Acclaimed voice actress Kikuko Inoue appeared as one of the feature guests at Otakon 2009. Known for voicing a wide range of roles from Belldandy in "Ah! My Goddess!" to Lust in the new "Full Metal Alchemist: Brotherhood" to Katsumi Tendo in "Ranma 1/2" among many others, Mrs. Inoue did a whirlwind of panels and autograph signings before having to fly home less than a day after she arrived. During her second panel session of the day she talked extensively about her career and also invited the character designer for the "Ah! My Goddess" series up on stage with her halfway through the session, Mr. Hidenori Matsubara.
She took a number of different questions about her favorite vocal roles other facets of her career. She said that she always looks forward to seeing the productions she is involved with since when she is recording the shows frequently are not complete yet, so she only gets to see her script or incomplete animation. Her career has involved many different types of roles over the years, and while she considers herself to be the "big sister" type in real life, her favorite roles to play are the bad guys, like Lust in the new "Full Metal Alchemist: Brotherhood". Her career started when she was 17 voicing a prototypical "big sister" role as Kasumi Tendo in "Ranma 1/2", and she consistently refers to herself as still being 17 years old as a bit of an in-joke with her fans and other voice actors, the "Inoue Who Leapt Through Time" in her own words.
In addition to working on the "Ah! My Goddess" projects together, Mrs. Inoue and Mr. Matsubara also worked on the "Sakura Wars" series together and some other projects including "Nadia: Secret of Blue Water" where Mrs. Inoue voiced Electra. As part of the "Sakura Wars" promotional efforts there was a series of live action plays put on staring the cast of the show. Mrs. Inoue voiced Lobelia Calrini. When she played the character in the live action shows it marked one of the few times she as ever worn pants. Mr. Matsubara was quite surprised the first time he saw the show as Mrs. Inoue almost always wears long skirts.
Given the short time window on her trip Mrs. Inoue did not have much time to get out into the city of Baltimore, but she did say that she thought it was very pretty. The translator joked that he has trouble convincing her that the city has bad areas. Much of the audience agreed with him. She was kind enough to sing several short songs for the audience. From her own works she sang the opening to "Ah! My Goddess" and some of a song from "Macross Frontier" as well as the opening theme to "Neon Genesis Evangelion" in an attempt to get herself some work on the upcoming movies as Mr. Matsubara is working on them right now. The audience very much agreed that she should have a role in the next one "Evangelion 2.0: You Can (Not) Advance", though Mr. Matsubara was not sure there was a role for her in the movies; "None of the personalities fit you [Mrs. Inoue], all bad."
Mrs. Inoue and Mr. Matsubara were both surprised to find out that we have flavored Ramune, a type of Japanese soda, in the USA. Mrs. Inoue also told us that while she does get copies of all the video games that she acts in, she usually gives them to her older sister as she is not very good at them, but her older sister is. She also admitted that when she reads manga she voices out all of the characters.
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