A new (still mostly-placeholder) website for the upcoming Nintendo 3DS game Dragon Ball Heroes: Ultimate Mission has opened at dbhu.channel.or.jp:
The new game, a mish-mash of a sort of port and enhancement for the card-based arcade game in Japan originally announced back in November 2010, is due out in Winter 2013.
Originally hinted at via Andriasang and confirmed via the pages of the October 2012 issue of V-Jump (due out next week and available via CDJapan, Play-Asia, and/or Amazon Japan) is Dragon Ball Heroes: Ultimate Mission for the Nintendo 3DS in Japan. The game, a portable-port and tie-in with the existing card-based arcade game in Japan, is due out at some point in Winter 2013.
The game is set to contain over 200 characters spread across more than 800 cards. Also included will be a story mode and wireless connectivity, including that with the actual arcade game.
Dragon Ball Heroes is a sequel to and extension of prior card-based quasi-fighting/strategy arcade games in Japan (such as the Bakuretsu Impact games), all of which have used game developer Dimps’ models and assets from the Dragon Ball Z / Budokai series (PS2/Gamecube) as a base. The games continue to receive additional updates such as new characters (including, most recently, Super Saiyan 3 Gogeta) and new promotional videos, many of which are mistaken (or purposefully misrepresented) as a “new series”.
The last portable game for the franchise — Dragon Ball Kai: Ultimate Butōden for the original Nintendo DS — totally skipped international shelves. With the Nintendo 3DS being region-locked combined with Dragon Ball Heroes as an arcade game never leaving its home shores, this could potentially be another missed gem for us foreign fans. That being said, nothing has actually been announced in that regard with this being so early in its life cycle, so we will just have to wait and see.
Big thanks to Super Saiyan Prime for the heads-up.
Things have been busy around these parts (what, with the debut of the “Animation Styles Guide” and all!), so this week on the show we decided to catch up with you all and the plethora of questions that have been coming in over the last few weeks. Our audience always come prepared, this time shooting us questions regarding music, the title of next year’s new movie, fansites and magazines from the 1990s, the various trading and collectible card releases, and even strength comparisons!
SHOW DESCRIPTION:
Episode #0307! VegettoEX and Hujio catch up on a little bit of movie and merchandise news before diving into audience questions. This time around we debate everything from music, the title of next year’s new movie, fansites and magazines from the 1990s, the various trading and collectible card releases, and even a little bit of character strength comparisons! Random tidbits, stories, and site content discussions round out the episode.
REFERENCED SITES:
Enjoy! Discuss this episode on the Kanzenshuu forum!
This week we add animator Masahiro Shimanuki to the “Animation Styles Guide”! Shimanuki was the second animation supervisor in the series from the Seigasha animation studio, following Tomekichi Takeuchi, and would rotate the role of animation supervisor with Kazuya Hisada throughout the remainder of Dragon Ball Z. This would be Shimanuki’s first major stint as an animation supervisor, but he would go on to be an animation supervisor for other significant series produced by Toei Animation, such as One Piece and Toriko. As always you can read more about Shimanuki in the guide, but be sure to come back in a week to check out our next featured animator!
Toei Animation’s official website for the Dragon Ball Z 2013 movie has been updated with a few “new” previously seen items. The first new item is the teaser trailer that was previously seen at Saikyō V-Jump Festa and was later broadcast on a Fuji TV morning show. The teaser trailer features some great one-liners, such as “All Humanity has Been Waiting”, “Televised in Over 40 Countries”, “230 Million Copies Printed”, and the announcement of a “Super-Wide Release” on the date of the movie’s premiere, 30 March 2013. The trailer is roughly 37 seconds in length and features footage not originally shown on the recorded footage from Fuji TV. You can view the trailer in its entirety below.
Akira Toriyama’s previous comments about the movie that were originally published in Weekly Shōnen Jump have also been added to the website. However, Toriyama’s comments have now been translated and are available in English. Not only that, but the entire website is now available in English!
Right now both websites (Japanese and English) are exactly the same, but we’ll be sure to keep an eye open for any new developments or information over the coming months. Be sure to check Kanzenshuu for the latest movie news and updates — we’ve got you covered!
This week we add veteran animator Tomekichi Takeuchi to the “Animation Styles Guide”! Takeuchi was the first animator we’d see in the series from the Seigasha animation studio, and was involved as an animation supervisor throughout Dragon Ball and up through the first part of Dragon Ball Z (episode 63). He was also the oldest animation supervisor involved with the series at the time. As always you can read more about Takeuchi in the guide, but be sure to come back in a week to check out the next featured animator!
This week on the show we had Julian live in the house all the way from Japan to kick back and shoot the breeze. With a rough idea of “music” and jumping off the copious amount of lyrics translation he has done lately, we head into music analysis territory combined with a little bit of discussion concerning the art of translation itself.
SHOW DESCRIPTION:
Episode #0306! VegettoEX drags Julian all the way from Japan for a casual, in-person conversation about music in the series. How did the theme and insert songs evolve over a decade? Did the lyrics and compositions evolve along with the series? How did the shift to pop songs for GT affect fan response? A bit of news catch-up and translation talk rounds out the episode!
REFERENCED SITES:
Enjoy! Discuss this episode on the Kanzenshuu forum!
Shueisha, in collaboration with Toei, recently released the second volume of their Jump Super HEROES Special Collection DVD line up, which features the same tagline as the first volume, “Hot Blooded!! Battle Heroes”. This release once again spans six different franchises, presenting the first episodes from Ring ni Kakero, Dream Soldier Wingman, Ginga: Nagareboshi Gin, Sakigake!! Otokojuku, Dragon Ball Z, and YuYu Hakusho. The DVD was released on 20 July 2012 and will run you a slim ¥1200 — it is currently available on CDJapan and Amazon Japan.
In addition, Shueisha has also updated their official “Jump Super HEROES” release website with a more detailed schedule listing. The schedule includes a listing of the upcoming franchises that will be included in the upcoming releases. According to the list, the first episode of Dragon Ball GT will be included in Volume 4 (“Excitement!! Miracle Heroes”) which has a scheduled release date of 26 October 2012. While there are only 5 volumes listed on the official website, the trailer included with the Amazon Japan listing indicates that there will be 6 volumes total.
Namco-Bandai has posted a ¥10.225 billion (approximately $130 million) net income for the first quarter of fiscal year 2013.
Dragon Ball once again made the list of best-performing franchises this quarter, raking in ¥1.8 billion this quarter, up (just barely) from the ¥1.7 billion the same quarter last year. Namco-Bandai is already projecting a drop from the (somewhat unexpected to us) relative-high of ¥11.8 billion for the full fiscal 2012 year down to ¥8.5 billion for fiscal 2013.
Interestingly, Namco-Bandai only listed three total games and their performances for this quarter — Dragon Ball is nowhere to be seen, though with Ultimate Blast/Tenkaichi being released last year, there is no real surprise there.
In terms of general toys and hobby merchandise (non-video games), the franchise jumped ever-so-slightly in net sales from ¥0.9 billion last year in Q1 2012 to ¥1.0 billion this quarter. The company is forecasting ¥4.0 billion for the year, a slight drop from the actual net sales of ¥4.4 billion in fiscal 2012.
It is a slow time of year for Dragon Ball and merchandise — there is always more juicy information down the later-year-pipeline, so we will just have to stay tuned!
Now that it has been a few weeks since the mysterious countdown dropped hints and both Jump and Akira Toriyama himself broke the news of next year’s new Dragon Ball Z movie, the usual cycle of excitement and misinformation seems to be coming into play.
While there is nothing “new” to report right now, we felt it was worth taking a look at everything again and doing what we do best: helping you to dissect the information in a logical and authoritative way.
Wait. New movie?
Yes. A new Dragon Ball Z movie is in production in Japan for a theatrical release there 30 March 2013. It is the first new theatrical presentation for the franchise in seventeen years. An official website for the movie has been opened at www.dragonball2013.com.
What is Akira Toriyama’s involvement in this new movie?
Original manga author Akira Toriyama has been involved with the TV series and movies in different ways over the franchise’s history. While the main man did design some extra villains, landscapes, and even some additional story elements for filler, he did indeed spend most of his time focused on the manga. While he came up with the concept for the 2008 Jump Super Anime Tour special, that particular feature was written by Takao Koyama. For this new movie, Akira Toriyama has stepped up into a role he defines as the first time, “… that I’ve been deeply involved with the animation from the scriptwriting stage”. That being said, the actual script is being written by franchise newcomer Yūsuke Watanabe, while the directorial role sits with Masahiro Hosoda.
When in the story will this movie take place?
Early, unsourced reports were noting that the new movie would take place some time between manga chapters 517 and 518, a decade’s worth of time not shown in the series between the defeat of Majin Boo and the 28th Tenka’ichi Budōkai (incidentally, the exact same time frame that the 2008 Jump Super Anime Tour special took place during). Japanese news and blog sites seemed to be copying-and-pasting the same phrases between each other — specifically “lost decade” (空白の10年間) and that it was meant to be part of “Dragon Ball’s official history” (ドラゴンボール正史) — but again, there was no source listed for these claims. It was not until the movie’s script writer, Yūsuke Watanabe, took to Twitter in response to a fan’s inquiry noting that it would take place between the comic’s “final chapter” and “just before that” (wherein “chapter” does not literally mean “chapter ###”, but rather a part of the story), where we saw the first official confirmation straight from the horse’s mouth.
Should I accept this movie as part of the canon?
While there are certainly separate and sometimes distinct continuities within the series (which sometimes cannot fit together), neither Akira Toriyama nor any of the additional rights holders have ever made any explicit claims about which particular productions are what they consider the hard “truth” of the franchise. Script writer Yūsuke Watanabe did note on Twitter that “GT isn’t part of the original work, after all~”, though this is not much of a sensational statement: productions like Dragon Ball Online which are licensed via Shueisha tend not to include GT-specific elements, which were all created by Toei Animation. Additionally, no, this movie is not a cannon, nor ammunition for one.
Who else is involved in the production of this movie?
Longtime franchise in-between and key-animator Tadayoshi Yamamuro will be the animation supervisor for the new movie. Nothing has been stated about, for example, the musical score of the movie (though we can probably safely assume that Kenji Yamamoto will not be involved).
Which number movie would this be?
The teaser trailer that debuted at Saikyō V-Jump Festa later aired on Fuji TV with a bit of surrounding context. Footage was shown from the animation’s 10th anniversary movie in 1996, which also showed on-screen DVD cover art with the number “14”. This was in reference to the individual DVD releases of the franchise’s movies released from 2008 to 2009. For the individual discs, Toei began with the first Dragon Ball Z movie, went onward to its thirteenth, then the 10th anniversary movie, and then the original three Dragon Ball movies. This meant that the 10th anniversary movie was “Volume 14” in that particular release run. As for a number to assign to next year’s new movie, none have specifically been given by any of the producers. Depending on your definition of “movie” and which extra features you might have already tossed into your own personal chronology, this could be “Movie 14” or even something like “Movie 17” if you count the three significant pieces of new animation since 2008 (Jump Super Anime Tour special / Plan to Eradicate the Super Saiyans / Episode of Bardock).
How will I be able to see this movie?
Right now the only thing we know is that the movie will see a wide theatrical release in Japan 30 March 2013.
I need more. I can’t get enough. Don’t stop.
Check out Episode #0304 of our podcast, where we got together to discuss our hopes and wishes for the new movie.