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Anime Expo - Aniplex Industry Panel

Panelists:
Toshi Yoshida (BEI)
Yosuke Kodaka (Aniplex)
Shin Nomura (Aniplex)
Tony Oliver

Hiroe greeted everyone at the panel and mentioned they would indeed be announcing the Gurren Lagann dub cast. Before that, she showed trailers for new titles that were announced at Tokyo International Anime Fair. After the second trailer, she mentioned that some of them might contain mature content and that anyone under 13 should cover the eyes. Here's a list of the titles in the trailers.

Persona Trinity Soul
RH Plus
Birdy the Mighty Decode
Sekirei
Kara no Kyoukai (The Garden of Sinners)

Hiroe then introduced all the panelists and asked each of them to say something. Tony Oliver commented he's been busy working on Gurren Lagann. Toshi joked about the show being his first project at BEI and being told it had to be out in July. Hiroe inadvertently teased the audience again about the dub cast (I recall she did this a total of three times). She showed the dub trailer for Gurren Lagann before giving Toshi the honors of announcing the following:

Simon - Yuri Lowenthal

Kamina - Kyle Hebert

Yoko - Michele Ruff

Viral - Sam Regal / Riegel

Roshu - Johnny Yong Bosch

Kittan - Christopher Smith

Kiyoh - Karen Strassman

Kinnon - Stephanie Sheh

Kiyal - Gina Bowes

Leeron - Steve Blum

Nia - Hynden Walch

Lordgenome - Jamieson Price

Toshi presented some of the cast list by showing various video clips from the anime. After each clip, he asked the audience to guess the voice actor.
Many people in the audience were surprised to learn Steve Blum was voicing Leeron (myself included). His performance in one of the clips was quite convincing.

With the cast announcement out of the way, Hiroe opened the panel to Q&A. One person asked if there were any plans to bring over Parallel Works. Toshi replied that it depends if BEI is willing to pay for it and if Aniplex is willing to negotiate the rights. He expressed his interest in releasing them in the R1 market. The common question of clothing merchandise (i.e. drill necklace) came up. Toshi seemed open to anything but t-shirts.

An audience member asked about the infamous episode 6. Toshi replied that Sci-fi Channel with air the TV version, the subtitled dvd release has the unedited version and the bilingual dvd will have both. Another person asked why BEI dropped "Tengen Toppa" from the title. Toshi responded by asking how one could translate that part into a few English words that made sense. His reasoning was that if they could not come up with a good way to translate that part, it was better to leave the words out. Someone asked about how many dvds would the series be released on. While answering the question, Toshi mentioned the bilingual release is coming in November (cross your fingers).

Hiroe ended the panel by showing a trailer for Parallel Works.