Kari Wahlgren

At 46 years old, Kari Wahlgren has this physical status:

Kari Wahlgren (born July 13, 1977) is an American voice actress who has provided English-language voices for over a hundred animations, anime, and video games.

She got her start in anime voice-overs as Haruko Haruhara in FLCL, and would later land major roles in a number of films and television shows including Robin Sena in Witch Hunter Robin, Laguage, Puja, San Diego, and Celty Sturluson in the Durarara! A series of movies. She has appeared in an American animation including Super Robot Monkey Team Hyperforce Go!, Fish Hooks, Phineas, Ferb, and Ferb, Ken 10, Kung Fu Panda: Legends of Awesomeness, and Dorothy and the Wizard of Oz.

In Final Fantasy XII and Shelke's Final Fantasy VII, she portrayed lead characters Ashe in video games.

Early life

Wahlgren was born and raised in Hoisington, Kansas. The Disney Princesses and other voices in animation inspired her as a child. Teachers raised her children, and she wanted to help charities and groups that promote reading and education later in her career. Gloria McCoy, an eleven-year-old character, was invited to participate in their radio drama Adventures in Odyssey when she and her family were in California and toured the building for Focus on the Family.

In 1999, Wahlgren received a Bachelor of Arts in Theater from the University of Kansas.

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Career

Wahlgren grew up in Kansas City, Missouri, where she appeared on radio stations before moving to Los Angeles in 2000 to concentrate on her acting career. In an interview with Lawrence Journal-World, she said that she wasn't getting much on-camera work, so she shifted her attention away from camera to voice-over, and that her experience with dialogue and Shakespeare classes aided a lot in landing roles that required various characters, some of whom had accents or were from particular time periods.

In a six-episode OVA series named FLCL, Wahlgren's debut anime role was Haruko Haruhara. Haruko was the only character she had to audition for in an interview with Anime Tourist. She portrayed her as close to the original dub but with some American interpretation to reach the audience, and depending on how she was drawn, she shifted her voice from cartoon to realistic. "She definitely gives Haruko the twenty-something, sarcastic, and almost punkish persona," Bryce Coulter of Mania.com was impressed by her character work: "She certainly gives Haruko the twenty-something, sarcastic, and almost punkish persona." Haruha Raharu in FLCL was a main protagonist in the new FLCL seasons in 2018, as well as as a reprising Haruko in FLCL: Alternative.

Wahlgren's next big anime dub role was in Witch Hunter Robin, where she played Robin Sena, a soft-spoken girl who joins a group of witch hunters but has some magical abilities of her own. Zac Bertschy of Anime News Network said she was "pleasant, subtle, and perfect for the role" and that she wished the supporting voice cast would have such subtleties. In the steampunk fantasy film Last Exile, she played lead character Lavie Head. Allen Divers of Anime News Network grouped her with the "better known names of the California voice-acting scene." In Bang Zoom, she portrayed title character Sakura Kinomoto. The dubbing of Cardcaptor Sakura Movie 2: The Sealed Card, which Divers lauded for the fact that "the voice actors did a good job of accurately expressing the original Japanese voices, including Sakura's signature word 'Hoe!' "What was missing in previous English translations." She appeared as Tinkerbell in an indie Peter Pan film adaptation called Neverland, which was released in 2003. Her character was described as a "sullen sidekick" and "drugged-out."

Anna Paquin, Patrick Stewart, and Alfred Molina appeared in the animated film Steamboy in 2004. Scarlett, the corporation's chairman's teen granddaughter, was described as spoiled and cruel, as well as generally irritating. Scarlett is one of the most obnoxious characters he has ever encountered, according to IGN's Peter Sanderson, who hardly stands up to her movie counterparts. In Ai Yori Aoshi, a little cousin character, she portrayed Chika Minazuki. Way Jeng of Mania.com described her appearance as both energetic, yet innocent, and simple, but she was compared to Wendee Lee's portrayal of Tina Foster. In 2005, she played the female lead character Fuu Kasumi in Samurai Champloo. The characters, according to Carlo Santos of Anime News Network, sounded "well-suited to their personalities," but Fuu "falls into the habit of sounding like every other ditzy anime girl out there." In Scrapped Princess, she portrays Pacifica Casull, who is hunted down because of a prophecy where she will cause the demise of the Earth if she lives to see her 16th birthday. Theron Martin referred to her behavior as "Pacifica's brava's deepest sympathy for a long time," but it's different from her Japanese counterpart's in that it "lacks some of the poutiness" and takes longer to get used to.

Wahlgren has appeared in a number of video games. In Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Chaos Bleeds, she appeared as Willow Rosenberg for her first voice-over role in video games. She portrayed a Bond girl who was paired with Sean Connery's original voice in James Bond's From Russia with Love, released in 2005. In 2006, she debuted in Final Fantasy XIII and Shelke in Dirge of Cerberus – Final Fantasy VII. In an interview with UFFSite and RPGSite, she discusses how she became aware of the performances on two days in a row, and that the franchise was "the holy grail of video game acting." After a class where she was studying Shakespeare, she played Ashe with a bit of regal tone. She describes her image as "intelligent, diplomatic, and looks like she's doing it well." In contrast, Shelkie was supposed to be portrayed as "cold" and emotionless, as she describes it. In 2007, she portrayed the playable title character in the strategy-RPG Jeanne d'Arc. In the MMO Star Wars: The Old Republic, Wahlgren portrays the female Jedi Knight. She also appears in MMO Guild Wars 2, most notably Caithe.

Wahlgren's involvement in animation voice-over began in 2004 when she was cast in a leading role in the Disney/Jetix ensemble action superhero series Super Robot Monkey Team Hyperforce Go! Nova was where she first heard her name. From 2004 to 2006, the program ran for four seasons. In A.T.O.M., Samantha Paine aka Magness will also appear in recurring villain roles such as Samantha Paine aka Magness. Charmcaster and Charmcaster in Ben 10, the latter of which will appear in the show's sequels and related video games. In Nickelodeon's computer graphics-animated film Tak and the Power of Juju, she sang of Tak's friend Jeera. Suzy Johnson, a little sister, appeared in Disney's hit series Phineas and Ferb, and she appeared in Lil' Bush's second season, where she played Lil' Hillary and Lil' Condi.

Wahlgren played Shellsea and several supporting and guest characters in Fish Hooks, which premiered in 2010. Tigress appeared in the television version Kung Fu Panda: Legends of Awesomeness (replacing Angelina Jolie); the series premiered in 2011 and has lasted for over four seasons. Wahlgren began voicing Faragonda in the Nickelodeon revival of Winx Club in 2011. She appeared in Kaijudo's earliest episodes in 2012, as Allie Underhill, a 52-year-old actress, and took up roles in other cartoon series such as Gravity Falls and Randy Cunningham: 9th Grade Ninja. Meg, the starring love interest in the Disney short film Paperman, which screened before Wreck-It Ralph in the theaters in 2012. She explained that she was asked to do the job due to her previous participations in Bolt and Tangled in an interview with her school's alumni association. The film was shot for about 30 minutes, mainly of vocal sounds. The short film went on to win the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film.

Chloe Carmichael, a leading character in Fairly OddParents' tenth season, appeared in the show's tenth season in 2015. In Butch Hartman-produced series Bunsen Is a Beast, she continued to act Jessica and other characters for Rick and Morty's third season, as well as star Amanda. Dorothy Gale appeared in Dorothy Gale's animated television series Dorothy and the Wizard of Oz on Boomerang in July 2017.

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