Otakon announces Noboru Ishiguro, Hidenori Matsubara, and Yukio Kikukawa
Baltimore, MD (June 29, 2009) – Director, producer, and president of Artland, Noboru Ishiguro will make his first visit to Otakon.
Ishiguro most notably formed a Hawaiian band in college and played the ukulele there. He, in fact, had offers to go pro, but thankfully, he chose an anime career instead.
As a director, some of his notable titles are Space Battleship Yamato (first series and first two movies), Macross (original TV series and Do You Remember Love), Megazone 23, Legend of the Galactic Heroes, and Tytania. Ishiguro wrote the story for Megazone 23, based on his personal experience: having witnessed how easily the government mechanism can make the public believe distorted truths and motivate them into war. Ishiguro founded his studio, Artland, and still runs it as president after its acquisition by Marvelous Entertainment.
Otakon 2009 will be held July 17-19 at the Baltimore Convention Center in Baltimore, Maryland.
ABOUT OTAKON AND OTAKORP, INC.: Now entering its sixteenth year, Otakon is an annual celebration of Japanese and East Asian popular culture, and also one of the largest gatherings of fans in the United States. Otakon celebrates popular culture as a gateway to deeper understanding of Asian culture, and has grown along with the enthusiasm for anime, manga, video games, and music from the Far East. Since 1999, Otakon has been held in Baltimore, Maryland; currently, Otakon is one of Baltimore's few large, city-wide events, drawing over 22,000 individual members for three days each year (for a paid attendance of over 60,000 "turnstile" attendees). Otakon is a membership-based convention sponsored by Otakorp, Inc., a Pennsylvania-based, 501(c)3 educational non-profit whose mission is to promote the appreciation of Asian culture, primarily through its media and entertainment. Otakorp, Inc. is directed by an all-volunteer, unpaid staff – we are run by fans, for fans.
For more information about Otakorp, Inc., see http://www.otakon.com/otakorp/index.asp
For more information and the latest news on Otakon 2009, see http://www.otakon.com/
Baltimore, MD (June 29, 2009) – Character designer, illustrator and animator Hidenori Matsubara, perhaps best known for his character design work on the Oh My Goddess! OAV series and the Sakura Wars games, will be a guest at Otakon 2009.
As a young and hungry animator, Matsubara worked as an in-betweener on the Project A-Ko movies. From there, he served as an animator on Bubblegum Crisis and Gunbuster. Graduating to animation director for Nadia: Secret of Blue Water, he completed the opening animation for Bubblegum Crash, and then served as animation director on Otaku no Video (the inspiration for Otakon). Other credits in this period include work as an animator on Perfect Blue, Gunsmith Cats, and the original Neon Genesis Evangelion series. For the Oh My Goddess! series (and later for the movie), Matsubara served as character designer and chief animation director; more recently, he was character designer for The Count of Monte Cristo. He also served as the character designer of the hit game series Sakura Wars.
Currently, Matsubara is working under Hideaki Anno as an animator and animation director on the new series of Evangelion movies.
Otakon 2009 will be held July 17-19 at the Baltimore Convention Center in Baltimore, Maryland.
ABOUT OTAKON AND OTAKORP, INC.: Now entering its sixteenth year, Otakon is an annual celebration of Japanese and East Asian popular culture, and also one of the largest gatherings of fans in the United States. Otakon celebrates popular culture as a gateway to deeper understanding of Asian culture, and has grown along with the enthusiasm for anime, manga, video games, and music from the Far East. Since 1999, Otakon has been held in Baltimore, Maryland; currently, Otakon is one of Baltimore's few large, city-wide events, drawing over 22,000 individual members for three days each year (for a paid attendance of over 60,000 "turnstile" attendees). Otakon is a membership-based convention sponsored by Otakorp, Inc., a Pennsylvania-based, 501(c)3 educational non-profit whose mission is to promote the appreciation of Asian culture, primarily through its media and entertainment. Otakorp, Inc. is directed by an all-volunteer, unpaid staff – we are run by fans, for fans.
For more information about Otakorp, Inc., see http://www.otakon.com/otakorp/index.asp
For more information and the latest news on Otakon 2009, see http://www.otakon.com/
Baltimore, MD (June 29, 2009) – Producer and mega fan Yukio Kikukawa will be a guest at Otakon 2009.
Producer Yukio Kikukawa has invested over a decade of his career producing the 162 episodes and three features of the epic Legend of the Galactic Heroes. His most recently producers the 26-episode series Tytania, another space opera based on the books by LoGH author Yoshiki Tanaka.
As a rare member of the Japanese anime industry from an American-style fandom background (a science-fiction convention-goer), he achieved the status of alpha fan when he chaired Anime Expo Tokyo in 2004.
Otakon 2009 will be held July 17-19 at the Baltimore Convention Center in Baltimore, Maryland.
ABOUT OTAKON AND OTAKORP, INC.: Now entering its sixteenth year, Otakon is an annual celebration of Japanese and East Asian popular culture, and also one of the largest gatherings of fans in the United States. Otakon celebrates popular culture as a gateway to deeper understanding of Asian culture, and has grown along with the enthusiasm for anime, manga, video games, and music from the Far East. Since 1999, Otakon has been held in Baltimore, Maryland; currently, Otakon is one of Baltimore's few large, city-wide events, drawing over 22,000 individual members for three days each year (for a paid attendance of over 60,000 "turnstile" attendees). Otakon is a membership-based convention sponsored by Otakorp, Inc., a Pennsylvania-based, 501(c)3 educational non-profit whose mission is to promote the appreciation of Asian culture, primarily through its media and entertainment. Otakorp, Inc. is directed by an all-volunteer, unpaid staff – we are run by fans, for fans.
For more information about Otakorp, Inc., see http://www.otakon.com/otakorp/index.asp
For more information and the latest news on Otakon 2009, see http://www.otakon.com/