October 6, 2009
News for Youmacon 2009:
Youmacon announces its final round of guests
Youmacon, Metro Detroit's first anime convention is returning for its fifth year has announced it's final round of guests: LittleKuriboh and Kroze, Carrie Keranen, and Brad Swaile!
Brad Swaile: Vancouver-born and raised, Brad began acting in elementary school andin high school landed his first voice acting gig as a pony named "Ace" in My Little Pony Tales. Soon afterwards, he landed his first anime role as "Mousse" in Ranma 1/2. Some of his more notable characters include Amuro, Quatre, Dearka and Auel (on their respective Gundam series'), Gohan (from Dragon Ball Z, UK & Canada), Kicker (Transformers: Energon), Lan (Megaman: NT Warrior), and Nightcrawler (X-men Evolution). Brad has worked on several anime series' including Inu-Yasha, Hikaru No Go, Hamtaro, Maison Ikkoku, Infinite Ryvius, Tokyo Underground, Soul Taker, Project Arms, Boys Over Flowers, Kimba the White Lion, Shakugan No Shana, Dokkoida, Saber Marionette J, Video Girl Ai, Arjuna, Zoids and Dragon Drive . Along with voice acting, Brad works professionally as a Graphic Designer/Illustrator and, when not at the hockey rink or on the baseball field, enjoys playing drums and guitar. Brad can be most recently heard as "Light" in Death Note (and the live-action Death Note films), "Rock" in Black Lagoon, "Ryuki" in The Story of Saiunkoku and "Setsuna F. Seiei " in his most recent mecha project, Gundam 00.
More of his roles can be found here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brad_Swaile
Carrie Keranen: Carrie Keranen is a Michigan native. She grew up in Oak Park and went to the University of Michigan where she graduated with a linguistics and theater degree. After college she traveled through Europe before settling in NYC. There, she performed in many plays, did stand up and got her break into voice acting as Caska in Berserk. For the last 8 years she has lent her voice to characters in video games, cartoons and anime. Some of her favorite appearances were in YuGiOh (where she played her first boy), Gokusen, Ah! My Goddess, Kappa Mikey, Cutie Honey live action, and most recently Season 4 of SLAYERS. She has been in ads for Verizon, Reddi Wip, Alka Seltzer and Vitamin Shoppe on camera as well as had a guest spot on season 1 of JJ Abram's FRINGE on FOX. Feel free to say hi when you see her, as she loves meeting new people!
You can find more of her roles here: http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/people.php?id=8519
Martin Billany and Anthony Kresky (A.K.A. Little Kuriboh and Kroze): For over three years now, Yu-Gi-Oh: The Abridged Series has taken the online world by storm becoming one of the most subscribed to youtube channels of all time, creating an entire sub-genre of anime parodies which are the bane of youtube moderators everywhere. With over 40 episodes to its name, YGO:TAS shows no signs of stopping till it has either created a religion of its own or, has gained enough minions to finally finish that moon base on which to live out the rest of its days, sending monsters down to earth on a daily basis to terrorize the general population down below.
LittleKuriboh is the creator, writer, editor and lone performer of YGO:TAS. Hailing from the the land of the British, he has caught the attention of many fans and haters alike of the original Yu-Gi-Oh with his highly original take on the series. Martin is also a highly talented stage actor who has been in many plays, despite once mistakenly auditioning for a tragedy and thinking it was a comedy due to watching one too many Dane Cook movies. May or may not be the first of a british assault force, along with Doctor Who and Ricky Gervais, to slowly take over America by using our computers and our televisions against us. Kroze is not exactly sure of what he does or contributes to YGO:TAS, but he knows he does something important. Some say he is a creature on which LittleKuriboh feeds upon to sustain his British lifeforce. Others say he is just one bad mother (shut your mouth!) site creator and admin who handles all of the day to day promotions and site work. Although there is one thing that everyone does agree upon, and that is that Kroze should never be allowed to write his own (or anyone else's for that matter) bios for convention guest pages.
The convention will return to the Hyatt Regency Dearborn in Dearborn Michigan for it's fifth year. The convention will run through Halloween weekend, October 29th to November 1st.
For more info please visit http://www.youmacon.com/
