The Signal has an interview with Los Angeles actor Kim Strauss about his career, and his recent venture into writing young adult fiction with Kalan the Mighty Warrior.

Series creator J. Michael Straczynski has revealed that Teryl Rothery is among the new cast members in Babylon 5: The Lost Tales, playing a yet to be named reporter for the ISN TV network. A sequel to the acclaimed science fiction series Babylon 5, The Lost Tales is currently filming in Vancouver, and is due out on DVD next year.

Anime News Network has had a talk with ADV voice director Charles Campbell about his current project – Guyver: The Bioboosted Armor.

CrystalAcids.com has obtained the final cast list for Dead or Alive Xtreme 2 which officially hits stores November 20th. You can find additional information in our previous news story.

Kari Wahlgren – Kasumi & Niki (Zack’s girlfriend)
Hynden Walch – Hitomi
Janna Levinstein – Ayane
Kate Higgins – Tina
Zinnia Su – Leifang
Karen Strassman – Helena
April Stewart – Christie
Masasa Moyo – Lisa
Kathryn Feller – Kokoro
Khary Payton – Zack

Bang Zoom! has sent in a new press release detailing a downloadable webshow all about anime and hosted by Johnny Yong Bosch starting in January.

As you may or may not know, the re-released and updated Transformers: The Movie DVD comes with 2 DVDs filled with extras. And one of these is the often asked for Scramble City OVA released in Japan. The OVA was created to bridge the gap between season one and season two of the Japanese TV airings since they were not going to see the U.S. film which explains various changes in characters and character designs between the two seasons.

While we thank Sony for releasing the OVA in America finally, we would like to know why the only audio track available is a fan commentary. No original Japanese with English subtitles or English dub audio is included which makes it pretty pointless unless you really want to hear a commentary about it by a few Transformers fans.

Hellsing began in manga form in 1997 in Japan’s Young King OURs magazine. For most American fans, however, the knowledge of a living-dead vampire-slayer with a pair of deadly guns originates in 2002 with Pioneer releasing a 13-episode series Studio GONZO produced in 2001. A natural crossover-series for fans of Trigun, Hellsing proved to be equally popular with a fanbase clamoring for more to enjoy. The TV series for Hellsing loosely followed the original manga; adding more background to existing stories and new characters to examine while weaving a darker storyline than the sometimes-campy-humour manga tales. The new OVA series reverts back to square one, providing a more accurate telling of the Hellsing story thus far. (more…)

Shizuki Yamashita of Synch-Point recently updated their blog detailing one of the new features available in the FLCL Ultimate Edition release of the series: a English Voice Actor/Production Staff commentary track.

1. Episode 1: Kari Wahlgren (Haruko) & Jennifer Sekiguchi (Mamimi)
2. Episode 2: Jennifer Sekiguchi (Mamimi), Marc Handler (ADR Director), & Shizuki Yamashita (Translator)
3. Episode 6: Kari Wahlgren (Haruko), Jennifer Sekiguchi (Mamimi), & Marc Handler (ADR Director)

The other announced bonus item so far is a set of postcards featuring the robot of each episode. The menus look nice, too.

Active Anime has posted an interview with FUNimation actress Caitlin Glass.

Hello Kitty is a household name around the world, not unlike Mickey Mouse. You don’t have to travel far before you run across some Hello Kitty merchandise at the mall, in a department store, or even in a zoo’s gift shop. After more than 30 years Hello Kitty continues to become more popular. Knowing this, Sanrio has developed a new Hello Kitty TV series for 2006 that is animated using only claymation. (more…)