Anime Expo 2014

NIS America

NIS America's panel began a little late due to some attendee confusion with where to line up, but once the room filled in, things were under way.

As things kicked off, the company representatives leading the panel stressed that NIS America has been making a concerted effort with their social media outreach programs, and that fans who actively participate with them on their Facebook page and on Twitter can have a chance at discounts, prizes, and other benefits.

NIS America started things off in earnest by showing their Fall 2014 lineup, which started out with a trailer for Hana-Saku Iroha the Movie ~Home Sweet Home~, which comes out October 14th. Following that was a trailer for Nyaruko: Crawling with Love! season 2, which is coming out November 4th and available for pre-order at their booth in the convention's Exhibit Hall. After the trailers, the panelists moved on to Love Live! season 1, which is scheduled for September 2, and the Card Captor Sakura complete series, available August 5.

After going over their fall offerings, they rounded out their discussion with Toradora!, which is available now. Localization Manager Yoko Nishikawa came out to lead a live script reading for a couple of scenes from Toradora! with some of the voice talent for the English dub of the show. Joining the reading were Erik Scott Kimerer (Ryuji Takasu), Cassandra Lee Morris (Taiga Aisaka), Christine Marie Cabanos (minori Kushieda), and Erika Harlacher (Ami Kawashima). The session started with the scenes to be read on the big screen, followed by the voice actors reading together in-character from the script. One of the voice actors wasn't present at the panel, so an enthusiastic fan stepped in to fill the role.

After the last scene, Yoko Nishikawa flipped the script, so to speak, and had Erik Scott Kimerer and Cassandra Lee Morris read each other's respective parts in a fun “gender swap” reading.

After a brief Q&A session, which included Eric Scott Kimerer leading the entire room in a very difficult tongue twister, the panel ended with a raffle for some limited edition versions of some of NIS America's recent releases.