Bandai Namco held its much anticipated first ever Tales of series fan event today at the Bunkyo Civic Hall in Tokyo. The Tales of Festival 2008 event was mostly a chance for series fans to see their favorite voice actors perform live, but Bandai Namco also snuck in a few announcements.

Eleven voice actors were scheduled to appear at the event, including Marina Inoue (Hearts), Masaya Matsukaze (Hearts), Kaori Mizuhashi (Legendia), Akiko Hiramatsu (Destiny 2), Mika Kanai (Phantasia), Kentaro Ito (Phantasia), Toriumi Kosuke (Vesperia), Hiro Shimono, Chihiro Suzuki (Abyss ), and Masaya Onosaka (Symphonia). They were joined by a top secret guest, Katsuyuki Konishi from Symphonia, who MCed the event.

One of the main draws for the event was an early airing of the first episode of the Tales of Abyss anime. That airing took place following a live skit in which the voice actors fought over someone having stole that very episode. It was eventually determined that Lloyd was the culprit.

The general public will get a chance to see the show for themselves starting in early October depending on your location.

As a preview of things to come, Yoshito Higuchi, producer of the game version of Abyss (also producer of Vesperia) appeared in a video message and said that the anime's storyline is based off the game, but includes episodes that were not covered in the game. He also made a slight tease, saying that "that character" will be appearing in a recording of the sixth chapter that was set to take place the following day.

Other Tales of series anime announcements focused on Symphonia. A new Tales of Symphonia The Animation series is in production, it was revealed. Bandai Namco also announced a Blu-Ray and DVD box set of the Symphonia anime, to be released on the 26th and produced for just one year.

Game announcements centered on Tales of Hearts, with producer Hideo Baba providing an introduction to the game, which is set for release on 12/11. The game makes use of a two gigabit cartridge, but even with all this space, the staff is having difficulty fitting everything in. Commenting on the release of two SKUs, one with CG movies and the other with anime movies, Baba said that while it's clear that the anime route should continue, he felt that it was time to try out something new.

The event closed off with a set of performances by DEEN, who will be performing the theme song for Tales of Hearts. In addition to a few fan favorite songs, the performer also debuted a game arranged version of the Eternal Tomorrow theme song. Recording for the full length version is not yet complete.