August 31st is a day many folks from today’s generation of fans will remember back in 1998 — it was the day that Dragon Ball Z began airing on Cartoon Network.

However, August 31st of 2003 is a day of much brighter prospects. According to Anime Nation, Pioneer has announced that their distribution license to Dragon Ball Z will expire on this day.

Pioneer has officially alerted retailers that their distribution license to Dragonball Z will expire on August 31st. As of August 31, the first 3 Dragonball Z movies on DVD, and the first 17 Dragonball Z TV series DVDs will go out of print. FUNimation has already announced plans to remaster and re-release uncut, uncensored DVD versions of the first 17 TV series DVDs probably next year, but there’s been no word yet on the status of the first 3 movies.

So there we are — there is finally an official date that Pioneer’s license runs out. Now, if we could only get an expiration date on KidMark’s distribution license for the original Dragon Ball…