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California's Fanime Hosts Hiroyuki Yamaga, Halko Momoi
posted on by Egan Loo
The anime convention FanimeCon announced on Tuesday that it will host Gainax studio co-founder Hiroyuki Yamaga and voice actress/singer Halko Momoi at its May 27-30 event in San Jose, California. Yamaga has visited the convention every year since 1997. He wrote and directed Gainax's first feature film, The Wings of Honneamise (Royal Space Force), and has been involved in almost every Gainax anime since then, including Gunbuster, Neon Genesis Evangelion, and Mahoromatic - Automatic Maiden. He also wrote the Mobile Suit Gundam 0080: War in the Pocket video anime series for Sunrise. He recently co-developed the Gurren Lagann anime franchise and produced the Shikabane Hime: Aka television series.
Momoi has voiced roles in more than 30 anime, including Steins;Gate's Feiris Nyannyan, Ai Yori Aoshi's Chika Minazuki, My Bride is a Mermaid's San Seto, Tales of the Abyss' Anise Tatlin, and Nurse Witch Komugi's Komugi Nakahara. Momoi sang and co-wrote the UNDER17 duo's theme songs for such anime as Genshiken and DearS. She has since performed solo and appeared on the soundtrack for D.C. ~Da Capo~ and School Days. Momoi is also a journalist, a composer, and a music producer who founded the music label Akihaba Love Records. Momoi became famous through her online journal and street performances at Tokyo's Akihabara otaku shopping district.
Momoi had previousy appeared at FanimeCon in 2009 and 2010.
FanimeCon will also host voice actor and singer Yūya Matsushita, Petit Evangelion designer Ryusuke Hamamoto, Trigun designer Takahiro Yoshimatsu, Fullmetal Alchemist/Gundam 00 director Seiji Mizushima, the Japanese pop band Flow, and voice actor Tohru Furuya.
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