The organizers of FanimeCon announced on Saturday that manga creator Kia Asamiya, illustrator/animator Mamoru Yokota, and Gainax founder Hiroyuki Yamaga will attend the May 25-28 convention in San Jose, California.

Under his birth name Michitaka Kikuchi, Asamiya worked on Detonator Orgun, Hades Project Zeorymer, Sonic Soldier Borgman, and many other titles. Under his Asamiya pen name, he drew such manga as Compiler, Dark Angel, Silent Möbius, Steam Detectives, and the adaptation of Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace. This will be the first Fanime appearance for Asamiya, who famously uses "Now Printing" drawings (like the one pictured right) as his self-portraits.

Yokota is returning to Fanime for his third year as a guest of honor. He has worked on an array of projects as a character designer, producer, and animation director. He produced the movie adaptation of Visual Art's/Key's Air as well as the 2002 television adaptation of Kanon . He oversaw the animation in several episodes of Death Note and most recently supervised the production of Macross Frontier and the absurd school comedy Gokujyo - Gokurakuin Joshi Kōryō Monogatari .

GAINAX founder Hiroyuki Yamaga is returning for his 15th year at FanimeCon. He has worked as a producer for popular Gainax series such as Neon Genesis Evangelion , FLCL , and Shikabane Hime . He is planning to direct The Rhine Gold opera from Richard Wagner's The Ring of the Nibelung saga. The production is currently slated to open in Japan in late November.

Other announced FanimeCon 2012 guests include vocalist Igaguri Chiba from musical group Sendai Kamotsu, novelist and comic creator Ric Meyers, author Gilles Poitras, and voice actor David Vincent.