K-ON! Dub Cast Announced

More news about Bandai’s upcoming K-ON! release! They’ve announced that the show’s English language dub will be handled by Bang Zoom! Entertainment, the studio responsible for dubbing both The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya and Lucky Star. The role of Yui will be played by the prolific Stephanie Sheh, who played Mikuru in Haruhi and Akira in Lucky Star. Mio will be voiced by Cristina Vee, most famous for her fandubs of various anime songs on YouTube. Here is her rendition of Super Driver:

I must say, I’m a bit conflicted about these choices. Stephanie Sheh is an experienced voice actress, but her take on Mikuru was too high and squeaky for my liking. On the other hand, she did a GREAT job as Akira, so I honestly have no idea whether she’ll be good as Yui. As for Cristina Vee… she has an awesome singing voice, but little anime voice-acting experience. Is she really up to the challenge of playing Mio, K-ON!’s most popular character? Also, does this mean she’ll be dubbing K-ON!’s music into English?

More importantly, who will they get to dub Ritsu?

K-ON! is licensed by Bandai

Are they laughing with Bandai… or at them?

I’m still in shock.

Despite their financial woes, Bandai Entertainment has just announced at Anime Expo that they’ve acquired the rights to K-ON!‘s first season. There’s no word yet if it will be dubbed or released on Blu-ray. Bandai also announced a series of live-action K-ON! marketing videos similar to the ASOS Brigade series for Haruhi. For these, they’ve cast Christina Vee as Mio, Karri Shirou as Yui, “Kix” as Tsumugi and “Briana” as Ritsu.

Hang on a second… Christina Vee as MIO? She’s got a great singing voice, but their personalities couldn’t be more different. This is going to be most interesting…

I think it’s likely that Bandai will give K-ON! a dub, probably recycling many of the cast members from the Haruhi and Lucky Star dubs. However, in my opinion, their English version of “God Knows” was ear-splittingly painful, especially when compared to the original Japanese song. Given how music-oriented K-ON! is, I’m hoping they can track down some voice actors who can actually sing. Of course, I’d also be perfectly happy with a sub-only release.

Oh, and Bandai? If you try to pull the same “no Japanese audio track” crap that you did with Kurokami, I’m not buying it. Period.

[Via ANN]

Hatsune Miku Goes Global

Hatsune Miku, Japan’s most popular virtual idol, will be making her first international “appearance” in concert at the Singapore Anime Festival Asia 2009. The act, known as Hatsune Miku LIVE! Performance, will use a projection screen to create a giant image of the Vocaloid singing and dancing. This same technique was used earlier this year in the Animelo Summer Live 2009 Re:bridge concert in Saitama, Japan, where it wooed 25,000 screaming fans. Hopefully, the reaction in Signapore will be just as enthusiastic.

Additionally, the main voice cast from K-On! will also be at AFA09. However, instead of singing, they will be dubbing a scene from the show live and taking pre-submitted questions. I’m don’t know why they’re hesitant to appear in concert, but I’m sure there’s a reason…

–Via ANN