Ani-Gamers: Mamoru Oshii was your mentor. As the director of Stand-Alone Complex, what was it like to create such a large-scale follow-up to the Ghost in the Shell film, which is arguably Oshii's most important work?

Kenji Kamiyama: People ask [me] that question a lot, and everyone asks me if I got a huge pressure, but I actually really enjoyed it, and it wasn't stressful at all. It was like making my own style from Oshii's work.

AG: I can't help but notice a lot of American culture reflected in your works. Do you have any favorite American movies or directors?

KK: Star Wars. [The] first American guy's name I remembered was George Lucas. [Also] Steven Spielberg, Ridley Scott (but he's British), [and] James Cameron. I liked Avatar too.

AG: Your works feature characters who are older and deal with a lot more mature issues. Do you think anime featuring these types of characters will gain popularity and help bring more mature viewers to this kind of medium?

KK: Yeah, I think so. I like to make a character something just like you, but also put some hope or something I [want] to be, so you can [feel] a longing [for] the character.

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• His website
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• Twitter (@Lawmune)

AG: Kind of glad you left off on [the topic of bringing a script to life in your own way], because I loved you as Iggy in Ergo Proxy. I watched both the sub and the dub, and how did you get your Iggy? Based on... Did you watch the original or did you just come up with your own Iggy?

TW: I did. I watched it. And because I didn’t detect any lisp, I didn’t detect any kind of character trait. The Japanese client explained to me that in the way that he was speaking – I don’t know Japanese speaking or anything about, I guess what would you call it, speaking techniques – he said the way that he spoke kinda portrayed a little bit of a kind of feminine quality to it. And I was like, oh okay, so there’s no lisp or anything. And they were very adamant about not making him super, like, flamboyant or whatever. They just said that he was an entourage, this bodyguard/partner/protector that is programmed by the user to kind of compliment her. And that she had programmed him to talk this way, and he even says that later in the series, when he starts doing that bipolar thing, he’s like (in Iggy’s voice) "What’s the matter? You programmed me this way." It’s almost like, it’s more, I almost went, like in my mind, that he was more a feminine British butler. He was just very (in Iggy’s voice) "Could I get you any portage? Perhaps we should look for some shoes." Just very smooth and easy. That was actually the first role I had after Mustang, so I came from like being extremely hetero, testosterone and over to “oh yes, let’s go get some shoes” and “Re-l, you look lovely today.” You know, a total departure, so it was really cool.

AG: Coming back to Fullmetal, have you been watching the new stuff?

TW: Yeah. FUNimation, their website got hacked, right, for one of the One Piece releases, so that was gone for a little bit. I’ve seen, I think, the first seven or eight episodes. I try to watch it when I can. And from what I’ve seen, so far it looks like it’s just been kind of a summary of what was in the last series, with the adjustments that are correct to the manga from what I can gather. So I haven’t seen a lot of new material, besides the first episode which I think was completely new as far as storyline, but I thought the animation was gonna be drastically different. It’s not. It’s not the same, and the music, I think, I liked a lot more in the first episode from what I’ve seen so far.

AG: More classical...

TW: Yeah, it was like the Russia National Symphonic Orchestra or something like that. So, yeah, I like what I’ve seen so far, but I’m kind of anxious to see the new material and be kind of surprised by what’s going on other than just the review and catch-up.

AG: What I was interested in, the role Mustang plays is kind of, in the new one, it’s more duty-oriented...

TW: Yeah!

AG: It’s very more solid than the other one. It’s more duty than emotion.

TW: Yeah, I’ve actually been wanting to ask Mike or anybody kind of in-the-know, because there’s not as much as that social personality side of him. It’s all very military mission-based. He’s like the straight line kind of... I haven’t heard Hughes bust him about getting a wife, I haven’t seen him stealing any girlfriends. There certainly hasn’t been any dog lines or miniskirt lines. Yeah, so far, he’s just been real straight-forward, which I guess will be interesting, because what I’ve heard from the manga, I mean the storylines are really different. So we’ll see what happens.

AG: I know voice actors usually have multiple projects going on at the same time, so, aside from The Hulk and the one you cannot mention, do you have any others you are extremely happy to be working on and can mention?

TW: Yes! What can I say that I’m working on. I can say that there are two new roles in Naruto that I’m working on. I don’t know if I can say the specific names, and a really popular character in Bleach which I just started working on. I gotta find out when they let us talk about these things... What can I say that I’m working on? In Dallas.... What did they announce...did anyone go to the FUNimation Industry Panel? Did they announce any news shows, the cast lists for any new shows? ... Eh, I’ll have to defer that until later so (laughing) I don’t get in trouble. But I will say they have really cool shows coming out. You know they have the license for Soul Eater? FUNimation does. I’ve seen some of that show, and it looks incredible. I love the animation.

AG: Where did you get your start in voice acting?

TW: Very strange. You know everybody has a weird story, and I was in college at TCU, Ft. Worth, TX, and I was in a stupid fraternity. One day we flipped one channel past ESPN, being lethargic and in our procrastinating greatness one day, and Cartoon Network was the next channel. And there was this show, with these giant guys with muscles and spiky blonde hair and they’re blowing things up and yelling really loud. And we were like “What in the name of God is this, and how much more can we see?” And we proceeded to, quickly, watch it every single day after that. And we would all be standing on our couches going “Ka-me-ha-me....” Girls would come in, think we were just absolute losers, and we would be like “leave our room of DBZ!” And the credits were rolling one day, and I saw Laura Bailey’s name in the credit list, and she was in the same theatrical agency that I had in Dallas, called her up as fast as possible, practically yelled through the phone why she was in this awesome show that I loved, and she told me that she recorded at FUNimation studios in Ft. Worth, like 10 minutes from my college. And I proceeded to beg and stalk her for the next 2 years. Begging to let me come and audition, and ... she never did. Dammit. Every time I saw her in audition, I was like “Help me. Help. Audition, FUNimation.” And it never happened.

Thank God for the Mike McFarlands of the world, because he was also an actor in Dallas, and after doing an independent movie with him and finding out he was Master Roshi in DBZ, I begged, pleaded, I was like “please let me come audition” and he let me ... introduced me to Justin Cook, who let me audition for Yanagiswa of Yu Yu Hakusho. I’m sure I didn’t do a fantastic job, but it didn’t suck the worst either, which I think it the key if you can go in and record something and just not absolutely blow it, then they’ll have you in for something else. And while Yanagiswa was a small and compact part, you know you’ll play the like Police Officer Fs and the Soldier B, I did a show, a theater show, with Colleen Clinkenbeard, who was the other co-director of FMA, and Justin Cook saw it, and he had risen in the ranks of FUNimation. He was like, “We got this character in a new show. I think you and he have a lot of jerk similarities. His name’s Roy Mustang, do you want to audition for him.” And I was like, coming from a DBZ fan, and I was like, Does he have any special abilities? “Well he’s the Flame Alchemist.” Tell me more. “He has these gloves, he snaps his fingers, and things blow up.” I was like, Done. Done! So I went to audition for it, got it, that ... everything just kinda happened after that. That was the learning experience, you know, I was terrified during Yu Yu Hakusho. Fullmetal Alchemist into Mushi-shi with Mike was kind of like my boot camp...voice actor boot camp, because it’s a craft and it takes a very specific skill set to do that stuff and do it quickly, which is what they ... that was where I kind of learned and started.

AG: If the new Mustang remains as static as he’s shown to be already, not to say he doesn’t have the potential for growth, but if he does and you get to voice him, will that present a problem? Like, will you be bringing your past character into it, or will you be able to just sort of stop cold and start a new Mustang?

TW: No, I think it’ll be carried over, because when Mustang was business, he was business. When he was giving orders, he was giving orders. That had a definite sound to it, you know, no-nonsense, clear, military command. Start, finish, done. So, from what I’ve seen so far, that’s all I’ve seen. I haven’t seen a whole lot of personal dialog between him and Hawkeye, between him and Hughes. There’s a little ribbing, I think I’ve seen, between him and Hughes, but not a lot. So I think it’ll just keep that military sound for right now, kind of that man-in-charge sound, and I guess when the more personal things come, if they come, then that’ll be kind of brought to the foreground, kind of that playful quality that came out every once in a while. And if it doesn’t, it doesn’t.

AG: Of all the voice work you’ve done, including plays, what do you prefer to do given the opportunity or does it depend on the role?

TW: Right, very good question. My first love was theater. I’m very fond of musical theater, strangely enough, and if theater paid what TV or film paid, I don’t know that I’d have ventured into either of those. Maybe later, but I love theater. If theater paid anywhere close to what TV does, I would just be on the stage, because I love a live audience. That’s just kind of my niche. I’m sure I woulda made it over at some point to try like an action movie or something fun like that or to try a video game, but theater was really my first love, and I think that theater actors just have that...you know. Not that non-theater actors are any less talented or whatever, I just think that theater actors are a different breed. They are weird. We are weird.

AG: When you’re recording in the studio, and I understand these things get like almost second-nature by time, but what do you find hardest? Is it syncing the [lip] flap movement, is it coming up with a distinct voice for the character, or is it something completely different?

TW: Right, it’s kind of a combination of the two, because you know you’re used to seeing lip flap. You’ll read the line first, you know you’re like, “ok line 236.” And it will be like “Kenichi, we need to run down to the forest and see if they’re there” or whatever. So you’re like “Kenichi, we need to run down to the forest and see if they’re there,” ok, then they preview it, and it’s like beep beep beep. You’re like, in your head, you’re kind of saying the line, but the lips might end faster than the line in your head. Going “oh, ok I need to say that really fast.” And you’ll be like, “Kenichi, we need to run down to the forest and see if they’re there,” and it’s still not fast enough. The lip flap ends. And then it’s up to you and the director to either rewrite the line or see if you can speed like a freakin’ auctioneer. (Emulates an auctioneer.) Sometimes you need to stretch it out too. (Slowly) “Kenichi, we need to run down to the forest and see if they’re there.” That’s kind of the tricky thing, it’s just seeing how much time you have and how do you fit it in and still sound like a human being...or not.

That's it! If you'd like to read the full transcription of the press conference, with questions from all of the media outlets that attended, click here.

What is the current support for guilds and large battles?

The largest battle we can do right now is in the fortress zone where we have the population capped out so that around 300 people can be fighting each other in a fortress zone. We're trying to increase that as much as possible because open-world Realm vs. Realm is what our game's all about. So we're trying to always streamline our code and make the server handle more players. We're always trying to help that number. Right now you though you can look to around 200 to 300 people hammering on each other in a fortress zone. It's crazy how many people we can pack in there.

How does Warhammer differentiate itself from its competitors - quite simply, why should people be playing Warhammer instead of World of Warcraft?

The biggest difference with our game is Advanced Player Quests (or Public Quests we call them), and the Realm vs. Realm combat. Those are the two major, major key differences. Besides, our lore is... better. The public quests are very different from any other MMO we've had out there. So normally when you get a quest from an NPC he says go kill ten dues, come back to me and then go kill twenty of some of his friends, and then come back to me and go kill this general. So those quests are still in the game - but we also did a Public Quest thing where if you go to an area and there're squigs running all over the place, there's probably a Public Quest that says kill thirty of those things. And you don't have to group up with anybody for this, you just have to be there and and I can be there and some other friends and others who aren't even in a group with us could all be doing this together.

After we kill thirty of these squigs or 100 or whatever the first stage is, it goes through another stage, and instead of having to go to an NPC to step into the next stage, it just goes right to it. So you do the next stage of that, and then you do the last stage which is some end boss. Then at the end of that, there's a loot drop that's a big glowing treasure chest. And then this scoreboard comes up that says how well you did in this Public Quest so you know exactly where you're going to place. Depending on how well you do you get items depending on how much damage you did or how much healing you did – your total contribution toward beating that Public Quest. That's one big thing and that's where you get a lot of items in PVE system – the Public Quest system.

In RvR, that is the open-world fighting, and our scenarios, which are the instance fighting, the major difference between us and... them is that they have 5 battlegrounds, we have 30 instances, and you can start RvR-ing right from the start. At level 1, if you hit the "scenario join" button right when you join, you can go right into a scenario immediately upon logging in if you want. You can level up your characters from PvP, we give you experience [and] items. You also get RvR Influence, back to the Public Quest system. Besides the item you get from DOING the Public Quest, you acquire "Influence." Around this hub of NPCs or "Chapters" we call them, there's 3 Public Quests associated with each one, and as you're doing this Public Quest, you build influence, which is like another way of leveling up your character just for that Chapter.

Sort of like Renown from Fable?

Yeah, sort of like Renown, or kind of like Faction, but not. As you level up your influence with those people, you can select items from that as well, so there's the items from Public Quests, there's items from regular quests, there's items from influence, and there's rewards and items from RvR. Again the big thing about RvR is as you're progressing your character through RvR you're unlocking really really good items. And our endgame content is based around how high of a renown rank you are. That's what our Player vs. Player level is – experience for that.

So you're gaining your PvP levels and you're gaining your RvR levels, all en route to fighting the King, and the King drops the ultimate gear. Nobody's beaten the King – yet. He's a tough cookie to crack, but that guy drops the ultimate gear. If you're walking around with King gear, you'll also see somebody walking around [with the gear] and you'll go "Oh my God, they beat the King," because that gear is entirely unique looking. It's like the difference between walking around in greens and walking around in purples and golds. You say, "Oh my God, he did some work to get that." So it's very rewarding in our game to do, whether you want to do [Player vs. Environment] or whether you want to do Player vs. Player. You get rewarded no matter what you do in our game, and actually if you do a mix of both, you tend to enjoy the game a lot more than just focusing purely on one thing. So we have a lot to offer depending on what kind of a player you are.

So in terms of Public Quests, they reset after someone does them, correct?

Yeah, there's three stages to every Public Quest - you can go through stage one and then you might not pass stage two. And then in a couple minutes it'll go back to stage one so you can try it again. If you get all the way through it, it takes about three to five minutes for the Public Quest to reset, and then it goes back to stage one. So if you really like the Public Quest or you just missed it, you can hang around and then do it again. A lot of times when I'm playing I'll use the Open Party system, which is a button you can click to see what groups are in your area. In that window, you can just hit the "join" button, and you can go right into somebody's group, and go run over to the PQ and join them. Sometimes when that happens you run in the tail end of a Public Quest. They're just on stage three, the last boss is at 50%, and you're like, "Ah, I just missed it." But then it resets in a couple of minutes, so you can start from scratch and go at it again.

Are there any plans to add quests that are one-of-a-kind, where if somebody kills a guy, he's gone forever?

We thought about doing "permadeath" quests I guess, but we would rather invest time in the repeatable content than the one-offs. The other thing about the one-offs is that you feel like you might have missed something. We do have our events that occur almost monthly now. We have the "Night of Murder" going on right now, which is in respect to the American holiday of Valentine's Day. We did "Keg's End" which was sort of like the New Year's Eve/Christmas Party thing, and we did our Halloween event, "Hallow's End." But we do events all the time, which are sort of like the one-shots, every year they come up. So those are sort of like the temporary you-can-do-those-for-a-little-bit quests.

And of course, Vigil Games is developing an MMO based on Warhammer 40K, which leads many gamers to question what the differences are between Warhammer Online and the Warhammer 40K Online franchises. So, first off, what is the reason for that difference, where one half of the Warhammer franchise belongs to a different company?

It's just licensing. We made an agreement with Games Workshop four years ago to do the fantasy side, which is just straight, regular old Warhammer. but other companies already had the rights to the 40K, so if you don't have the rights for it, you simply can't publish it. It's like somebody else trying to draw Spiderman, and Marvel going no no no, you can't draw that. It's kind of the same thing in video games. That's why you see that EA has The Lord of the Rings, and nobody else can do a single-player Lord of the Rings, but Turbine has The Lord of the Rings multiplayer license.

Do you see 40K as a direct competitor? How do you hope to differentiate your game?

It's gonna be a different type of game. I don't know, we haven't seen much from them yet, so we're not exactly sure. Obviously it's gonna be sci-fi, and we're fantasy. I'm hoping that we'll actually feed off of each other to a degree. People will wanna play our fantasy game and then they will probably wanna play the sci-fi 40K game, so I'm hoping, you know, everybody hopes that they subscribe to both of them. We wish everybody the best of luck on both sides.

Finally, what kinds of updates lie in Warhammer Online's future? Are there any particular areas that you'd like to improve upon?

We're always looking at improving performance. Me personally, I'm in charge of making RvR and open field more enjoyable. We're looking at adding more depth to our keeps and battlefield objectives systems. We just announced our Tomb Kings expansion, which is sort of like a free expansion. It's gonna be a huge dungeon that gonna be sort of reminiscent of Darkness Falls if you ever played [Dark Age of] Camelot. So the way it'll work is that there will be something that one Realm does to get access to the dungeon and something another realm does to get access to the dungeon taken away from them. So it'll be what we call "the purge" to a degree, if the Order had the dungeon for a while and they're all in there doing their quest and killing the monsters and doing all that stuff in there, Destruction can go ahead and do the trigger to let them get in. Then Destruction floods into the dungeon and wipes out all of the Order players and is like, "Get out of here, we own it now." So it was really cool and we're trying to redo that spirit of Darkness Falls from Dark Age, in that same vein. When you get to the dungeon you're like, "sweet let's rush in and kill everybody!" You don't think, "let's go do the monsters and let's go do the quest." It's like, "anybody that's in there, I wanna kill em to get em out." It's really really cool that we're gonna try to reproduce that. And that's what some of the players have been asking for. We read the forums, we give feedback all the time, so we're always doing improvements to the game.

The other big thing coming up are the Slayer and the Choppa. They are two new classes that are coming out that are melee DPS guys. if you're familiar with the lore at all, they're pretty much like Berserkers to a degree - they just run up and wail on people with axes. They are gonna be coming out in a couple of months, and they're shaping up to be pretty badass.

Well that's all I've got. Nice meeting you, thanks for the interview.

Nice meeting you too. You're welcome.

How does voice acting differ from traditional acting?

I mean, voice acting is different because you have a lot less to work with in order to communicate something that the character is trying to communicate. If it's an emotion or a thought, you have your voice as opposed to using your whole body or your face. So you're in a sound booth and you're just implementing what you can do with your voice to emit those feelings.

You've been playing some of the early builds of Velvet Assassin here at Comic Con. How does it feel to play as yourself in a video game?

It's really strange actually, because I'll hear myself and for some reason it doesn't sound like me. I mean first off, it's a British accent and I'm American, so I obviously had to put some work into being able to do that properly. And since I haven't spoken in a British accent in so many months since I've done the recording, it seems almost like its someone else, but at the same time it's me. It's all very strange – but kind of cool, too, and I really like playing the game. I just wish I was better at it.

Do you play video games at all yourself, or is it strictly business?

Honestly, I used to play video games when I was a teenager, but I don't play as much now - it's mainly a time thing. But it's been really cool being involved with Velvet Assassin. It's rekindled my interest in the gaming world.

Do you have any plans for more video game roles in the future?

Yeah, I mean, whatever comes along. I think it's definitely a market that's going to be huge. It's up and coming and people are using video games as a medium in a lot of different ways. I think it's extremely fascinating to be involved in that.

On that note, right now video game acting isn't really its own distinct profession, and often gaming roles are filled by stage and film actors. Do you think that as video games struggle to be accepted as an art form, video game acting can separate itself from stage and film as a distinct art?

Yeah, I mean it's very different. Obviously, video games are animated, so as an actor, there aren't really that many things you can do besides doing voice work and motion capture work and that kind of stuff. I think it's really cool when they mix live-action stuff with parts from the game, so you can get a little bit of both. But I feel that a lot of hardcore gamers don't like that. They like it to be purely animated, purely video game.

What has been your favorite experience in working on Velvet Assassin?

Well, the traveling has been great. I was fortunate enough to go to Germany with Velvet Assassin for a convention in Germany and to Seattle and now obviously to Comic Con. So that's been really exciting, just meeting all these people. It's this enthusiasm about games and people showing up in these crazy costumes. I'm not generally exposed to that world at all.

For the benefit of the readers: She showed up in a crazy costume too, but then again that's her job.

Yeah, that's right. It's funny because when I walk to the convention, I wear the costume, and I know that people are looking at me and thinking, "Oh God she's one of those gaming people!" [laughs]

And finally, what tips would you give to aspiring video game voice actors?

Oh, what tips would I give? Don't give up, in anything you do really. And yeah, if you want to do it, then stick to it, and it'll happen sooner or later.

Thank you very much for your time Ms. Cohen. Best of luck with the release of Velvet Assassin this April.

Thank you very much.

EDIT: I accidentally wrote March as the game's release date instead of April. Sorry.