covers the United States and Canada only.

The television version of Yoshiki Nakamura's Skip Beat! shōjo manga premiered in Japan in October 2008. The series is available streaming on Crunchyroll. Viz Media publishes the original manga in North America.

Thanks to Daniel Zelter, Jerry Ross, Mr. Oshawott, and ravegrl for the news tips