BTW, I mentioned above the original voice actors for the first two seasons couldn't be found? It was because they went entirely uncredited. See - it was a non-union job. That's NOT to mean that it was "under-the-table" work. Just that they didn't get their names in the credits. There were records kept by the casting director. BUT - the company that originally did the contract work on the dub went out of business in the early 80s, and the casting director passed away! So by the time fans were beginning to seriously wonder about finding these people, the trail had gone cold.
Fast forward to the mid-90s and the advent of the internet. Here's an excerpt of an article called "Life in the Before Time" written by Walter Amos that describes some of what happened and how we fans felt about it. This was written about 11 years ago.
Fast forward to the mid-90s and the advent of the internet. Here's an excerpt of an article called "Life in the Before Time" written by Walter Amos that describes some of what happened and how we fans felt about it. This was written about 11 years ago.
Quote:But for true old-time Star Blazers fans the biggest news has come thanks entirely to the growth of the Internet. As
I mentioned earlier, it was nearly impossible to find any information about the American actors who played the
voices in Star Blazers because few records were kept. The great dream of numerous Star Blazers fans of one day
locating these people, inviting them to a convention, and maybe even creating that fannish holy grail: a dub of
some of the later Yamato movies into English with the voices we knew and loved seemed an unattainable
fantasy. However it was probably inevitable that with the explosive growth of the Internet, some highly motivated
fans would create numerous Star Blazers web pages, and it was through one of these (specifically the superb
Wave Motion Web Page)
that the impossible happened. An e-mail was received about two years
ago saying basically "Hi! I loved your web page, which I was told
to check out by my brother who is on the Net, since I played Nova years
ago!"
Wowsers. Now you've gotta understand, after more than 15 years of hoping to locate any of these people with no
success at all, to suddenly have "Nova" basically walk up and announce herself is like, say, being Sir Galahad and
spending decades in search of the Holy Grail with no luck, and then one night to hear a knock on the door from a
fellow who says, "Hi there, I'm Joseph of Arimathea. Would you mind holding this cup for me?"
Being as excited as we were to find so much interest in her past work, Amy "Nova" Howard has been a guest at
several regional anime conventions, to the delight of all who have had the chance to meet this vivacious lady. And
better still, within just the past 8 months, with the help of Amy and further contact through the Wave Motion Web,
we have also located Ken "Derek Wildstar" Meseroll and Tom "Mark Venture" Tweedy, both of whom will be
making their first appearances in fandom at the upcoming Project A-Kon 10 convention. This amazing and totally
unbelievable development, coupled with the resurgence of Leiji Matsumoto mentioned above and just in time for
the 20th anniversary of Star Blazers, will make 1999 the most exciting time for
Yamato fans since, well, since those glorious days in the early 80s
when anime was new and its American fandom didn't even exist. And
considering how far we have all come since those days in the "Before
Time", I think that means some really amazing
things are yet to come.