The official website for “Dragon Ball Online” finally has a few updates!
Good to see some developments, here! There are a couple screen shots up on the page, but then there is this:
Man, that is pretty sexy.
23 January 2008, 10:16 PM ESTComment
Nothing too special just yet, but now you can head on over to the official website for “Dragon Ball Z W Bakuretsu Impact”. It has the trailer for the game streaming at a nicer quality than the YouTube videos, so that is kinda neat.
23 January 2008, 9:10 PM ESTComment
After two whole months of waiting, Toei has finally unveiled the first two Dragon Ball GT individual disc covers. As with all the other releases, Discs #01 and #02 contain six episodes each, covering episodes 001 thru 012, and are slated to be released 06 February 2008. The official website for these releases has also gone up.
You can still order any of the previously released discs or any of these discs from Amazon Japan.
22 January 2008, 5:30 PM ESTComment
Let me preface this entire update by saying that it should not in any way be misconstrued as “news”; there is nothing factual about mere speculation. However, it has been on my mind as-of-late, and this website provides me with a great outlet to ramble to an audience!
Ignoring the frustrating PSP/PS2 –> Wii ports we have seen since the system came out, another recent trend has actually been to stay within the PlayStation family, and go directly from PSP –> PS2. Notable titles such as “Silent Hill Origins” and “Ratchet & Clank: Size Matters” are going to be making the jump/port from the PSP to the PS2. Why is this? Well, perhaps it is because other than the Nintendo DS (which only just took over), the PS2 is the system with the largest installed base in Japan — we are talking over 120 million systems. Furthermore, with games like “God of War 2” only just coming out last year, it is not like the PS2 is dying any time soon.
While the PS3 has been picking up steam over in the Land of the Rising Sun, the 360 remains the bastard step-child of gaming that no-one over there wants anything to do with (save a few “Halo 3” players, which are far from the norm). The PS3 has been picking up steam over here in the US, and the 360 has been strong since its launch… but it is still nowhere near the PS2’s asinine number of consoles (Hell, I have two: a JP and a US one!).
So let us think about this. The upcoming “Dragon Ball Z: Burst Limit” will be coming out exclusively on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. That may work in the US, but it will be a tougher sell in Japan… where the game is being developed. Additionally, it seems like it would be impossible to put this game out on either the Wii or PS2.
But what about the “Budokai” series? Dimps kept on going over on the PSP with the “Shin Budokai” series, and as we told you just a couple days ago, “Dragon Ball Z W Bakuretsu Impact” (while simply being a card-based arcade machine with no traditional fighting-game controls) is running on an upgraded “Budokai” game engine.
So… wouldn’t Namco-Bandai like to cash in on that PS2 audience…? Maybe some ports would not be such a bad idea…
21 January 2008, 10:24 PM ESTComment
Last December we passed along information that FUNimation was going to start putting out additional “remastered” DVD / Blu-ray releases of the Dragon Ball Z movies. Up until this point, there has still been no official announcement from FUNimation about these releases.
Check out ICv2’s interview with Gen Fukunaga, CEO of FUNimation. In addition to a lot of intriguing responses regarding things like piracy, fansubs, and season box set releases, we get the following quote:
This February we’re going to do the remastered Dragonball Z movies, several of those, which should be huge sellers for us.
There you go. It will certainly be interesting to see where the year takes us. If you still want to pick up some of the old FUNimation releases of the DBZ movies, RightStuf has a few left in-stock for about $5 a pop.
20 January 2008, 12:02 PM ESTComment
We all know that Dimps (developers of the “Dragon Ball Z / Budokai” series) have kept busy over the last several years creating some card-based fighting games in the arcade which are further based on their own “Budokai” game engine (and also games like “Shin Budokai” on the PSP). Well, it looks like a fourth entry in their card-based arcade series is coming soon, this time entitled “Dragon Ball Z W Bakuretsu Impact”. They have been releasing one of these every spring since 2006, and they do not appear to be slowing down any time soon.
A full promotional trailer, narrated by Masako Nozawa (as Goku), has been released. You will see some of the new graphical upgrades, new characters (#19, DBGT Goku, Pan, San Xing Long, Arale, etc.), and a whole lot more:
[pro-player width=’320′ height=’240′ type=’video’ image=’http://www.kanzenshuu.com/media/video/w_bakuretsu_impact_trailer.jpg’]http://www.kanzenshuu.com/media/video/w_bakuretsu_impact_trailer.flv[/pro-player]
If you are not sure how these games work, there are not any typical joysticks or buttons like a traditional fighting game setup — everything is controlled via the Carddass materials (read: cards) that you swipe. For those who really dug the “Budokai” games, it is kinda sad to see a game that is so heavily upgraded from “Budokai 3” but you cannot actually control anything your own.
Yes, these games are primarily played by little school-children — that is an image of one of the games from a couple years ago, but it should give you a pretty good idea, none-the-less.
20 January 2008, 12:53 AM ESTComment
Episode #0112 of the podcast is available for download! Julian went incognito for another week, so we took it upon ourselves to get those subtitles working with our copy of the first DragonBall movie from the Dragon Box, invited Jeff over for a little more torture, and reviewed the movie! It’s almost like a “Manga Review of Awesomeness”, except it’s a movie. Definitely check it out.
SHOW DESCRIPTION:
Episode #0112! VegettoEX, Meri, and Jeff review a self-subtitled version of the very first DragonBall movie. Is it worth watching? Are American fans missing out on anything? Julian’s nowhere to be found, so Mike continues answering Japanese questions all on his own, and we keep plugging our 10th anniversary contest.
REFERENCED SITES:
- Atari Announces “Burst Limit” @ Atari
- “DragonBall Z: Burst Limit” Website @ Bandai-Namco
- “Jump Stars” Nintendo Power Scan @ Daizenshuu EX
- James Marsters Talks DB Movie @ Toon Zone
- Justin Chatwin & Press Introduction Videos @ Kotaku
- “DragonBall Inconsistencies” Video 2 @ YouTube
- “Goku Died On Planet Namek” Rumor @ Daizenshuu EX
- DBGT R2 DVD Vols. 1 & 2 @ Amazon Japan
18 January 2008, 1:07 PM ESTComment
I have decided to start up a little feature here to keep us all entertained, and will be calling it “From The Past Friday”. Why is that? Well, I am going to be sharing some digital gold from the past each Friday for the next couple of weeks!
Let us go back to the year 2000 (insert “In the year two-thousaaaaand!” joke here). FUNimation had been going strong with seasons three and four of the Dragon Ball Z TV series on Cartoon Network, and decided it was time to go back to the original Dragon Ball TV series, which they abandoned in 1995 after a mere 13 episodes.
Their plan was to re-dub those 13 episodes and go onwards from there, hopefully completing the entire series. Needless to say, they managed to do so. The big deal at the time was, of course, voice replacements. Any dub fans at the time were certainly used to the original Ocean Studios cast, both for DB and for DBZ (remember that DBZ season three only had just started up in late 1999). Not only had they replaced the DBZ TV cast, but it was time to replace the DB TV cast. Sure, some voices would carry over from the new in-house cast (Yamcha, Bulma, etc.) but there were some that would not. Who would go back and do Pilaf? Who would go back and do Goku?
What FUNimation did was pretty interesting — they threw up some MP3 voice samples on their website and actually asked the fans what they wanted! For the next couple weeks, I will be sharing some of these voice samples with you. Even though I have watched literally perhaps two minutes of dubbed DB (and these samples are not exactly convincing me to do otherwise), it is certainly interesting to take a listen to these and see where they may have taken the characters.
First up this week will be Shuu (or “Shao”). I am presenting the MP3s exactly as they were — no additional tagging has been made, no re-encoding has been done, etc.
Shuu/Shao Potential Voice #1 (309 KB)
Shuu/Shao Potential Voice #2 (327 KB)
Shuu/Shao Potential Voice #3 (295 KB)
Shuu/Shao Potential Voice #4 (301 KB)
Interesting stuff, huh? Next week we will listen in to the potential Pilaf voices! Unfortunately, I do not seem to have the Goku voice files saved anywhere. If any other digital kleptos from back-in-the-day happen to have them saved, I would love to share them. Obviously there were both Stephanie Nadolny and Ceyli Delgadillo in the mix, but I do not remember if the other two were actually other voice actresses, or just alternate character voices by them (like you will hear with Shuu and Pilaf).
16 January 2008, 11:20 PM ESTComment
Toon Zone has a little bite from “TV Guide” where James Masters (who plays Piccolo in the upcoming American live action Dragon Ball movie) briefly mentions the series:
Oh, Dragonball is the coolest television cartoon in the last 50,000 years. It’s got a Shakespearean sense of good and evil. The movie has incredible action scenes with characters with unbelieveable powers. It’s going to be really visually exciting.
16 January 2008, 5:34 PM ESTComment
We have certainly learned a couple extremely important things from Atari’s latest press release:
- Donny Clay still has a job.
- They are not changing the title (“Burst Limit”).
- They think they will still be around later this year.
Here is the full scoop:
NEW YORK, Jan. 16 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ — Atari, Inc. one of the world’s most recognized brands and a third-party video game publisher and distributor, today announced that Dragon Ball Z(R): Burst Limit is in development for Xbox 360(R) video game and entertainment system from Microsoft and PLAYSTATION(R)3 computer entertainment system. Exploding into the next level of intensity with next-gen graphics, online gameplay and lightening fast action, Dragon Ball Z: Burst Limit is being developed by NAMCO BANDAI Games Inc. and is slated for a 2008 release.
Dragon Ball Z: Burst Limit is revolutionizing the series by entering the realm of next-generation gaming. Complete with fierce online battles and radical 3D graphic effects only possible on Xbox 360 and PLAYSTATION 3 system, Dragon Ball Z: Burst Limit will blur the line between video game and iconic anime series. Jam-packed with graphically enhanced playable characters, realistic battle stages and environments, players can take hold and experience Dragon Ball Z(R) as never before.
“Atari is excited and ready to offer fans the next iteration of the Dragon Ball Z video game series on the next-gen consoles,” said Donny Clay, Producer, Atari, Inc. “With explosive cinematic graphics and online gameplay, fans of the series and of the fighting genre will surely enjoy Dragon Ball Z: Burst Limit.”
The immensely popular Dragon Ball Z(R) series is the gold standard of anime-based video games, with more than 30 different games and over 11 million units sold since May 2002.
Pretty awesome. Let us keep our fingers crossed that the new opening theme (“Kiseki no Honō yo Moeagare!!”) remains intact, whatever the BGM is remains intact, and we keep those selectable Japanese voices.