Welcome to the Guest Lounge!   
Anime Expo 93 had quite a large roster of Guests of Honor, but in this year, some had to cancel due to unforeseen circumstances.  But the ones that did show up certainly wowed the fans with their enthusiasm and support for growing popularity of anime in America.  The following is a roster of AX93's awesome Guests of Honor.
Masatoshi Tahara hanging with LoGH fans at the Guest Reception Dinner
 Makoto Kobayashi ready for his long line of mecha fans at his autograph session
 Above left to right: Hiroyuki Imagawa, Makoto Kobayashi, Nobuteru Yuuki and Keita Amemiya touring around the sunny San Francisco Bay Area
Yasushi Nirasawa Modelmaker and illustrator, he became a freelance creator after working as an assistant to master mecha designer Makoto Kobayashi. Nirasawa became involved in working on character designs for games, movie making, and original modeling and has appeared in the popular modelmaking magazine Hobby Japan. He has worked on Future Ninja, True Kamen Rider, and Dragon's Heaven OVA.

 Scott Frazier First foreigner to be involved in the high levels of production of anime in Japan, among those being teaching, director's assistant, and establishing many animation studios, notably Kitty Animation Studio and TAO Studios in Bangkok. List of credits include working on Bubblegum Crash!, Shurato, Starship Troopers, Orange Road TV series, and Patlabor TV series.

 Michitaka Kikuchi One of the hottest character designers, his credits include working on Silent Mobius the Movie, Compiler, Borgman TV/OAV series, Project Hades Zeorymer, Detonator Orgun, Record of Lodoss Wars, and Shurato. As key animator, he worked on Poject A-Ko and Hokuto no Ken. As animation director, he worked on Iczer-1, Magical Emi, and Shurato. He is often the alias of Kia Asamiya (back in 1993, you believed whatever hype you heard).

 Hiroyuki Kitazume He debuted as character designer for Double Zeta Gundam and is credited as character designer and/or animation director for Zeta Gundam, Double Zeta Gundam, Char's Counterattack, Digital Devil Story, Starlight Angel in Robot Carnival, L-Gaim, Dunbine, Iczer-3, Megazone 23 Part III, Legaciam, Moldiver, AD Police Files 2-3, Gaiearth, and Bastard! He is also an illustrator, who worked on such titles as Zeta Gundam, Digital Devil Story, and Gaia Gear.

 Makoto Kobayashi Well known for his awesome, powerful, and stylish mecha designs in Zeta Gundam and Double Zeta Gundam, he has also done mecha work on Giant Robo, Venus Wars, Hyper Weapon, Dragon's Heaven, Mach Vision, and Future Tanks.

 Haruhiko Mikimoto With many studios hot on his heels for his characte designing talent, his list of credits include Macross TV series, Macross the Movie, Macross II, Macross Flashback 2012, Gunbuster OAVs, High Speed Jecy, Gundam 0080, and Megazone 23. In 1993, he was busy producing his manga series Marionette Generation for Newtype magazine and has also done numerous illustrations for popular Japanese novels on the side.

 Yasuhiro Imagawa One very proud and happy director, Imagawa is credited with working on Zeta Gundam and the flagship project Giant Robo which has taken the anime crowds by storm for its amazing animation, musical score, fresh characters, and of course, its brilliant story. He has also produced Pro Golfer Saru and Aura Battler Dunbine.

 Takayuki Takeya Well known in the master modeling community, Takeya is credited with working on the monster for the Zeiram live-action science fiction thriller as well as producing his own masterful monster works for the garage kit enthusiasts. He has worked on other numerous live-action movies such as Future Ninja, Kujaku-O 2 - Legend of Ashura, Kamen Rider ZO, and True Kamen Rider. In the anime world, he has worked on Dragon's Heaven and was responsible for making Yoshitaka Amano's groundbreaking illustrations into 3D models.

 Keita Amemiya Paired with Anime Expo's premiered live action thriller Zeiram, Amemiya is credited with being the original conceptualist for the character Iria and the story she is involved in. He was also director for Future Ninja and worked on designs for Kujaku-O 2 and the legendary live-action movie Gunhed.

 Junco Ito Producer and manager for Buichi Terasawa, Junco returned for another great Anime Expo bringing with her her production experience with Terasawa's Kabuto, Cobra, and Midnight Eye Goku.

 Masatoshi Tahara Producer of Legend of Galactic Heroes, President of the Kitty Animation Circle, and Chief of Kitty Film Mitaka Animation Studio, Tahara has served director, coordinator, producer, and/or designer for many titles, such as Ginga Eiyuu Densetsu movie series, The Enemy are Pirates!, Yawara! TV series, Soryuuden OVA series, and Alpha LEON.


Additional guests attending Anime Expo 93 were: 

Viz Communications: executive editor Seiji Horibuchi, translator Trish Ledoux, and translator Toshifumi Yoshida 
Streamline Pictures: producer Carl Macek
Antarctic Press: artist Robert Dejesus, assistant editor Doug Dlin, and Kuni Kumura
U.S. Renditions: associate producer Robert Napton
Anime UK magazine: publisher Peter Goll, editor-in-chief Helen McCarthy, staff artist Steve Kyte, and art editor Wil Overton
Protoculture Addicts magazine: publisher/editor Claude Pelletier and assistant editor Martin Oulette
Running Ink Animation Productions: founder and producer David Ho
Pixar: animator Jeff Pidgeon
NeXT: software designer Leo Hourvitz

And noted fans: Robert Fenelon (Anime-Zine), Kenji Goto (Hobby Japan), Frederick Schodt (author of Manga! Manga! and translator of Gundam novels)

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