Cristina Vee


Cristina Danielle Valenzuela, better known by the stage name Cristina Vee, is an American voice actress and director. She provides voices for English dubs of anime, animation and video games. Some of her roles include Louise in The Familiar of Zero, Nanoha Takamachi in the Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha series, Mio Akiyama in K-On!, Nagisa Saitō in Squid Girl, Homura Akemi in Puella Magi Madoka Magica, Rei Hino / Sailor Mars in the Viz Media dub of Sailor Moon, the Honoka sisters in Knights of Sidonia, Hawk from The Seven Deadly Sins, Meiko Mochizuki in Digimon Adventure tri. and Killua Zoldyck in Hunter × Hunter. She has had video game roles, such as the titular character in the Shantae series, Velvet Crowe in Tales of Berseria, Riven in League of Legends and Cerebella in Skullgirls. In animation, she voices Marinette Dupain-Cheng / Ladybug in . She was the co-host of AnimeTV with Johnny Yong Bosch and portrayed Haruhi Suzumiya in the live-action The Adventures of the ASOS Brigade.

Career

Anime

Vee was born and raised in the Los Angeles area, growing up in Norwalk. When she was younger she wanted to become an animator, but after watching Sailor Moon, she was inspired to go into voice acting. She had attended Anime Expo multiple times as a fan and participated in their AX Idol voice-over contest. In 2004, she joined a voice-over panel where she helped work some of the equipment and then got a card from Wendee Lee to audition for several shows with Bang Zoom! Entertainment, including Samurai Champloo. Her first major role was Kanaria in Rozen Maiden. She studied Theatre Arts and graduated from California State University at Long Beach in 2007. In 2008, she voiced the title character in ', Louise in The Familiar of Zero, and Nanoha in Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha. She portrayed the live-action Haruhi Suzumiya in the promotional videos for the second The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya series, and performed as her at various events.
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In 2011, she voiced the shy bassist Mio Akiyama in the school music comedy K-On! and Nagisa Saitō in the comedy Squid Girl. That year, she starred in the anime feature film ' as Alisa Bosconovitch, attending American anime conventions with the Japanese writer Dai Satō to promote the film. In 2012, she voiced Homura Akemi in Puella Magi Madoka Magica. In 2013, she voiced Princess Yo in ' and Red Hood in the Ikki Tousen series. In 2014, she voiced Morgiana in ' and the Honoka sisters in Knights of Sidonia. She was chosen to voice Sailor Mars in Viz's re-dub of Sailor Moon and the new Sailor Moon Crystal series. Vee described her voicing of Rei as different in Crystal because her character is more serious and regal compared to her character in the original series.
In 2015, she voiced Noel Vermillion in BlazBlue Alter Memory, Compa in , and Hawk in The Seven Deadly Sins, the last of which was released as a Netflix original series. In 2016, she provided the voice of Killua Zoldyck in the Viz Media English dub of the 2011 anime adaptation of Hunter × Hunter.

Animation projects

Vee has been involved in several animation projects. In March 2012, she started a Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign to produce an animated music video in conjunction with Cybergraphix Animation and Studio APPP. The main character of the video, "Cristina Veecaloid", was designed by Skullgirls creative director Alex Ahad, Her character was later named Milky and was made into an iOS game called Veecaloid Pop released in 2015. In 2012, Vee was involved in voice casting and directing the Skullgirls video game and web series. The game was nominated at the 40th Annie Awards. In 2015, Vee landed the English voice role of title character Marinette Dupain-Cheng in the CGI animated series . The show premiered on Nickelodeon in December 2015. Executive producer Jared Wolfsen said that Vee and the other English dub voice actors brought a lot of energy to their characters, and that Vee herself is just like Ladybug – sweet and kind, and so fun to watch.

Video games, hosting, and other projects

Vee has been involved in voice-overs for video games, mostly with English localizations of Japanese titles produced by Atlus USA and NIS America. Some of her major roles are Noel Vermillion in BlazBlue, Velvet Crowe in Tales of Berseria, Riven the Exile in League of Legends, Four in Drakengard 3, Compa in Hyperdimension Neptunia, Monaca in and the title character of the Shantae series. She is directing and producing the voices for the upcoming video game Indivisible which was crowdfunded with a total amount of $1.5 million on December 2, 2015.
In addition to being a live-action Haruhi Suzumiya, Vee has appeared on screen on various web series, television shows and events. She was a host on Anime TV where she reviewed shows and interviewed people, and appeared on Funimation On Demand and Crunchyroll. She was a live-action host of IGN's IPL4 and IPL5 League of Legends video game tournaments in Las Vegas. She is a frequent guest at many anime conventions throughout the United States and worldwide.
Outside of voice acting, Vee has uploaded several renditions of anime songs on YouTube. In 2015, she released an EP called Menagerie with DJ Bouche which was part of the Viewster's Omakase subscription service. She and YouTuber Nathan Sharp released a cover of Charlie Puth's song "Attention" in August 2017. She also signed with an indie record label called Give Heart Records.

Personal life

Vee lives in the Los Angeles area. In a Reddit Ask Me Anything session, when asked about her ethnicity, she said she is of Mexican, Native American, and Lebanese ancestry. In addition to singing, she plays drums and is in a band. In January 2018, she and musician/voice actor Nathan Sharp announced their engagement, but later announced in August that the two had separated. She's currently dating fellow actor Griffin Burns.

Filmography

Films