Laugh Out Loud hails from Athens, Georgia. The improvisational troupe formed it 2007, and performs shows similar to the style popularized by the television program, Whose Line Is It Anyway? The group also has other comedic forms to delight audiences, and no two shows are ever the same.

If you've seen the group in the past before, or never seen the group, each show is an interactive experience with audiences providing suggestions or getting involved. Each improv show is made up on the spot and off the cuff. Be ready to have a side splitting time!

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Born and raised in Los Angeles, California, Lauren first began acting at the age of 11 in the stage production of Annie, and continued with more shows, including Rogers and Hammerstein’s Cinderella, Bye Bye Birdie, and Comic Potential, as well as being assistant director for stage productions such as Stephen Sondheim’s Merrily We Roll Along, Batboy the Musical, and the Greek comedy, Lysistrata.

Within that world behind the mic, she is most known for roles such as the ninja beauty, Kasumi in Dead or Alive 5, and the sexy Litchi Faye Ling in the popular fighting games BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger, as well as the sequels BlazBlue: Continuum Shift, Continuum Shift Extend, and Chrono Phantasma. She has voiced the awesome Kyoko Sakura in Madoka Magica, the enthusiastic Yan Leixia in Soul Calibur V, the deadly Little Queen in Tales of Graces, the valley girl racer in pink, Boiboi in REDLINE, the adorable zombie Squigly in Skullgirls, kind-hearted Leia in Tales of Xillia, the innocent Chubo Sonken in Ikki Tousen: Great Guardians, and most recently, the quiet and even more awesome Annie Leonhardt in the hit Anime series Attack on Titan!

She has had several roles other in anime and video games, including Leeza, (Blazing Souls Accelate); Arf and Chrono Harlaown (Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha/A’s); Kirche Van Zerbst, (Familiar Of Zero); Aegil, Cotton, Sasha (Rondo of Swords); Lila (Summon Night Twin Age); Rina (Luminous Arc 2); Yoko (Sakichi Satô’s Tokyo Zombie); Sy-Fy channel’s anime addition (Monster) and more.

She'll have more exciting news coming later this year!

Writer, translator, actor, producer—ANIMERICA founding editor Trish Ledoux has been active in anime and manga since the earliest days of the U.S. industry. Before becoming editor of ANIMERICA, Trish was editor of the Berkeley-based ANIMAG, one of the country’s first “professional” anime magazines.

As a writer, Trish has either written, translated or adapted from Japanese into English hundreds of projects. Among the many she has worked on, she counts “Galaxy Express,” “Maison Ikkoku” and, of course, “Ranma ½” as her favorites. A karaoke duet singing the “Chibi-Maruko” theme with Rumiko Takahashi in San Francisco is a career highlight. Trish is also the author, with Doug Ranney, of “The Complete Anime Guide,” and editor, with Julie Davis, of “Anime Interviews: The First Five Years of ANIMERICA.”

As an actor, Trish is known for surprise cameo roles in fan favorites such as “Macross II” and “Fatal Fury: The Motion Picture.” As a lead, she starred as “Princess Kahm” in the L.A. Hero anime adaptation of Johji Manabe’s “Outlanders.” As a producer, she has worked on “Project ARMS” and “Trouble Chocolate.”

Earlier this year, Trish and her frequent creative partner, husband Toshifumi Yoshida (U.S. producer of the animated “Pokémon”), celebrated their 26th year together. Currently, they live in Seattle with their son, Hajime, a fixture on the convention circuit since he was a baby. Spoiled by staff at every con he’s ever attended, to this day, Hajime cannot visit a hotel without asking, “Where’s the green room?”

Toshi has spent half his life reading comic books and watching cartoons for a living. During those two decades, he has worked on an anime magazine called ANIMAG, spent 12 years producing anime at Viz Media and 2 years as a producer at Bandai Entertainment. Of course, he’s also been translating manga along the while.

Toshi’s past credits include producing the English-language versions of “Ranma ½,” “Inuyasha,” “Kurokami: The Animation,” and “Gurren Lagann” as well as numerous amounts of manga translations such as “Negima!” for Del Rey, “Eureka Seven” for Bandai Entertainment, and “Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service” for Dark Horse. He is currently the Producer for The Pokémon Company International overseeing the localization of Pokémon TV Series and Movies into English and 16+ languages across Europe and Latin America.

Toshi has been coming to Animazement off and on since 1999 and is happy to be back. He looks forward to hanging out again with everyone this year. As usual, if you're looking for Toshi, try looking for him in the "office" (a.k.a. hotel bar) first.

Cirque du Soleil. Nightclubs. Olympians. Electric Daisy Carnival. Film. Commercials. Music Videos. Jez Roth started sewing at the age of 13 on small crafts and at the local dance studio before falling in love with the art of cosplay at Katsucon 1998. After many years of competing at anime convention masquerades, he moved to Las Vegas to work for The Venetian designing costumes, eventually landing at Cirque du Soleil's "O." He has had the pleasure of judging, and coordinating Masquerades at anime conventions across the US and currently enjoys giving panels and demos at conventions - occasionally competing but mostly enjoying the world that gave him his start in his love affair with the art of sewing.

He currently works freelance out of his own studio - creating everything from mermaids that shoot water, Mirrorball Men, and Golden Fairies that contort through the air.

Sho Asano was born in March of 1990. He started playing Tsugaru shamisen at the age of five.

In 2004, at the age of 14, he became the youngest champion in Class A of the Tsugaru shamisen national contest, which is the most competitive of its kind in Japan. Then, three successive victories were achieved between 2004 and 2006, winning him wide acclaim as Japan’s young NO.1 Tsugaru shamisen player.

He has performed in the Netherlands, Canada, the United States, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and France. His new album, recorded in New York in September 2012, is now available in music stores.

Taishi Yamabe, born in 1988 in Kurashiki City of the Okayama prefecture, has been performing the Taiko since he was three years old. At age six, he became a member of a local Taiko group, "Kurashiki Tenryou Taiko", and performed on stage for his first time.

In 2004, Mr. Yamabe participated in the Tokyo International Japanese Taiko contest held by and left with a gold prize as the youngest champion. Since then, people have been noticing him as a young genius. With his outstanding sense of rhythm and skilled drum techniques, Mr. Yamabe is able to express music at will. His original form of playing the Taiko is a technique that he has developed by repeating powerful performances day after day.

Currently, Mr. Yamabe performs not only in Japan but in foreign countries, has founded the Taiko group "Yamabe Taishi and Tenryou Taiko 'Ittou' ", composes music, and actively performs together with other music genres.

Mr. Yoh Yoshinari - Director of Little Witch Academia and Set Design of Kill la Kill

Mr. Yuji Kaneko - Art Director of Little Witch Academia and Kill la Kill

Kazuya Masumoto - Animation Producer for KILL la KILL and Little Witch Academia

Mr. Takafumi Hori - Animator of Little Witch Academia and Kill la Kill

Born in Tokyo, December 24, Yuuki Nobuteru has worked as an animator, character designer, illustrator, and mangaka. He has worked as an animator/designer at Artland, DAST, Sunrise, and Mad House, as well as providing game illustrations for Square. He also draws manga for Dragon Magazine.

Nobuteru's works include “The Vision of Escaflowne,” “Heat Guy J,” “Paradise Kiss,” “Toward the Terra,” “Macross: Do You Remember Love?,” “Record of Lodoss War,” and “Kids on the Slope”. His newest work is “Space Battleship Yamato 2199”.

Shuichi Ikeda is a voice actor best known for his role as Char Aznable from the Mobile Suit Gundam series. Some of his other well-known roles include Lord Cashew from Record of Lodoss War, Sazanami/Tokichi from Naruto, Red-Haired Shanks from One Piece, Scorpio Milo from Saint Seiya, and Kite from Hunter x Hunter.

A native of Tokyo, Mr. Ikeda is also a television actor and provides movie dubs for actors such as Charlie Sheen and James Dean.

Toshio Furukawa began his career in voice acting in the 1960s. He is best known for his roles as Kai Shiden from Mobile Suit Gundam, Piccolo from Dragon Ball, Ataru Moroboshi from Urusei Yatsura, and Portgas D. Ace from One Piece. Furukawa has portrayed a wide range of characters, from the comical to the serious. In addition to his long list of voice roles, Furukawa also worked on dubbing American movies, including Little House on the Prairie, Back to the Future, and Scooby Doo.

His Hobbies are fishing, creating dioramas, reading, and movies. Beside acting, Furukawa teaches at Osaka University of Arts and the Osaka branch of Aoni’s Seiyu Coaching School for guiding those who want to be part of the voice acting world.

Ryuusei Nakao got into voice acting when he was still a child, landing a role in Ultra Q. His career includes work in radio (as a radio personality) and singing. Some of his roles include Mayuri and Kurotsuchi Mayumi from Bleach, Frieza from Dragonball Z, Caesar Clown from One Piece, and Baikin-man from Anpan-man.

Founder & CEO of Mappa

In 1972, Masao Maruyama founded the anime studio Mad House with Mr. Sugino, Mr. Hata and others. He is involved in many phases of anime production, including planning, music, casting, and more. He is the producer of Yawara!, Card Capture Sakura, Claymore, and Death Note, and the creative producer of Hunter x Hunter, Chihayafuru, and many more Mad House animes. Mr. Maruyama founded a new company , MAPPA (Maruyama Animation Produce Project Association) in 2012. With MAPPA, he has produced works such as Apollon on the Slope.

Shin Sasaki joined Sunrise in 1997, starting his career in anime with publicity work on the Brave series and the Cowboy Bebop: The Movie. Sasaki has been involved with various Gundam projects since 1999, providing publicity for Gundam seed and Gundam Seed Destiny, as well as production plans and events for series off-shoots like Gundam Seed Astray.

In recent years, he has been involved as a producer in almost every Gundam series, including Gundam 00, MS IGLOO 2, SD Gundam Sangokuden, Gundam UC, Gundam Age, as well as the brand-new Gundam Build Fighters, which began its run in October, 2013.

KOTOKO has performed numerous anime theme songs including “Re-sublimity” from Destiny of the Shrine Maiden (8th on the Oricon charts), “Being” from Shakugan no Shana (4th on the Oricon charts), and “Hayate no Gotoku” from Hayate the combat Butler! (7th on the Oricon charts). Many of her songs have hit the top of the charts, and she continues to enthuse her fans with her music.

KOTOKO has also had many successful solo concerts in some of the biggest concert halls in Japan. In December of 2006, she performed a solo concert in Yokohama Arena. In January of 2010, she performed a solo concert in Nippon Budoukan. Also popular overseas, in North American KOTOKO has performed at Anime EXPO 2005 in Anaheim, California, Anime North 2006 in Toronto, Canada, and A-kon in Dallas, Texas. In 2011, KOTKO left the creator group called “I’ve” to seek out new challenges and possibilities. In October of 2011, her 5th album “Hiraku Uchuu Pocket” and 20th single “Light My Fire”, in May of 2012, the newest single, “→unfinished→” came out. From March of 2012, her concerts were succeeded in Tokyo, Osaka, Chiba, Shanghai, Korea, Taiwan, and Hong Kong. In 2014, her major debut 10th year anniversary, KOTOKO announced the tour all over Japan.