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3,762 Posts & 2,352 Pages Documenting Dragon Ball, since 1998. We've got you covered!
Published by 17 September 2012, 9:07 PM EDTComment

This week’s topic is brought to us via Meri, who (from the sounds of it) embarrassed a couple dudes with Kame/Kaiō t-shirts at the gym. To what extent do you like to wear your heart on your sleeve, so to speak? Is anything fair game, or do you prefer the more subtle route with showcasing your love for our favorite franchise? A good bit of news catch-up takes place, along with a couple of your questions about Dragon Ball Kai, and that’s a podcast episode!

SHOW DESCRIPTION:
Episode #0310! There are a variety of ways to show your love for “Dragon Ball” in public, so what level do you take it to? Are you one for the full-on cosplay walking down the street, or are the subtle logo-parodies more your style? News catch up and your questions about “Dragon Ball Kai” round out the episode!

REFERENCED SITES:

Enjoy! Discuss this episode on the Kanzenshuu forum.

Published by 12 September 2012, 10:40 AM EDT17 Comments

The new secret rare card for “Galaxy Mission 4” in Dragon Ball Heroes, the on-going card-based arcade game in Japan, has been revealed as Baby Janenba.

That is, of course, Baby from Dragon Ball GT infecting Janenba from Dragon Ball Z Movie 12, and not a child version of Janenba (though one could argue the gigantic puffy version of Janenba from the movie served that purpose). As with the other secret rare cards (such as the new Super Saiyan forms for characters in past missions), you have a chance to receive the card by playing the game — no word on additional availability at this time.

As always with Heroes, big thanks to our buddy TheDevilsCorpse for the heads-up.

EDIT: Just for an extra bit of clarity, the kana on the card spelling out his name actually says “Janenba Baby” (ジャネンバベビー) rather than “Baby Janenba”, so perhaps that would be a better name-order to go with. It’s not nearly as fun and misleading, though. Additionally, here is a better look at another of the character’s cards from the game’s official website:

Published by 11 September 2012, 2:03 PM EDT9 Comments

Dragon Ball Z: Budokai HD Collection is hitting the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 this winter, but will only include the first and third games, skipping over the second game in the process. While the first game contained a story mode many fans still hold up as one of the franchise’s best, and the third refined the fighting system and other aspects into one of the overall best-regarded games for the franchise, the second game still had its charms: a board game style of story mode with a few “What If?” scenarios, new absorptions for Majin Boo, an entirely new fusion character (Yamhan, a dance fusion combination of Yamcha and Tenshinhan), an alternate form of theoretical-fusion Gotan (a Potara fusion combination of Goku and Mr. Satan), the first new vocal theme song for the franchise since 1997, and much more.

So why skip the middle-child in this upcoming HD collection? Speaking with Shack News, Namco-Bandai Senior Global Brand Manager Jason Enos stated:

“No, but when you look at the three games, one and three are actually more straight-up fighting games. Two IS a fighting game, but it also introduced some other elements of gameplay that kind of broke off the fighting aspects a little bit,” Enos attempted to explain. “So when we finally decided which games to go with, obviously fans love different ones, but we decided we would bookend the compilation because the first game set up the Budokai series, defined what it was, and the third game was a final resolution of the Budokai series.”

Unfortunately, that is not really an answer so much as it is a simple acknowledgement — but it is thankfully at least more than we had at first. The game collection is already looking as if it will contain a complete musical replacement score and possibly not even some of the minor additional content from the re-release/Japanese version of Budokai 3, so the hardest of hardcore fans may want to just break out the original PS2 versions this winter.

If you North American fans never picked up the “Greatest Hits” re-release of Budokai 3 and go out in search of it these days, be aware that Atari suffered a major misprint error which resulted in the game being stamped with the original, non-“Greatest Hits” version (thus missing the extra content, the most significant of which was the optional original Japanese voice cast). It was eventually corrected, but picking up the game used does come with the risk of grabbing a mis-printed disc.

Published by 10 September 2012, 9:50 PM EDTComment

It has been a long Monday, but that doesn’t mean we forgot about our weekly “Animation Styles Guide” update. This week we take a look at the work of Shindō Production’s founder Mitsuo Shindō, who was an animation supervisor for Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z. As the series progressed his style became rather “pointy” and sharp looking, but don’t criticize the man too much because he holds a 3rd grade black belt in Judo!

Enjoy, and look for more updates to our ever-growing “Animation Styles Guide” in the near future!

Published by 08 September 2012, 12:50 PM EDT3 Comments

Even with a couple extra characters in the form of Mr. Satan and Majin Boo last spring, and even with a pretty sizable “Super Saiyan Awakening” update soon after that, Japanese arcade brawler Zenkai Battle Royale has received a new update introducing Yamcha and Broli (in his “Legendary Super Saiyan” form) to the game, bringing the roster up to 24 characters.

Yamcha steps into battle, with his signature moves, the Roga Fu-Fu Ken and Sōkidan.

While it looks like he can use a regular Kamehameha, it’s actually a special “reverse Kamehameha” that can get him out of tight spots. The Roga Fu-Fu Ken, when it connects, can be made unblockable by holding down the buttons. With moves like these, Yamcha can really confuse his opponent.

After firing the Sōkidan, he can change the target as many times as he wants, allowing him to continue controlling its direction until it hits the ground or the enemy. But as Yamcha is completely unguarded during this time, one must be careful.

As is typical of Yamcha, who is easily affected by others, he can use his “appeal” (with the start button) to increase his special abilities. But if you think Yamcha is weak, you can perform the same action with the “appeal counter” so he gets a taste of his own medicine.

Broli’s style of attack is to pick up his opponents and use them as weapons against them. The technique of spinning around an enemy you’ve picked up is impossible to guard against. In this way, you can inflict major damage on both the enemy you hit and the enemy you hit them with. You can also guard with a held enemy, or use your “Gigantic Throw” to launch your opponent like a missile, and even make them explode. Or you can just do a “Gigantic Driver” to pile-drive them into the ground over and over.

Broli can also use something called the “Gigantic Lariat” to ensnare multiple opponents at once and have them at his mercy.

There is still no word on any possible home release of the game, but as we stated before, if they want to keep tossing more and more into the game before said theoretical home release, we are all for it. Make it great, team!

Thanks to TheDevilsCorpse for the reminder/heads-up.

Published by 07 September 2012, 1:36 PM EDT2 Comments

After so many years of digging deep through these gems of the franchise, we finally have dedicated information pages for all seven of the original hardcover daizenshuu guide books available in the “Databook Guide”. To accomplish this, we have added pages for the two daizenshuu we had yet to cover — Daizenshuu 5: TV Animation Part 2 and Daizenshuu 7: Dragon Ball Large Encyclopedia. While Daizenshuu 5 is a continuation of the look at the TV series, Daizenshuu 7 is truly the be-all, end-all volume for this run of guide books. It contains a series of dictionaries, tables, and timelines on just about everything Dragon Ball-related you can think of, including characters, techniques, geography, Japanese merchandise, and much more. In addition to these new pages, we have also begun porting over some of these guide book’s interviews with Akira Toriyama that were originally translated on Kanzentai. Look forward to reading all those interviews in our “Translations” section very soon!

Published by 05 September 2012, 8:02 AM EDT4 Comments

Last seen as a Guest of Honor at Anime Expo this summer, voice actor extraordinaire Ryō Horikawa will also be attending Anime Weekend Atlanta this year, which will take place in just a few weeks from now — check it all out 28 September 2012 to 30 September 2012 in Atlanta, Georgia.

The voice of Vegeta recorded a special video message for the convention:

I have unfortunately not been able to make it down to AWA for a few years now — it figures that they would start dropping bombs like this to encourage me back!

Published by 03 September 2012, 9:14 AM EDT3 Comments

It is a beautiful Monday morning here at Kanzenshuu, which naturally brings us yet another update to the “Animation Styles Guide“. This week we examine the work of the Last House studio’s lead animator Masayuki Uchiyama, who was an animation supervisor for the entirety of all three Dragon Ball TV series. However, he by and far receives the most criticism of any animator by fans for providing subpar “cartoony” animation quality. Combine that with the fact that he supervised over a quarter of the series’ 508 episodes and you get a good sense of why there were so many “off” animation days. Sadly, Uchiyama passed away 31 August 2010 at the age of 58 from heart failure.

Enjoy, and look for more updates to our ever-growing “Animation Styles Guide” in the near future!

Published by 28 August 2012, 7:02 PM EDT3 Comments

As I continue to flesh out my Dragon Ball video game collection with a complete-in-box copy of Dragon Power for the NES, I thought it might be appropriate for us to take a step back and re-evaluate why it is we collect “stuff” for this franchise, and how that collecting mentality has changed (or not changed!) over the decades. Do we still feel the need to collect various bits of merchandise? How about you all? What are your thoughts as you take a look at your own habits?

SHOW DESCRIPTION:
Episode #0309! VegettoEX and Hujio discuss the collector’s mentality. Why do we collect all this Dragon Ball stuff? How have our habits changed over time, if at all? Does the rest of fandom feel the same way we do, or does everything from geographic region to length of fandom come into play? News updates and more of your questions round out the episode!

REFERENCED SITES:

Enjoy! Discuss this episode on the Kanzenshuu forum!

Published by 27 August 2012, 10:01 PM EDT1 Comment

Another Monday brings us another update to the “Animation Styles Guide” here at Kanzenshuu. This time around we detail the work of Katsumi Aoshima, a (seemingly) freelance artist that brought his supervision and key-animation talent to our favorite franchise. While the majority of his work was throughout the first TV series, Aoshima did contribute a bit to some of the earlier “Z”-era episodes, as well.

Enjoy! Look for more updates to our ever-growing “Animation Styles Guide” in the near future.