Guest Information
Christopher Bevins
Christopher Bevins is a Voice Director and Line Producer at FUNimation Entertainment. His directing credits include Samurai 7, Speed Grapher, Origin: Spirits of the Past and Burst Angel as well as Spiral, Dragon Ball GT, Dragon Ball Z Movies 9 and 10 (Bojack Unbound and Broly: Second Coming), and Case Closed. He is the Co-Voice Director (with Taliesin Jaffe) of BECK: Mongolian Chop Squad and is Voice Director and Co-Script Adapter for Witchblade. He is also an ADR Director and Co-Line Producer on FUNimation's new dub of One Piece.
Chris also has numerous voice acting credits such as Bee the Puppy in Dragon Ball Z, Shishi Wakamaru in Yu Yu Hakusho, Naturon Shenron (the 7-Star Dragon) in Dragon Ball GT, Kanone Hilbert in Spiral, Gosaku in Samurai 7, and Yurigaoka in Speed Grapher. He has also played minor roles in Dragon Ball, Blue Gender, Fruits Basket, Kiddy Grade, Fullmetal Alchemist, Kodocha, Burst Angel, Desert Punk, Shin-chan, a few Lupin III movies and several episodes of Case Closed. Chris recently got his first lead role, playing Apollo in the upcoming Aquarion.
Robert DeJesus
Robert is a writer, story creator, illustrator, storyboard artist and character designer for Studio Capsule. Robert is no stranger to the anime and manga community. An Indiana born, self-taught artist, who got his first art career break when he sent an eight page short story to comic publisher, Antarctic Press in February of 1990. He has drawn manga inspired art for well over 19 years and has been published nearly all over the world. He has worked for many companies like Playstation Magazine, Marvel, Hasbro, and recently with Harper Collins Publishing.
Emily DeJesus
Emily is a writer, editor, story creator and manager of Studio Capsule. Robert and Emily met at a convention called Anime Central and haven't been apart since that day. Emily has always enjoyed manga and anime, but never thought it could be her job. Emily has worked with Robert for over 7 years now. She helps write the web comic "How to Loathe Drawing in the Manga Style" and has just finished writing her first children's book. She enjoys the business side of working for Studio Capsule very much and is grateful that she has an opportunity to work in the manga/comics business.
Studio Capsule
Studio Capsule is involved in creating a line of low print run doujinshis, portfolios, animated shorts, and other projects expanding Studio Capsule. Find out everything that's new with either Studio Capsule or Robert and Emily DeJesus at www.studiocapsule.com
Taliesin Jaffe
Taliesin began his acting career at conception. He appeared in films such as Mr. Mom, 2010, and Explorers and television shows such as She's the Sheriff, The Facts of Life and Hail to the Chief. Fleeing a life of acting, he ventured deep into Japan, to find his life's true calling. Failing that, he returned to the states, hoping to find a job that would allow him to wear pajamas. In anime such a job was found. Taliesin has directed the dubs of shows such as NieA_7, R.O.D the TV, and Hellsing Ultimate. He's Adapted the scripts for shows such as 3X3 Eyes, Ergo Proxy and Hell Girl, and has been a voice actor in show such as Speed Grapher, Black Cat, Valkyrie Profile Silmeria, DearS and Paranoia Agent. Lately he's teamed up with Chris Bevins to co-direct Beck: Mongolian chop squad.
Dustin and Angela Reudelhuber
Dustin the Balloon Guy and his wife Angela are seasoned kids entertainers. Like magic, Dustin will twist a 3 foot balloon into the coolest balloon animals you have ever seen while entertaining the audience with silly slapstick, jokes, and improvisation humor. Dustin is a multiple balloon entertainer. He provides fully family entertainment, so he is entertaining to the whole audience, young and old. He also offers Magic and Angela is an accomplished face painter.
Christopher Sabat
Christopher Sabat has worked in voice over and audio production for over ten years. Starting as a DJ, his voice was heard on countless radio stations, TV and radio commercials, phone systems, toys, voice-guided equipment, and as a narrator on industrial and feature films. His experience in anime voice acting began in 1998 when he was cast as Yamcha and Igor in the Dragon Ball movie, "Sleeping Princess In Devil's Castle". Soon afterwards, he was asked to join the anime giant FUNimation Productions to direct the Dragon Ball Z series, and with that enetered the world of anime!
Since then, he has directed over 600 episodes of various anime, cartoons and videogames and has voiced some of the world's most popular anime characters including (but not limited to) Vegeta and Piccolo in Dragonball Z, Kuwabara in Yu Yu Hakusho, Jigen in Lupin III, Ayame in Fruits Basket, Alex Luis Armstrong in Full Metal Alchemist, Naru Naru in Kodocha, and Kiyotaka Narumi in Spiral. Chris has also starred in best-selling video game titles such as "Deus Ex: Invisible War", "Fullmetal Alchemist and the Broken Angel", "Fullmetal Alchemist 2: Curse of the Crimson Elixir", "Dragon Ball Z: Budokai", and much more. Currently, Chris lives in Dallas, Texas and owns an interactive production company called OkraTron 5000, Inc., where he lends his production talents to movies, television and interactive media as a producer, voice director, sound designer and an audio editor. Throughout all of this, Chris still finds time to work for FUNimation Productions.
Sonny Strait
As a voice actor, director, writer, and illustrator, Sonny Strait knows no bounds. As a voice actor, his most notable roles include Dragon Ball Z's Krillin, Full Metal Alchemist's Maes Hughes, and the original voice of Tom on Cartoon Network's Toonami. Currently he portrays Usopp on FUNimation's One Piece. As a writer and director, he's worked on Dragon Ball, Lupin III, Case Closed, Kodacha and Kiddy Grade. As an illustrator, he's behind DC's Elfquest series and is currently writing and drawing three manga-styled graphic novels for TOKYOPOP called We Shadows.
Kari Wahlgren
Kansas native Kari Wahlgren is thrilled to be coming home for Naka-Kon! Anime audiences were first introduced to Wahlgren as the Vespa-riding, guitar-bashing Haruko in "FLCL." Since then, she has played a number of anime roles, including Robin in Witch Hunter Robin, Saya in Blood+, Cher in Wolf's Rain, Lavie in Last Exile, Anemone in Eureka 7, Pacifica in Scrapped Princess, Satomi and Luca the Cat in IGPX: Immortal Grand Prix, Remi in Ravemaster and Tayuya in Naruto. Wahlgren also provided the voice of Ariel in the movie "Robotech: the Shadow Chronicles" as well as Scarlett in the anime feature "Steamboy."
In addition to anime, Kari has also done voicework for a number of video games. She voiced the character of Ashe in Final Fantasy XII, Shelke in Final Fantasy: Dirge of Cerebus, Kasumi in Dead or Alive Extreme 2, Mary Jane in Spiderman III, Zatanna in Justice League Heroes and Tatiana in James Bond: From Russia with Love. Other games that Wahlgren worked on include Tales from Symphonia, Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops, Tekken 5, Command and Conquer III, Star Wars: the Force Unleashed, Star Wars: Empire at War, Star Wars Episode III: Return of the Sith, Armored Core IV, Guild Wars III and IV, Transformers, and all three games in the Xenosaga series.
Kari is also active in original animation; she can currently be heard as the voices of Saturn Girl, Triplicate Girl/ Duo Damsel and Shrinking Violet on the Kids WB's "Legion of Superheroes." Wahlgren also voices the role of Jeera on Nickelodeon's "Tak and the Power of Juju" and played Nova, the Yellow Monkey, in "Super Robot Monkey Team Hyperforce Go!" Kari has appeared on Ben 10, The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy, Kim Possible, Disney's feature "The Wild" and Dreamwork's "Shrek III." Kari's upcoming projects include the second season of Comedy Central's "Li'l Bush" and the role of Emma Frost in the new "Wolverine and the X-Men" series.
Kari occasionally steps out from behind the microphone to do on-camera work, including commercials for such companies as T.J. Maxx, Lexus and Rolling Rock, and the role of Tink in the indie film "Neverland."
Wahlgren currently resides in Los Angeles, where she can be found cheering on her beloved KU Jayhawks.