March 23, 2009

Anime Boston announces third round of guests

Yuki Kajiura, hit group Kalafina, voice actor Veronica Taylor to arrive at Anime Boston 2009

Anime Boston is pleased to announce its third round of guests. Hit group Kalafina will make its U.S. debut with star composer Yuki Kajiura and voice actor Veronica Taylor at Anime Boston 2009, May 22-24th at the Hynes Convention Center in Boston, Mass.

Kalafina is a songstress project that started from female vocalist auditions held by hit maker Yuki Kajiura. Through intensive auditions which included Kaijura's own compositions, vocalists Wakana, Keiko and Hikaru stood out from the 30,000 people who auditioned.

The group debuted in January 23, 2008 with their single "oblivious", which reached #8 on the Oricon weekly chart, Japan's equivalent of the Billboard Top 40 Chart. Their second single "springer/ARIA" and their third single "fairytale" both reached the Oricon Chart Top 10.

Kalafina is greatly featured for the theme from "The Garden of Sinners" (Kara no Kyokai), a well-known anime movie series. With more than 500,000 of total sales, "The Garden of Sinners" is currently one of the most popular anime series in Japan.

On March 4, 2009, Kalafina will release their first album "Seventh Heaven" with "Lacrimosa" as its first single. "Lacrimosa" is the ending theme for the popular TV anime "Black Butler (Kuroshitsuji)".

Yuki Kajiura is a composer who handles both lyric and music composition and music arrangement. She has extensive music production experience, with music and scores appearing in movies, anime, video games, musicals and television.

As a member of popular duo See-Saw, Kajiura hit it big with popular songs such as "An'na ni issho datta noni" (Although We Were Always Together) from Mobile Suit Gundam SEED and "Obsession" from .hack//SIGN. See-Saw's latest album "Dream Field" reached #7 on the Oricon chart. In 2003, Kajiura released her solo album "FICTION" world-wide. In 2004, she started a solo project called FictionJunction with vocalist YUUKA. Releasing seven singles, including hit "Wheel of Dawn" (Akatsuki no Kuruma), and two albums, FictionJunction enjoyed two Top 10 selling CDs.

Since 2007, Kajiura has been in charge of the music for all 7 of "The Garden of Sinners" (Kara no Kyokai) film adaptations. She also founded Kalafina, a trio of entrancing singles. In 2008, Kajiura held her first live show.

Kaijura's music has appeared in popular anime such as Noir, .hack//SIGN, My-HiME, My-Otome, Tsubasa Chronicles and most recently, Pandora Hearts. She has collaborated with Revo of Sound Horizon, whose live concerts delighted 10,000 people.

Kajiura is not just limited to the animated stage and have composed scores for multiple movies, including "Achilles and the Tortoise" (Akiresu to Kame) by internationally renowned movie director and lead actor, Takeshi "Beat" Kitano.

As of last year, Kajiura has sold more than 3,500,000 CDs worldwide.

Veronica Taylor has been a part of Saturday morning cartoons for some time now. She is probably best known as the voice of Ash and May from "Pokemon". Currently she can be heard as Max on "Dinosaur King", April on "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles", Carly on "Yu-Gi-Oh!", Sheep on "Word World" and many characters with accents on Huntik. Other favorites include Yukino on "His and Hers Circumstances, Amelia on "Slayers", all 7 Nana's on "Nana Seven of Seven", Narue on "World of Narue" as well as many others

Previous guest announcements included voice actors Christopher Ayres, Greg Ayres, Laura Bailey, Troy Baker and Travis Willingham; industry guest David Williams and Tom Wayland; artists Robert and Emily DeJesus and Misako Rocks! and musical guest BESPA KUMAMERO.

About Anime Boston: Anime Boston is an annual three-day Japanese animation convention held in Boston, Massachusetts. Anime Boston 2009 will be held Friday, May 22 through Sunday, May 24 at the Hynes Convention Center and Sheraton Boston hotel. More information about Anime Boston can be found at http://www.animeboston.com.

About New England Anime Society: The New England Anime Society was founded in 2001. Based in Massachusetts, The New England Anime Society, Inc. is an organization dedicated to furthering public education and understanding of the Japanese language and culture through visual and written media. More information about The New England Anime Society is available at http://www.neanime.org.