AnimeFest 2023 Guests

Steve Jackson has been playing games for nearly 50 years, and designing them since 1976. He graduated from Rice University, where a lot of his time went to wargames and the school paper (he spent two years as editor). Now he's a writer and game publisher, proving that college can be very valuable if you don't let classes get in your way.

His first published game was Ogre, released in 1977 by Metagaming. He designed and edited several other games for that company, including Melee and Wizard, before forming Steve Jackson Games in 1980. An early release, Car Wars, became an instant hit. It was followed by Illuminati, in which players build conspiracies to take over the world. Later came GURPS, the “Generic Universal Roleplaying System.”

In 1983, Steve was elected to the Adventure Gaming Hall of Fame. He has received 12 Origins Awards, as well as various other honors, for game design.

In 1990 and 1991, Steve became the “poster child for electronic freedom” after the Secret Service's invasion of his office and confiscation of equipment and manuscripts. SJ Games filed suit against the Secret Service and the U.S. government, and won more than $50,000 in damages. Steve remains intermittently active with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, in hopes of preventing further offenses against other computer users. You can read about it at www.sjgames.com/SS/.

His current mega-hit is Munchkin, a very silly card game about killing monsters and taking their stuff; a Steam version is now available for online play.

His current projects include various Munchkin follow-ups and the ongoing republication of his first RPG, The Fantasy Trip.

Steve lives in Texas but these days would rather claim citizenship in the Internet. His other interests include gardening, dinosaurs, Lego, and trains. In his copious free time, he reads, eats, and paints minis.

In the world of anime, Beau has voiced a multitude of characters including: Jet Black in Cowboy Bebop, Ogremon, Saggitarimon and Parrotmon in Digimon, Michael in Argentosoma, Seal Walrus in Wolf’s Rain, Gohei in Rurouni Kenshin, Dee Jay in Super Street Fighter II and many others.

He is also the voice of The Fourth Raikage and Homura in the animated series Naruto. He voices Abraham Douglas in the soon-to-be released animated feature War Of The Worlds: Goliath (which won Best Animated Feature at the Los Angeles 3D Film Festival in 2012). He has narrated several series on The History Channel including Suicide Missions, Hero Ships and Modern Marvels. His video games include: Safari, Outlaws, Dynasty Warriors, Zino, Breakdown, Ace Combat 5, and Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children.

Beau appears as Captain Abbott of the S.S. Bradbury in Star Trek: Into Darkness and he has on-camera commercials now airing for Nissan and Merrill Lynch. Beau’s sci-fi feature films include The Blob, My Favorite Martians, Leprechaun in the Hood, and Halloween H2O. You can also see Beau on Franklin & Bash as Judge James Douglas airing on TNT. A full listing of his 30 year television and feature film career can be found on IMDB.

SOCIAL MEDIA
Facebook https://www.facebook.com/Beau-Billingslea-93646027179/
Twitter https://twitter.com/BeauBillingslea

IMDB
https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0082507/

Melissa Fahn’s career as an actor, singer and voiceover artist has been a versatile one!
She is an internationally renown voiceover artist, having voiced hundreds of characters,
including BETTY BOOP, HELLO KITTY, BETTY RUBBLE, GAZ on Nickelodeon’s INVADER
ZIM, EDWARD on COWBOY BEBOP, DENDY on Cartoon Network's OK KO! LET'S BE
HEROES, NEPTUNE/PURPLE HEART in the NEPTUNIA video games and series, RIDER on
FATE STAY NIGHT, CHLOE on GLITTER SQUAD, RIKA on DIGIMON TAMERS, TACHIKOMA
on GHOST IN THE SHELL, DUUSU on MIRACULOUS: TALES OF LADYBUG & CAT NOIR,
NINAMORI on FOOLY COOLY, HARUKA on NOEN, NENE on DIGIMON FUSION, KRISTY on
DIGIMON DATA SQUAD, TIA on ZATCH BELL, BOUQUET on BLUE DRAGON, and countless
more, including dozens of video games. She has voiced campaigns for McDonalds, Charmin,
Lexus, Vons, NBC Saturday Morning, and many others…as well as being a session singer for
film, TV and radio for many years.

Melissa is also an accomplished stage, TV, and film performer. She was a member of the
original Broadway cast of the smash musical WICKED and a featured vocalist on the Grammy-
winning cast album, performed with the cast on the Tony Awards, Macy’s Day Parade and
David Letterman Show, understudied Kristen Chenoweth as Glinda, and sang the role of Glinda
at the WICKED – BROADWAY IN BRYANT PARK concert. Her affiliation with WICKED
continued in the record-breaking Los Angeles cast, where she understudied and performed the
role of Glinda to great acclaim. She has performed in countless regional, national and
international theatrical productions as well. On the small screen, she is best known for playing
Esmerelda on the NBC soap PASSIONS. On the big screen, Melissa stars in the romantic
comedy, TICK TOCK BOOM CLAP.

Her debut album, AVIGNON, features her singing in an intimate, jazz style. The highly personal
album has been described as “Norah Jones singing with Sting and Steely Dan”. She’s
performed material from the album at the star-studded HOLLYWOOD ART 4 LIFE benefits, the
88’S CABARET series in Hollywood, Tangier, Room 5 and many venues throughout Southern
California, as well, in her one woman show “GROWN UP GIRL” at The Federal. The album is
available on CD Baby, Amazon, and iTunes...and continuously attracts fans across the globe!

Jordan Dash Cruz is actor and director residing in DFW Texas. Originally hailing from Florida, Jordan likes
long walks on the beach, most 90s sitcoms and pineapple on pizza. When he's not busy admiring Ralph
Macchio's beautiful Crane kick in “The Karate Kid”, he likes to act.

You can hear him across a multitude of anime titles, videogames, commercials, etc. Such as: Temenos
Mistral in OCTOPATH TRAVELER 2, Aoshi Tokimitsu in BLUELOCK, Leon Fou Bartfort in Trapped in a
Dating Sim Rashad Goodman in BeyBlade Burst: Quad Drive, Taketo in Miss Kobayashi's Dragon
Maid S, Shaun and John in SHADOWS HOUSE, Dominic in SpyXFamily, Leo Tsukinaga in Ensemble
Stars!, Akito Miyake in Classroom of the Elite II, Suleiman and Tsujigiro in One Piece, Ruben/Rossa in
Black Clover, Toma in Sing A Bit of Harmony, Moguo in Talentless Nana, Ryo Hoshino in The
Millionaire Detective Balance:Unlimited, Titan in Dr. Stone, Dusty Attenborough in Legend of the
Galactic Heroes: Die Neue These, Tamura in That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime, Shota Tanoue
in After School Dice Club, Load in Welcome to Demon School! Iruma-Kun, Nimble in Overlord III,
Howdy Morning in Epithet Erased, Tierno in Pokemon Masters EX, Omega Dredge in Paladins, College
Murph in Tiny Tina's Wonderlands, Felix in Eternal Return, Kurenai in SMASH LEGENDS, Golden
Alligator, Nabil, Nogata and Khasani in Genshin Impact, Vizier Thoth, Pixel Hammer Thor, Raxolotl
Ratatoskr and Raven King Chernobog in SMITE and more!

When it comes to directing, Jordan's had the opportunity to help assist in directing some of your anime
favorites like: BLUELOCK, Trapped in a Dating Sim, Fruit of Evolution and The Great Jahy.

He's an avid gamer, and enjoys games such as Final Fantasy, and the "Tales of" series! He's also REALLY
hoping Jet Set Radio Future gets an HD Remaster one day.

Feel free to follow all of his Voice Act-y adventures on Twitter or Instagram (@DashCruzVA) where he posts about stuff!
Finally, as we say in the entertainment industry: “Make sure to: Sit back, Relax, and Enjoy the show!” Animefest, this year is gonna be fun!

Amelie Belcher is an award-winning artist, painter, art instructor, comic creator and pod cast host.

Known for her comedy based art education presentations, she has travelled the world teaching thousands of budding artists the secrets to starting their own journeys down the path to artistic expression with an eye geared toward Anime and Manga styled creations. She is known for her web comics, “Bounty Haunters” and “The Real-Life Adventures Of Ami Chan”. You can read her work on her website www.amiarmy.com.

Amelie is also known for her latest artistic adventures including an ongoing series of fine art watercolor and gouache paintings dedicated to the one and only Jeff Goldblum she calls “The Gold Bloomery”. More recently, she has also begun combining a life long passion for painting and theme parks. Follow along with her as she paints her way across the wide world of parks on her instagram ipaintparks.

She and her husband, Levi Castello, also host the popular pod cast “Laser Discotheque”, a show about watching movies on the least convenient format ever produced…Laserdiscs. You can give a listen on the pod catcher of your choice or visit the website at https://laserdiscpod.com/.

Amelie has appeared at AnimeFest many times and is always a joy.

Follow Amelie on Twitch at:
https://www.twitch.tv/ameliebelcher

Mika Akatsuka is an Australian vtuber and variety streamer with a love of Apex Legends, open-world exploration games and RPG games. He will also brave horror games, collabs regularly with friends, and is usually teased (affectionately) by his community.

He has been streaming since December 2020 and started out as Jezebel Belladonna (JezebelVT) on Twitch, before rebranding to Mika Akatsuka and moving most of his content to YouTube.

Mika streams regularly throughout the week, focusing on having fun and a good time with chat. As a result, his streams are full of silly chaos but still have a comfy atmosphere to hang out in. His Minecraft streams are notorious for comedically timed deaths and Mika has a habit of “speaking without thinking”, resulting in double entendre lines of conversation. Karaoke, art and practicing voice acting characters in the games he plays are all part of Mika’s wide array of interests during streams as well.

He's also a big fan of anime and manga, just be careful asking about his favourite characters or you might be there for a while…

Mika has been a guest at AnimeFest several times now and was also the panel emcee for LUXIEM of NIJISANJI EN at AnimeFest 2022.

✧ Links ✧
https://www.youtube.com/@MikaAkatsuka
https://twitter.com/Mika_Akatsuka
https://www.twitch.tv/MikaAkatsuka
https://www.tiktok.com/@MikaAkatsuka

This is her second year with Animefest! She's ecstatic to be back.

Zane is a Hong Kong Vtuber, English lecturer and variety streamer who mainly holds her streams in English. With a full time job, Zane started streaming in January of 2021.

Your typical Story-Rich RPG fan, she prides herself in voice acting different types of characters (for fun). Having played over 40 prominent Gacha game titles and keeping up with no less than 5 of them daily, Zane’s audience often questions: “Do you even sleep?” Name a gacha game, she’s probably tried it. With fluency and ability in English, Chinese, Cantonese and Japanese, she tries gacha games in all different languages.

Recently, she has been dragged into the depths of Final Fantasy XIV and has been crafting up a storm and screaming in raids. It's a terrible addiction and she plays way too much. If she has an RP account, she isn't about to tell you.

Reoccurring titles that you may see on her stream are currently: Honkai: Star Rail, FFXIV, Gacha games, story rich games like Persona, Atelier Ryza.

Are you ready to become part of the class?

( ु ´꒳`[Links] ू )
Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/zanedase
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@ZaneDaseVT
Twitter: https://twitter.com/ZaneDaseVT
Tiktok: https://www.tiktok.com/@zanedasevt

Marianne Bray is a Dallas-based voice actor born in Paris, France and raised in Austin, Texas. She fell in love with acting when she was knee-high to a Hobbit when she discovered that performing was the best way to keep playing pretend forever.

Marianne can be heard in shows like One Piece (Flampe), The Reincarnation of the Strongest Exorcist In Another World (Seika Lamprogue), The Iceblade Sorcerer Shall Rule the World (Ariane Algren), Saving 80,000 Gold in Another World For My Retirement (Colette), Shadows House (Lydia and Liddy), The Case Study of Vanitas (Murr), and No Guns Life (Pepper).

When she's not acting, Marianne can be found smashing all the pots in Hyrule, watching too much anime, sewing costumes for renaissance faires and conventions, and meowing at every cat she sees. Follow her on twitter (@MarianneDHobbit) for pictures of her own very judgemental cat Yuffie and endless Lord of the Rings memes.

- Marianne Bray
Voice Actor
Website & Demos: mariannebray.com

Celeste Perez is a Voice Actor and Producer based in Texas, known for her work in several anime titles such as Horimiya (Sakura Kono) Laid Back Camp (Rin Shima), Sugar Apple Fairy Tale (Anne Halford), The Saint’s Magic Power is Omnipotent (Sei Takanashi), In Another World With My Smartphone S2 (Yumina), and Beast Tamer (Runa).

You can also hear her throughout shows such as Kuma Kuma Kuma Bear (Surilina) Dead Mount Death Play (Sayo), Why Raeliana Ended Up at the Duke’s Mansion (Freese Eriteal), Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch From Mercury (Ireesha Plano), The Great Jahy Will Not Be Defeated (Su), Handyman Saitou (Primasse), The Iceblade Sorcerer Shall Rule The World (Wanda Erica), Takt Op. Destiny (Heaven), How A Realist Hero Rebuilt the Kingdom (Sandria), My Dress Up Darling (Suzuka), Love After World Domination (Reporter), One Piece (Charlotte Mash), Love Live! Nijigasaki High School Idol Club (Iroha), and many others.

To learn more, visit www.Celeste-Perez.com. You can also follow her on Twitter @CelezPerez or Instagram @Celez.Perez!

James Larabee is a voice actor/actor who lives and works in Dallas Texas. Having worked on numerous films and acting roles, James also does voiceover for Crunchyroll and previously FUNimation as well as Cinesprit magazine, industrial spots for Worldfavor, Cornucopia Radio, audio novels, and anime projects. James is also an accomplished cartoonist and is the author and artist of the online cartoon strip The Home of Happiness. James is the President of Iolite Studioz located in Dallas, Texas.