Industry Guests | Nan Desu Kan

Yasuhiro Imagawa

Yasuhiro Imagawa is a master of one of the cornerstone genres of anime: The Giant Robot Show. In the 1980s, he worked on such hits as Aura Battler Dunbine, Heavy Metal L-Gaim, and a little show known as Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam. In the 1990s, he returned to the Gundam world with Mobile Fighter G Gundam. Some other noteworthy 90s shows he worked on include Violinist of Hameln, and a certain show known as Giant Robo the Animation: The Day the Earth Stood Still, which just happens to be one of the best things ever. (Really, it's certified as such.) Not ready to stop there, in the 2000s he worked on Seven of Seven, Fist of the Blue Sky, with his most recently aired work being Shin Mazinger Z Shougeki! Z Hen - and if he's got the chops to work on retelling the story that started the whole super robot thing, you know he's gotta be good!

Perhaps best known as an anime director, Mr. Imagawa has fulfilled many roles on the production side, including production, storyboarding, scripting, and series composition. Mr. Imagawa is a native of Osaka, Japan, which is widely known as where delicious Takoyaki comes from. In addition to loving robots, Mr. Imagawa is a fan of Star Trek and the manga of Terumitsu Yokoyama, whose works Giant Robo is based upon.

Kevin McKeever

A graduate of the lighting design program from Emerson College, Kevin has been working in the entertainment industry for nearly 15 years. He has worked in theater production at world class venues such as the Goodspeed Opera House, the Emerson Majestic Theater, Foxwoods Casino, and the Mohegan Sun Resort which he helped open in 1996.

His television production credits include Jackass, Kids Say the Darnedest Things, Guinness Book of World Records, Krypton Factor, Farmclub.com, The 60's as well as various television commercials. His film credits include Mystery Men, For Love of the Game, and Billy Frankenstein. Kevin has also served as Assistant VP of Production for feature film producer and New York Times best-selling author Lynda Obst.

Kevin's first official assignment in the Robotech universe was as an audit of Robotech's television ratings and viewer demographics during its original run in the 1980s. Kevin's analysis of the ratings in a cost effective manner along with his years of production experience made him a natural candidate for the Robotech team.

Patrick Seitz

Patrick Seitz is excited to return for his third appearance at Nan Desu Kan—though “return” is something of a misnomer, as he never truly left. He’s been skulking amid the service corridors and dim corners of the Marriott ever since his first NDK weekend, depending on pilfered room service and the wise council of his sombrero for survival. He’ll deny it if you confront him, but, well…you deserved to know.

Patrick’s anime roles have included Germany in Hetalia, Simon in Durarara, Laxus in Fairy Tail, Sloth in FMA: Brotherhood, JP in Redline, Agni in Black Butler, George in Paradise Kiss, Motochika Chosokabe in Sengoku Basara, Nekozawa in Ouran High School Host Club, Isshin Kurosaki in Bleach, and Grimmer in Monster.

On the gaming side of the ledger, you can hear Patrick as Ragna in the BlazBlue franchise, Scorpion in the last few Mortal Kombat titles, Fenrich in Disgaea 4, Chopin in Eternal Sonata, Dracula in various 2D incarnations of Castlevania, Cervantes in SoulCalibur V, Bob and Hugo in Street Fighter X Tekken, Franky in One Piece: Unlimited Adventure, Radi Jaeger in Valkyria Chronicles, Artanis in StarCraft 2: Wings of Liberty, and Arthas Menethil and Garrosh Hellscream in World of Warcraft.

When we can get him to shut up, Patrick works as a script-adapter and VO director as well, having adapted portions of Hellsing Ultimate, Princess Jellyfish, Sengoku Basara, Romeo X Juliet, Heaven’s Lost Property: Forte, and all of Summer Wars, to name just a few. His directing credits include Monster and Girls Bravo, the latter of which he also got to adapt.

Chris Cason

For over ten years, Chris Cason has participated in almost every facet of anime production. He has been associated with numerous projects (exclusively for FUNimation Entertainment) in a voice acting, ADR directing, or scriptwriting capacity. Some of his work has been featured on Spike TV, The Independent Film Channel (IFC), Nicktoons, The Cartoon Network, and The CW.

Chris’s best known voice credits include: “Gluttony” in Fullmetal Alchemist, “Tien Shinhan” and “Mr. Popo” in Dragonball Z (and returning as “Mr. Popo” in Dragonball Z Kai), “Holy Roman Empire” in Hetalia Axis Powers, “Jack the Ripper” in Soul Eater, “Boo” and “Whitey” in Shin-Chan, “Miyamoto” and “M1” in Yu Yu Hakusho, “Fumihiro” in Initial D, “Chamo” in Negima, “Hanai” in School Rumble, “Babbit” in Kodocha, “Taruru” in Sgt. Frog, “Seigfried” in Kenichi, and “Genzo” in Oh! Edo Rocket.

He can also be heard in: Case Closed, Gunslinger Girl, Basilisk, Ouran High School Host Club, Suzuka, Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicles, Black Cat, Darker Than Black, Bamboo Blade, Kaze no Stigma, Aquarion, One Piece, Big Windup!, D. Gray-Man, Beck: Mongolian Chop Squad, RIN, Speed Grapher, and Summer Wars.

Some of his ADR directing and assistant ADR directing credits include: DBZ Uncut, Dragonball, Dragonball GT, Yu Yu Hakusho, Negima, Kodocha, Galaxy Railways, Baki the Grappler, School Rumble, Hell Girl, Kaze no Stigma, Bamboo Blade, Birdy the Mighty: Decode, Initial D, and Tsubasa Tokyo Revelations.

He has also had the opportunity to be a part of many popular video games. His two favorites were: voicing random ghouls and specters for Ghostbusters: The Video Game, and as one of the contributing guitarists in Guitar Hero 3.

Jan Scott-Frazier

Welcome back Jan! She worked in the anime industry in Japan for almost 14 years. She attended animation school and later went on to work at a number of studios in including Artland, Production IG and Atelier BWCA on shows including RikiOh 2, Locke the Superman (OVA), Shurato (OVA), Bubblegum Crash (OVA) and Tottoi (feature). In 1994, Jan moved into consulting work, freelancing for Cambridge Animation Systems, the developers of Animo (a computer assisted (2D) animation production system).

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Michael Powell

Michael Powell has been in the recording industry from the early age of 15 and gone on to record many voice actors' professional demos to obtain the next sought after role. This Dallas based engineer, composer, sound designer and producer operates his production company (First Chair Productions) and offers voice over recording/demo production and soundtrack composition. He found his way into the anime industry with help from his sister Wendy Powell (Envy on Fullmetal Alchemist).

Tommy Yune

Tommy Yune has worked for over a decade in the comic book and video game industries. His early game development experience includes character design of the pioneering 3D fighting game FX Fighter for the Nintendo SuperFX chip and conceptual design of the award-winning Journeyman Project series. He also wrote and illustrated hit comic book titles such as Speed Racer, Racer X, Robotech, and Danger Girl: Kamikaze which were published by DC Comics' Wildstorm and Cliffhanger labels. His first work in feature animation was creating the computer-generated opening sequence of Kevin Altieri's Gen13.

Tommy grew up on a steady diet of anime, watching as much Prince Planet, Gatchaman and Casshan as he could in Asia and the United States. Then he shunned television and went back to being a responsible student to the delight of his parents. However, right before entering the UCLA School of Engineering, Robotech brought anime back into his life and he eventually found himself at the ArtCenter College of Design instead. His parents wept.

Tommy first worked in an official capacity for the Robotech universe by helping design Robotech.com for its launch in 2001. He has since come aboard as Harmony Gold's creative director and oversees new development, including Robotech: The Shadow Chronicles, which completed production in 2006.

Steve Yun

While still a young college student and part-time hacker in 1998, Steve got his first job at an anime company as a digital animator. It was a dream come true for any fan who grew up on Robotech and Macross to be working somewhere in the anime industry. After slaving away through 80 hour work weeks and one really bad 100 hour work week where he started hallucinating from being awake too long, Steve called it quits and went back to Riverside where he got his B.A. in Creative Writing. Stay in school, kids!

Soon afterwards, Steve joined Harmony Gold, where he slept and ate and even showered at the office while under grueling deadlines to put Robotech.com together in time for its February 2001 launch. After being caught working overtime after being told not to, Steve has been allowed to keep a cot at the office ever since.

Since becoming part of Harmony Gold, Steve Yun has had fansites and fanclubs devoted to him, as well as internet stalkers, convention stalkers, petitions to get him fired and websites devoted to exposing the "real" Steve Yun. Steve has co-produced and associate-produced several other projects as well, including the Macross restoration, the Robotech: Battlecry video game, the Robotech: Invasion video game, Robotech Remastered and Robotech: The Shadow Chronicles. Steve has also been featured in an anime documentary called Geeks, which he has still not had a chance to see.

Since its launch, Robotech.com has constantly been one of the busiest anime-related destinations on the internet, being the subject of a Slashdot article, a Conan O'Brien feature and mentioned on countless anime websites. You can email Steve at info@robotech.com to send him Robotech-related fan mail, complaints, constructive criticism and suggestions.