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TONY OLIVER, who was named to IMDB’s top 20 all time Anime Voice Actors list, began his career as an actor on stage and camera performing in several feature films and dozens of plays. He found success as a voice artist, lending his voice to one of the first Anime features to a receive wide US television release – “The Sea Prince and the Fire Child”. His first foray into series television was as the voice of Rick Hunter in the groundbreaking anime series “Robotech”. Following that he turned his attention to writing but continued his voice acting career. In 1988 he joined Saban Entertainment as a story editor where he wrote and co-produced an award-winning adaptation of “The Jungle Book”. Tony was then tapped to help create a new kind of children’s television show. The result was the mega hit, “The Mighty Morphin Power Rangers”. He served as the development producer and head writer and also wrote the pilot, Co-Produced the series, directed the voice actors, played the voice of Saba, and produced and directed the Power Rangers live appearance at Universal Studios, which drew an estimated 50,000 people on a single day.

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Monica Rial has been working in the anime industry for over 20 years and has lent her voice to hundreds of anime including: Assassination Classroom (Kayano), Black Butler (Mey Rin), Black Clover (Mereleona, Nero, Secre), Card Captor Sakura: Clear Card (Sakura), Certain Magical Index (Index), Deadman Wonderland (Shiro), Dragon Ball Super (Bulma), Fairy Tail (Mirajane), Food Wars (Jun), FMA Brotherhood (May Chang), Golden Kamuy (Asirpa), Hello Kitty’s Animation Theater (Hello Kitty), ID:Invaded (Hondomachi), Maid-sama (Misaki), My Hero Academia (Tsuyu), One Piece (Tashigi), Ouran High School Host Club (Renge), Panty and Stocking (Stocking), Saga of Tanya the Evil (Tanya), Seraph of the End (Krul), Soul Eater (Tsubaki), Uzaki-chan Wants To Hang Out (Uzaki), Watamote (Tomoko), Yona of the Dawn (Yona), and many more.

She has worked with Rooster Teeth on RWBY (Sienna Khan) and gen:LOCK (Raquel Marin). She voiced Jubilee on Aqua Teen Hunger Force and has also appeared in several video games including Tales of Luminaria, Phantom Breaker Omnia, Fire Emblem Echoes, Fire Emblem: Heroes, Smite, Tales of Berseria, Ms.’Splosion Man, Orcs Must Die! Unchained, Borderlands 2, Borderland Pre-Sequel, Borderlands 3, and the Angry Birds series. 

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Nurtured on anime classics from the tender age of Star Blazers, this reclusive actor/writer spent more years than he cares to remember in what might charitably be called free-fall before landing, mostly by accident, smack dab on the industry of his dreams. To this day, some believe the small crater made by the impact remains the source of his power.

Cast as Rikichi in 2005’s Samurai 7, Tatum’s inexplicable luck has held long enough to see his flag hoisted on a slew of dream roles, most notably Kyoya Otori in Ouran High School Host Club, suave, demonic Sebastian Michaelis in Black Butler, France in the Hetalia franchise, Tomoe from Kamisama Kiss, and the equal parts maniacal/vulnerable Okarin Rintarou from Steins;Gate. More recently, Tatum can be heard in the epic My Hero Academia as Teyna Iida.

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Most known for voicing Gyutaro (the Upper Six demon) in Demon Slayer, Sir Nighteye in My Hero Academia, Apollo in EPIC: The Musical, Mafuyu in Given, Alear in Fire Emblem: Engage, Finral Roulacase in Black Clover, Gen in Dr. Stone, and Lawrence Bluewer in Black Butler: Public School Arc, Brandon McInnis is an LA-based voice actor, singer, and translator with over 160 roles in anime and video games, and a prolific TikTok account (>600k followers).
Having collaborated musically with content creators such as Jonathan Young and Caleb Hyles, he regularly posts both cover songs in English and Japanese on YouTube (https://youtube.com/branmci) and Spotify (https://ffm.bio/branmci). His most recent releases include covers of Burn from Hamilton, Popular from Wicked, a Japanese cover of Welcome to the Black Parade, and a full EP of English covers from the anime Given.

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The time has come! 

Mark those calendars and set those alarms, our 2026 schedule is now LIVE! 

Check out all events and get your schedule made: https://sakuracon.org/programming/schedule

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Animation Director / Episode Director

TRIGUN STARGAZE Director.
An animation director and episode director with extensive experience in both television and theatrical productions, she has served in a wide range of roles from episode direction to series director. Her notable works include HAIKYU!! TO THE TOP.

Sato began her career at Studio Ghibli as an animator, working as an in-betweener on Spirited Away, key animator on TALES FROM EARTHSEA and PONYO, and storyboard assistant on THE TALE OF PRINCESS KAGUYA. She later became a freelancer and moved into directing.

In television series, she has handled opening and ending sequences, storyboards, and episode direction for many titles, including THE APOTHECARY DIARIES, CHIIKAWA, WELCOME TO THE BALLROOM, DANCE DANCE DANSEUR, AND JELLYFISH CAN’T SWIM IN THE NIGHT

Sato’s appearance at Sakura-Con with TRIGUN STARGAZE marks her first time attending the event.

Tournament Video Gaming has launched our start.gg page, where Sakura-Con attendees can view the tournament schedule and sign up for events. It can be found at https://www.start.gg/sakuracon 

We’re running over 30 brackets, so there should be something for everyone!
We’re located in Tahoma 3 on the 3rd floor of Arch at 800 Pike.

By participating in a tournament, attendees can win prizes from the prize room if they place high enough. Signups are first come, first serve. However, if signups are full on start.gg, we are reserving some space for people to sign up at the convention itself.

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MASAKO SATO
Animation Director / Episode Director

TRIGUN STARGAZE Director.
An animation director and episode director with extensive experience in both television and theatrical productions, she has served in a wide range of roles from episode direction to series director. Her notable works include HAIKYU!! TO THE TOP. [Read More…]

NAOYA NAKAYAMA
Director / Animation Director / Storyboard Artist

A rising animator and visual director gaining strong recognition in the Japanese animation industry. Building on his animation background developed at Kyoto Animation, he brings a versatile skill set spanning key animation, storyboarding, and directing. He is known for expressive character acting and visually driven direction that blends music, rhythm, and dynamic camera work. [Read More…]

YOSHIHIRO WATANABE

Producer behind LEVIATHAN, associate producer on BEASTARS and TRIGUN STAMPEDE.
Born in 1982, Japan. Nabe is a producer at Orange, and currently working on TRIGUN STAMPEDE as its business producer. Nabe grew up in Los Angeles and after graduating from college, he joined the US branch of the animation studio Madhouse. Throughout early years in anime industry, under legendary Masao Maruyama’s mentorship, Nabe gained unique international production experience ranging from live-action to international collaboration projects [Read More…]

The Extremely Hard Take-Home Anime Quiz 2026 is now available at:

Extremely Hard Take-Home Anime Quiz 2026

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