On March 21, Anime Boston announced that Lisa Ortiz will attend Anime Boston 2019 as a guest of honor. She is the ninth North American guest confirmed for the event. She joins the following:
- Yoko Shimomura
- Billy Kametz
- Greg Ayres
- Tara Sands
- Johnny Yong Bosch
- Kenji Kodama
- Naohiro Ogata
- Yoichi Kato
- Richard Epcar
- Ellyn Stern
- MIYAVI
- Leah Clark
- Kara Edwards
Ortiz previously attended Anime Boston in 2017.
Lisa Ortiz has been active in the anime industry since 1995, when she made her début as Deedlit in the Record of Lodoss War OVA series. She made her entrance into acting a bit earlier, though, “under the shroud of an attempted auto larceny gone awry.”
In an interview with Anime Herald in 2017, she explained the story:
I actually took some time off while I was still in school. I was in college, and I was home with mono. And I had a car, my car also had mono. It wouldn’t start in the morning, I went home, lived with my folks.
And my brother, who can sometimes be a pain in the tuchus, didn’t have a car! So he would want to “steal” mine. Like, borrow it. I told him not to, because it didn’t work properly.
He took it, and he bought it over to a friend’s house. I get a phone call, and I’m like “Jer, where’s my car?“ He’s like “he’s at George’s house.”
And I’m like “who’s George? What’s going on?” And he’s like “I’ve gotta go. Bye!” and hung up. So I went on a wild goose chase trying to find my car. That lasted for a while. Eventually, my friend Rob called, and asked “Hey, do you know where Jer is?” And I’m like “No! But do you know who George is? Can I get over to his house?!”
Went over there, turned out that my friend Rob was an intern over at Central Park Media at the time. We wound up talking about stuff, and he’s like “I’m looking for people to come in and audition. Do you know anybody?”
And I was like “ahhh… meeeeeee?” (laughs from the room)
And that’s how I actually wound up getting the first audition that I had. So, if my brother hadn’t stolen my car, I might not be here today.
So yeah. That’s the short, condensed version. There was much yelling and gnashing of teeth, as you can imagine. But it all worked out okay.
Since that day, Ortiz has since gone on to play numerous fan-favorite roles, including:
- Amy Rose in Sonic X
- Kuromi Oguro in Animation Runner Kuromi
- Lina Inverse in The Slayers
- Nickel Doll in Accel World
- Shiori in Revolutionary Girl Utena
- Tony Tony Chopper in One Piece
Ortiz is the current ADR Engineer for the Pokémon Sun and Moon anime dub, and president of post-production studio Noise of O Productions, LLC.
Source: Anime Boston (Press Release)
