News
JAM Project Supergroup with DBZ's Kageyama at Otakon
posted on by Egan Loo
Otakon has announced that JAM Project, the supergroup of six popular musical artists from dozens of anime projects, will make its American debut at the August 8-10 convention at the Baltimore Convention Center and First Mariner Arena in Maryland. Since forming in 2000, the group has performed songs for éX-Driver, Gravion, MazinKaiser, New Getter Robo, Robonimal Panda-Z: The Robonimation, Scrapped Princess, The SoulTaker, Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monster GX, and their most famous collaboration, the anime-based Super Robot Wars game franchise.
Separately, the group leader Hironobu Kageyama has performed songs for the Japanese Transformers franchise, Sonic X, Saint Seiya, and Shin Getter Robo. He has performed about four dozen songs for Dragon Ball Z alone. Bandmate Rica Matsumoto is most famous for playing the main lead Satoshi (Ash) in Pokémon, but she also played Nataku in the X movie, Rumi in Perfect Blue, and Jim in Outlaw Star. She sang solo for Pokémon, Dirty Pair Flash, Magical Girl Pretty Sammy, and other series. Masaaki Endou is better known outside anime and manga for his many songs on special-effects (tokusatsu) series such as Tokusou Sentai Dekaranger and Bakuryu Sentai Abaranger, but he also performed in Cowboy Bebop, GaoGaiGar: King of Braves, and Cybuster.
Hiroshi Kitadani is best known for singing the first theme song for One Piece, "We Are!!" His songs also appeared in Bakuto Sengen Daigunder and Saint Beast. Masami Okui performed the "-rinbu- revolution" opening theme and the final ending theme "Rose & release" for Revolutionary Girl Utena, as well as songs for Di Gi Charat, Scrapped Princess, Slayers, and more. Yoshiki Fukuyama rose to fame as the singing voice of Macross 7's main lead Basara. He and his HUMMING BIRD band has since contributed songs to Buso Renkin, Overman King Gainer, Ehrgeiz, and the upcoming Kamen no Maid Guy.
