Mike West was the very first voice of Nintendo’s famous canine, Fox McCloud in the hit video games series, STAR FOX!
Originally released in 1995, Star Fox quickly gain attraction as spaceship shooter game. In 1997, it was rebooted for the Nintendo 64 with higher graphics and titled Star Fox 64, which was the very first Nintendo game to have included support for the Rumble Pak, enhancing the gaming experience.
Star Fox 64 was the first Star Fox game to feature actual vocal lines, as oppose to its previous gibberish ‘vocal‘ sounds. It is here that voice actor, Mike West began his career with Nintendo and even took a 14 year ‘break‘ before coming back to voice Fox McCloud in Nintendo’s 2011 remastered game, Star Fox 64 3D for the Nintendo 3DS system. Watch our interview with Mike West below:
-GIVEAWAY-
Answer the question mentioned at the end of the interview for your chance to win an autographed print of Fox McCloud signed by Mike West!
Zag Animation recently announced a 52 minute Miraculous Ladybug special, which is set to release this Friday!
Zag Animation studio CEO, Jeremy Zag hinted the project back in 2016, stating a possible cross-over between Ladybug and two other Zag Animation properties, Pixie Girl and Ghostforce, two series that have yet to see the light of day. Will these characters be introduced in this special? highly unlikely, but the special will feature a group of super-powered individuals, never before seen.
Friends or Foes?
The special will also feature the series’ protagonists, Marinette Cheng & Adrien Agreste flying to the United States (hence the title, United Heroez) for the first time. Although this special is nearly an hour long, it is not to be confused with the Ladybug & Cat Noir Awakening movie, slated to be released in 2021.
Watch the trailer below:
Want more Ladybug? check out these awesome interviews we’ve done over the course of Miraculous Ladybug episodes:
Interview with the voice of Marinette Cheng, Cristina Vee
Interview with Ezra Weisz, Miraculous Ladybug Voice Director
Interview with Kagami Tsurugi, Faye Mata
Interview with the voice of Zag Animation Studio producer, Jared Wolfenson
We had the honor of interviewing another very talented Jak II cast member, Cutter Garcia who voiced Underground commander, TORN.
Garcia has made appearances in television series such as Monk, Weeds, Pretty Little Liars, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., and Mom. He is known for voicing Torn in the Jak and Daxter video game series. For the first time ever actor, Cutter Garica speaks about voicing Torn and working inside the recording studio with Dan Arey and much more!
GIVEAWAY
Subscribe AND answer the following question on YouTube in the comment section to have an opportunity to win an AUTOGRAPHED print signed by Cutter Garcia!
Who is your favorite Jak and Daxter character & why?
You’ll have until August 15th 2020 to enter, good luck freedom fighter!
Earlier this year we interviewed with former Jak II voice actress, Dr.Britton Arey. Dr. Britton had left the entertainment world in order to pursuit a career in psychiatry, but in 2003 she voiced Daxter’s girlfriend, Tess in Jak II. Watch our exclusive interview below:
The following MAY contains spoilers from the Jak and Daxter video games series
We’ve all been there before, we’ve all at some point had a crush on a video game character, whether it was Lara Croft or Chung Li. Maybe some of us still have virtual waifus and/or husbandos. The Jak and Daxter series is one such game of the early 2000s, in which some of us discovered our very first video game crush. Many fans of the series were automatically hooked on the game’s expansive fantasy world, its plot and the game’s impressionable femme fatale characters.
Who doesn’t love girls and guns? | Kiara, Ashlien & Tess
One such character was Tess. Tess is a character that was featured in Jak II and Jak 3, Initially introduced as a supporting character, she would gradually play an essential role in the storyline, helping Jak and Daxter through their journey. Tess also served as a love interest for Daxter.
Jak II rated T for Teens: Suggestive Themes
During the events in Jak II, Tess was a rebellion spy (or Underground agent in the game) working at a local bar, gathering intel from the enemy. By Jak 3 she becomes a weapons expert, developing high-grade weapons. Although many who have played the game, know of Tess’s background story, not many are aware of the person behind the voice of the hyper-active, cheery character.
‘Its a hobby’
Tess is Portrayed by Dr.Britton A. Arey MD, now working as a psychiatrist in Orange County in California, Britton once pursued a career in acting and in the years prior to Jak II, Britton had auditioned for a role in the hit movie Hook which features the late Robbin Williams and veteran voice actor, Dante Basco.
Credited as Britton A. Hill in Jak II, later to Britton A. Arey in Jak 3 after her marriage to then Jak and Daxter writer, Daniel Arey.
Join us in this exclusive voice actor interview! For the very first time, Dr.Britton Arey speaks out about her involvement in Jak II/Jak 3 revealing behind the scenes stories during the production of the game and much more!
Stick to the end of the interview for details on how to win an autographed print signed by Britton Arey (voice of Tess) and her husband Daniel Arey, Former creative director and writer of the Jak and Daxter series!
Scan of actual autographed print
Winner will be chosen and announced on April 1st, 2020, visit our website for our giveaway terms and conditions, https://thekitsunetwork.net/giveaways/!
We had the honor of interviewing voice actress, Dorothy Fahn during Ronin Expo‘s Otaku Market Gathering in Orange County! This mark Dorothy’s first on-camera interview, all other interviews she’s previously done have been in audio format only. Dorothy is known for voicing Lilymon in Digimon, Meryl Stryfe in Trigun and Chihiro Fujisaki in Danganronpa
She’s married to voice actor Tom Fahn (Voice of Agumon) and is one of four family members to become voice actors, family members include, Jonathan Fahn (Brother-in-law) and Melissa Fahn (Sister-in-law). We’re honored to share Dorothy’s on-camera, interview debut and we hope to interview the rest of the Fahn family.
Voice actor Mike Pollock has been in Radio, eBooks, and commercials, but you might recognize him in animation. He’s the Narrator of Pokemon and the notorious Doctor Eggman in the Sonic The Hedgehog franchise. He’s also done numerous other characters in anime such, Meat from Ultimate Muscle, Deus Prometh in GKid’s Promare, and most recently, Yasui in Weathering with You.
This interview will be recorded live during Ronin Expo’s Otaku Market Gathering at the source OC. For event information Click here.
Interview with voice actress, Dorothy Fhan voice of Naru Narusegawa in Love Hina, Meryl Stryfe in Trigun, Chihiro Fujisaki in Danganronpa and much more!
Furthermore, we’ll be interview a VERY special guest at the end of this month, her voice was featured in only two games, Jak II and Jak 3 as Tess!
We’re pleased to announce, former voice actress, Britton Arey will be on our upcoming interview list, if you have any questions for her, please submit them by commenting below or by contacting us using any of these platforms!
The long wait is finally over! HAZBIN HOTEL made its premiere on Oct 28th!
The pilot episode “That’s Entertainment” was released on YouTube by its creator, Vivienne Medrano (Vivziepop). The episode was an instant hit, getting over 7M views in nearly two weeks. During an interview we had with Vivienne Medrano, she spoke about having the series air on a major studio network, depending on how well the pilot episode is received and what type of deal they are offered.
Though the pilot episode became an instant hit among fans, the future of the series is still up in the air. Medrano and her team want to develop an entire season of Hazbin Hotel but for this, as Medrano puts it in our interview, they would need a bigger budget, suggesting a Kickstart campaign to help create an entire season.
Many may know about the characters inside the amazing world of Hazbin Hotel, but very few know who is their voices are. It goes without saying that Hazbin Hotel has a unique and original concept to the story, the same could be said about the cast.
Jill Harris As Charlie the Princess of Hell
Born on 1994 in Clarksville, Tennessee, Jill began her voice acting career with her first game, Loren The Amazon Princess as Myrth. She went on to become a regular voice actor for Funimation projects such as SSSS.Gridman, Overlord III, Black Clover & KanColle: Kantai Collection.
Charlie’s singing voice is Britsh singer and actress, Elsie Lovelock.
Monica Franco As Vaggie, Charlie’s love interest.
According to her IMDB profile, she’s worked on various web series such as JonTron, Final Fantasy VII: Machinabridged, Vampire Pixel in the Neon City alongside, HotDiggedyDemon’s Luigi’s Day Out and Pony.Mov
Michael Kovach As Angel Dust, a resident of Hell and former gay porn star.
According to his IMDB profile, Kovach began his professional career in 2014 with his first project being, Danganwrestling as Monokuma, Goldust & Paul Heyman. He later went on to voice numerous characters in video games such as Lucid9: Inciting Incident, Highway Blossoms, and an upcoming 3D platformer/puzzle game, Billie Bust Up.
Edward Bosco As Alastor, also know as ‘The Radio Demon’
Born on 1986 in Chicago, Illinois, Edward began his career with MMORPG video game, Vindictus. He went on to voice Aharah in Dust: An Elysian Tail and in later years worked on Bang! Zoom Entertainment projects such as Sword Art Online, Hunter x Hunter, Gods Eater Burst and B: The Beginning.
Alastor’s singing voice is voice actor, Odell Atkinson.
Other voice actors include Joshua Tomar (Tom Trench), Krystal LaPorte (Cherry Bomb), and Vivienne Medrano (additional voices).
During Anime Expo 2019, we interviewed voice actress Faye Mata voice of Katie Killjoy, who spoke with us about her career and her role in Hazbin Hotel.
Now that pilot episode is completed and released, its only matter of time before it gets picked up by a major network or if, Vivienne and her team will continue to Self-produce the series with the help of loyal fans. For more updates, exclusive Hazbin Hotel content and other exciting news, follow Vivienne on Twitter. Watch the pilot episode below, make to read till the end of this article for a special giveaway:
In the meantime, fans can rejoice in Hazbin Hotel merchandise that is now available. Pins, sketchbooks, and shirts are all available on VivziePop’s official SharkRobot account.
GIVEAWAY
Share our post on social media and Win!
Just share this post on ANY social media platform using #HazbinHotelTKN, and you’ll be automatically entered to win this, Portrait of Angel Dust Pin designed by artist, CalMoray. The winner will be announced on Dec 1st on our FACEBOOK page.
Don’t wanna wait? You can purchase the very limited stock, portrait of Angel pin, on Vivziepop’s shop here.
She is an award-winning film director, producer and web series creator. She is known for her work as a voice actress and her work in Portal. She’s none other than, Alésia Glidewell.
Pictured above during an interview we had in 2013, Alésia was born in Hawaii, to a Brazilian-American father and Japanese mother. She speaks English, Spanish, Italian, and Portuguese, in addition, she spends her free time traveling the world.
Alésia’s Instagram
Alésia began her work in video games, after graduating from Emory Univerity. Wanting a breakthrough in the voice over and film industry, she moved to Seattle and spent most of her time sending out demos and attending classes. After much hard work and sacrifice, she got signed on by an agent and her career took off.
After a very successful commercial career, she booked her very first game role in 2004 as Carmalita fox and Nayla in the game, Sly 2: Band of Thieves. She later went on to voice Krystal the Fox in Star Fox Assult, released in 2005. Fast-forward to 2007, Alésia obtained recognition for her work in Portal as the facial and body model for the game’s protagonist, Chell, making her forever immortalized in a video game.
Sly 2: Camelita Fox
Sly 2: Nayla
Star Fox: Assault
SSB: Zero Suit Samus
SSB: Kunckle Joe
Portal: Chell
In addition, she voiced Zero Suit Samus, Knuckle Joe and reprised her role as Krystal the Fox in Super Smash Bros. Brawl in 2008. A decade later, she reprised all three roles for Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, it is unclear if she had to re-record her lines or if her recordings were taken from archived recordings.
In 2013 we had the honor of interviewing Alésia Glidewell, at the time, she had just wrapped up a film she had directed and produced, Small fish. According to IMDB, its a story about two underachieving brothers who compete in a rematch against their rivals, the big shot Prussian Brothers, in the small town of Rancho Cucamonga, California. The film won best short at Hollywood Reel International Film Festival in 2014.
In 2015 Alésia and former Microsoft employee, Keri Andrews both appeared on Shark Tank, pitching the creation of You Kick-Ass. Using 3D printing technology, You kick Ass is meant to create customized superhero figures for the masses, making great personal gifts or even promotional items. The idea came to Alésia and Kari after the release of Valve’s Chell action figure which featured, Alésia’s likeness. The duo became Shark Tank success stories after walking away with an offer of $100K investment with 10% of the company from investor, Mark Cuban.
Since then, Alésia has a had huge variety of work under her belt. She became an executive producer for Wear it, To Win it, We Got issues, and The Tube’s Hautest. She also helped to create and develop a series on beauty products for Bobbi Brown cosmetics and Estée Lauder. In more recent news, Alésia has produced and directed various content for YouTubers such as, Netflix’s A Trip to Unicorn Island featuring Lily Singh and Ateyo’s Women of games: Thank u, games music video, which featured Ovilee May, Sue “Smix” Lee, Tori Pareno, and The women of Gaming & Esports. Earlier this year, she was also elected into the Producer’s Guild of America, New Media Council Board.
Alésia has proven she’s as determined as the characters she voices. With so much accomplished in the film industry, it leaves one to wonder, will she come back into video game or the voice-over industry? With a new Metroid game in the works, the timing would be perfect! However, It goes without saying, through hard work and sacrifice, Alésia Glidewell has managed to become a self-made woman, with a future that looks brighter with every project she takes on.
In its 28th year, Anime Expo once again welcomed 115,000* attendees from across the world.
Japanese pop culture fans, both locally and internationally, traveled to the Los Angeles Convention Center for annual Anime Expo (Commonly known as, AX) held from July 4th thru 7th, including a pre-night show on the July 3rd.
Reports that Anime Expo’s contract with the Los Angeles Convention Center had expired, created rumors of Anime Expo moving to another venue by 2020. We can officially confirm that Anime Expo will definitely return to the Los Angeles Convention Center for 29th Anime Expo in 2020, as stated in their website and the back of the Anime Expo 2019 program books.
The Great Anime Expo Earthquake
In an unforeseen turn of events, two earthquakes occurred during Anime Expo 2019, one during Day 2, July 4th at 10:02AM PTD (4.0 magnitude) and the second during Day 3, July 5th at 8:19PM PTD (7.1 magnitude). During the first earthquake on the morning of July 4th, ABC 7 Action News had mistakenly stated that the Los Angeles Convention Center was being evacuated as a precaution. In reality, it was Anime Expo attendees waiting to get insidethe convention, not out. Their statement was later retracted. The earthquake’s epicenter location was Ridgecrest, California.
The following day, July 5th at 8:19PM a second earthquake, with a magnitude of 7.1, struck Ridgecrest, California once more. The earthquake was felt by AX attendees, which some taking to social media to post videos of their terrifying experience while inside the convention center.
Guests of Honor, Faye Mata
This year, Anime Expo featured 22 Guests of Honor, among them, voice actress Faye Mata.
Photo Credit: Ax2D Photography
Mata has voiced numerous characters including, Aqua; Konosuba, Fukaziroh; SAO: Gun Gale Online, Katie Killjoy; Hazbin Hotel, Astolfo; Fate/Apocrypha and most recently Petra in Fire Emblem: Three Houses. We had the pleasure of having an exclusive interview with Faye Mata, Join us we speak about her career, character roles, and other upcoming projects.
This year Anime Expo featured over 400+ vendors among them animator, Vivienne Medrano better known by her pseudonym, Vivziepop.
Vivziepop is famously known for creating the hit series, HAZBIN HOTEL. Following her huge viral success with her YouTube video, which features JayJay, a character from another of Vivzie’s creations titled, Zoophobia, lipsyncing to Ke$ha’s Die Young. This video helped her gain a large audience early in her career as an animator.
Hazbin Hotel official poster
She began her working on Hazbin Hotel during her High school years, designing characters such Alastor, one of many main characters of the series. It wasn’t until 2016, that she initially announced Hazbin Hotel, which was originally titled, People Like Us. We caught up with Vivziepop during the last day of Anime Expo and she gave us an insight into the series’ production and its future.
The series is set to be released sometime during October 2019, although the exact date is yet to be announced. Follow Vivziepop’s Twitter account for more updates and details.
RGP Games, anyone?
We decided to cover a few things from this year’s Entertainment Hall booth, beginning with Fate/Grand Order 2019 Tour. As you may remember, the Fate/Grand Order 2019 Tour began back in February of this year…
…and continued throughout Anime Expo 2019. Their booth featured an interactive photo-op station and the opportunity to play the tabletop game, Fate/Grand Order duel. Type-Moon representatives also handed out Fate/Grand Order 2019 player guides.
The Fate/Grand Order tour continues with its next stop being at Anime Weekend Atlanta 2019 in October, for more information visit their official here.
Staying inside the Entertainment Hall, we stopped by Auragon Games’ booth as they promoted their newest game, Hiraethia!
Hiraethia is a new RPG puzzle game developed by Auragon Games, a new independent game developing company based off Texas. Auragon Games founder, Sunny Chai and Hiraethia character designer, Tin Liu spoke to us gave us an overview on Hiraethia.
“A story of adventure, mystery, and tragedy. Follow a brave group of heroes as they try to save the world.” as the game’s Kickstarter states.
We got to play the game during its promotion demo at Anime Expo and although we did not explore much of the storyline, we can see it becoming quite popular among mobile RPG fans. As Chai stated in our interview, what sets the game apart is the fully animated character scenes. It’s one of the few games out there, that features hand-drawn, fully animated attack sequences. As you may know, most games go with the traditional visual novel animation. In addition, the game also features a puzzle mini-game within the main game itself, in which, the player must strategically match ‘tiles‘ accordingly to create stronger and more powerful attack combos. It is when these attacks are performed that the fully animated sequences appear.
Furthermore, the game also features a collaboration with YouTube gamer, LilyPichu as a playable character in the game. Auragon games have not released much about their character’s background, therefore not much is known about lily nor the role she’ll play in the game, storywise.
There is currently no date set for the game’s release, other than ‘it’ll be out on the market before the end of 2019.‘ Want to know more,? head over to their official website to learn more about the game and merchandise.
Anime Expo 2020
Anime Expo ended with an unusually finish. It’s a well-known fact that Anime Expo sale badges for the coming year, hours before the current year convention is over. Things were a bit different this year, with Anime Expo announcing that badges for Anime Expo 2020 would not be sold on-site and instead, sold online.
A limited number of early bird 4-day badges will go on sale beginning on August 16th 2019. Early bird price is $75 (not including fees) for a 4-day badge. Once all the early bird badges sell out, 4-day badges will be available for $85 (not including fees) and continue rising monthly as Anime Expo 2020 gets closer. In another surprising move, Anime Expo has also stated they will no longer hold a Black Friday or Cyber Monday sales.
For more information regarding Anime Expo 2020 badge please go to their official website here. Now that Anime Expo 2019 has long been over, its time to prepare for Anime Expo 2020. Will you be there?
We had the honor of interviewing actor Reuben Langdon and famed anime director, Hiroshi Nagahama during Ronin Expo 2019 in Little Tokyo, California. Ronin Expo is an annual anime festival located in the heart of the Los Angeles Japanese community, Little Tokyo!
Nagahama sketching for fans
Reuben Langdon signs a slice of pizza for a fan
Hiroshi Nagahama, began his career at Madhouse Studio as a mechanical designer for ‘The Cockpit’, after leaving Madhouse, he became a freelancer. He later went on to direct the highly acclaimed anime series, Mushishi. In recent news, Nagahama was working alongside writer Stan Lee to co-create, The Reflection an anime series surrounding individuals who have superpowers after coming in contact with a mysterious light. More on this in our interview with Hiroshi Nagahama below:
Reuben Langdon is known for voicing Dante (Devil May Cry series), Ken Masters beginning with Street Fighter IV various others. Aside from voicing characters, he’s also a well-known motion capture actor, doing motion capture for Chris Redfield in Resident Evil Code Veronica, 5 & 6. In addition, Langdon is also a stuntman, filmmaker and on-camera actor, working on well-known film titles such as, The Medallion, Spider-Man 2, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End, Night at the Museum 2, Ant-Man, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World and Avatar. In recent news, Langdon was involved in a life-threating armed assault, earlier this year, while filming a documentary in Guatemala, Mexico. This and more in our interview:
We would like to thank Ronin Expo staff for providing the services we needed to execute these interviews. Special thanks to Lisle Wilkerson for interpreting our interview with Nagahama.
Michael Kovach As Angel Dust, a resident of Hell and former gay porn star.
There is currently no date set for the game’s release, other than ‘it’ll be out on the market before the end of 2019.‘ Want to know more,? head over to their 
