Former Dragon Ball editor at Viz and current author with Otaku USA magazine and on his own, Jason Thompson, has written a new article about the manga’s situation in Maryland. There are some great comparisons and recollections, so be sure to give it a read.

All the regular sites (CDJapan, Amazon Japan, Columbia, etc.) have posted up the cover art for the forthcoming second soundtrack to Dragon Ball Kai:

While we still do not have a track listing for it, the disc drops in Japan 18 November 2009 for ¥2940. Ours is already on pre-order, so look for a review probably in early December when all the new music arrives!

Amidst their criticizing of delmarvanow.com staff writers about fact-checking and conflicting quotes within their stories, author “Cato” (a one “G. A. Harrison”) over on Delmarva Dealings apparently cannot be bothered to do his own research beyond Council Member Holloway’s photocopied “examples” (PDF) mentioned earlier this week, and has determined that Dragon Ball is “smut”.

The stories (split among three parts: one / two / three) are a fascinating read from an educated perspective. While our own commentary here on the website and in our latest podcast episode basically comes to the conclusion that nearly everyone can agree on (in the school library, maybe not so much; pull it on out and let’s be done), the articles’ continued demonization of this wacky story about a monkey boy reaches extreme new levels. It seems as if only their commenter Kevin Waterman has a realistic viewpoint, clearly noting that nothing shown is “erotic” in any way. Further comments and discussion go on to whine how the series clearly is not “high art”, and commenters latch on to “Cato” and their wondrous use of the word “smut” to define the series over and over. Parents also go on to complain how their children are reading Naruto with its few redeeming qualities.

To be fair, we here are not yet parents… but it is not all that far off in the future. They are going to be exposed to Dragon Ball at some point in their young lives, and it is not going to be too much of a problem for us. As we have noted before, this stuff always has been for kids and always will be. Is it just that our generation actually has a realistic perspective on media that is completely unmatched by anyone other than our own peers? Were the childhoods of these people so barren that they never said the word “poop” aloud, saw funny pictures, or read trashy stories (yes, even comic books) which their own parents could not understand the educational value of? We seriously wonder, sometimes, if these people forget what it was like to be a kid.

I asked my co-hosts on the podcast if we were making a bigger deal out of this story and giving it more attention than it should otherwise be given. The consensus was that once the “child pornography” card was played, all bets were off and the commentary was free to flow.

“Cato” has decided that the series is “smut”; I wonder what that makes us…? Well, regular visitors… you know where you can check in every day for the latest news, commentary, and multimedia for your favorite low-class smut from plenty of college-educated adults!

Namco-Bandai sent us over a couple gashapon this week in celebration of their upcoming domestic release of Revenge of King Piccolo (originally released in Japan as Tenka’ichi Dai-Bōken):

I reached out to our buddy Oldphan over at dragonballtoys.com to find out exactly what line these figures come from, etc. They are a part of the general Dragon Ball Collection series, and specifically the third line there-of. She also noted for us that it looks like the third series is of a little higher quality than the first two, and this is actually one of the few Grandpa Gohan figures ever made!

Revenge of King Piccolo is due out here in North America 20 October 2009. We look forward to reviewing the game solely because we are finally getting something other than a fighting game! Unfortunately for the game, its Famitsu scores (6/6/5/6 = 23/40) do not give it a great lead-in — we will give it a fair shake, though. Look forward to that review on the podcast (and hopefully written up on the website, as well) within the next couple weeks.

Following up on all the news and our podcast commentary, you may be interested in the third story posted on delmarvanow.com concerning the manga being pulled from the school library. This one, written by a different staff writer (Laura D’Alessandro) is certainly of a different tone. You can read for yourself, but we are happy to see the demonization and absolutely condemnation of the series has fallen to the wayside.

Library Director Tom Hehman said his staff is conducting an “internal reconsideration” of the series of graphic novels after one discovered in the Pittsville Elementary and Middle School library by a 9-year-old student earlier this week was found to contain nudity and sexual innuendo. Hehman expects the investigation to conclude next week.

Attention is given to the various ratings, classification by other libraries, and notoriety of the series worldwide.

There seems to be a large amount of head-scratching going on with regard to the release date of Raging Blast across Europe. Amazon UK is listing the “Limited Edition” version of the game (both on PS3 and 360) with a release date of 23 October 2009. However, the standard versions of the games (again, both on the PS3 and 360) seem to be set for 13 November 2009.

Meanwhile, Amazon Germany is listing both the “Limited Edition” and standard versions of the games on both consoles as all being available on 13 November 2009. This appears to be the release date for the rest of Europe, as well.

It seems the only clear release dates are 10 November 2009 for the US and 12 November 2009 for Japan, but at the same time, there are no clear details about “Limited Edition” versions for those territories…

Japanese buddy kei17 popped in with a new Jump page showcasing the all-new Super Saiyan 3 Vegeta as a playable character in the upcoming PS3 & Xbox 360 fighting game, Raging Blast:

This comes after the reveal of Super Saiyan 3 Broli also being a playable character in the game. The Super Saiyan 3 transformation is new for both of the characters, never having been reached in the series or movies before (though obviously not new for characters like Goku and Gotenks).