The Amazon Japan listing for the upcoming Dragon Ball Kai Complete Song Collection now has cover art:

I figured February’s Kai releases might be the last music we would see for a while, but leave it to Japan to prove me wrong!

A soundtrack for Raging Blast 2 (LACA-15111) is due out 23 March 2011 in Japan for ¥3000. No track listing details are available just yet, and we usually do not expect them until shortly before the disc’s release. By itself this is not surprising news, but is moderately interesting if you look back just one game prior.

Europe received a “Collector’s Edition” of the first Raging Blast (PS3/360) in 2009. Part of the giant package was a bonus soundtrack disc which contained 29 tracks (though the opening theme, “Progression”, was not among them). Beyond this European-only inclusion, no soundtrack for the game was formally released, even in Japan.

Europe also received a “Collector’s Edition” of Raging Blast 2, though this edition did not come with a soundtrack disc.

Other than CD singles with opening theme songs, the last game to receive a full soundtrack was Infinite World two years ago back in January 2009 — last year’s Wii game did not receive a soundtrack, and portable games generally do not get soundtrack releases.

FUNimation has indeed launched their online streaming for the franchise, beginning with the first fifteen episodes of the Dragon Ball Z TV series. As previously reported, these episodes are based off their orange brick “season set” masters (which includes all extraneous smoothing/filtering, cropped image, etc.). A bit of clarification, though — while the episodes are available subtitled in their original Japanese format, the corresponding English versions do not feature the North American broadcast music, but instead feature the original Japanese score from Shunsuke Kikuchi.

Well this is some unfortunate (if not expected) information. According to a tweet from FUNimation (and later reiterated via a blog post), their upcoming streaming of the Dragon Ball ZTV series will use the video masters created for their orange brick “season sets” released from 2007-2009 (with the questionable remastering process and cropped video). While the episodes will be available both in its original Japanese and English dub, the dub side will apparently use the American broadcast music, a harsh step in the opposite direction from what FUNimation has been doing in recent years by exclusively sticking to and reverting back to non-replacement scores.

Our recommendation? Stick with and show your support for the Dragon Box sets.

No such cropped masters exist for the first TV series or Dragon Ball GT (though the latter of which did have a replacement score), and all work FUNimation has done with Kai has been in its intended 4:3 aspect ratio, so we have much higher expectations for the eventual streaming of those shows.

Our buddy LaRésistance slapped together a fun little video showcasing his “Top 5 Dragon Ball Z game intros“. As a true showcase of worldwide fandom, the video is narrated in French and subtitled in English. Check it out over on blip.tv:

Almost immediately after Nintendo unveiled the upcoming 3DS at the most recent Electronic Entertainment Exposition (E3), Namco-Bandai announced they would release a Dragon Ball game for the platform. No specific title or even time frame was given. Nintendo has unveiled their tentative 3DS game release schedule through Spring 2011, and no Dragon Ball game appears on the list (though the recently-revealed Naruto 3DS game is on there).

The next game due out for the franchise is Dragon Ball Kai: Ultimate Butōden, a fighting game for the existing Nintendo DS, dropping in Japan 03 February 2011 for ¥5040. The game has not been announced for distribution outside of Japan just yet. The game is available for pre-order on CDJapan and Play-Asia — note that standard Nintendo DS games are region free (though it sounds like 3DS games will not be), so rest assured that you can import and play Ultimate Butōden on your system, though the text will be entirely in Japanese, as should be expected.

It seems as if these are only just starting to make the rounds to retailer listings! Amazon Japan currently has pages for two new Dragon Ball Kai CDs, both due out the same day in Japan on 23 February 2011, and both of which have heavy implications for the fate of the “refreshed” version of the show:

Dragon Ball Kai Original Soundtrack IV will be a single disc retailing for ¥2960, and while a track listing has not been divulged, it will likely follow the style of November 2009’s Dragon Ball Kai Original Soundtrack 2 with TV-sized versions of the opening and ending themes, along with a decent amount of background music from the show (see: Amazon Japan).

Dragon Ball Kai Complete Song Collection is another single disc which will contain all eleven tracks from the previously-released Dragon Ball Kai Song Collection (sans-“Complete”) from November 2009. In addition to those songs, it will also contain the three new vocal songs (all also used as insert songs in the show) from this past September’s Dragon Ball Kai Soundtrack III & Songs, as well as the current ending theme, “Kokoro no Hane”. The track order has yet to be finalized, but those will indeed be the contents of the disc. The disc will retail for ¥2625 (see: Amazon Japan).

One has to wonder that with the word “Complete” tossed into the title and having a release date so soon after a prior compilation, does this add fuel to the fire of speculation that Kai is indeed coming to a close before it reaches the Majin Boo story arc?

It is unfortunate to see a collection add a mere four songs to what already exists as a disc, which I can only speculate is another last-ditch grab at their audience.