After some time, the listing on Happinet’s official release website has finally been updated with the upcoming Kai Blu-ray and DVD releases. We have known for quite a while now that there would be 33 DVDs and 8 Blu-ray box sets, but now they have unloaded tons of new information via their website and a press release to distributors. They will now be classifying releases by arc rather than a continuous numerical count from 1 to 33 (DVD) or 1 to 8 (Blu-ray). This makes sense if you consider that they stuck a 5th disc onto Blu-ray box set #04 to finish out the Freeza arc of the series.

The previously announced Blu-ray box sets have now been re-titled as box sets #01-04 of the “Artificial Humans and Cell arc”, and the same has been done with DVDs #19-33. They are also now listing all of the release dates up through August 2011. Along with the update came some beautiful new artwork from Tadayoshi Yamamuro, which is being used as the new place holder image on various retail sites.

The episode count has also been updated from the “planned” 99 episodes down to a solid 98 episodes. However, with episodes 55-98 being released under the “Artificial Humans and Cell arc” title, we can infer that the Majin Boo arc would begin with episode 99. The series, which was originally rumored to only have around 100 episodes, would indeed be going much farther past that mark to include the entirety of Dragon Ball Z — a rough estimate would now put the series at somewhere around 140-150 episodes. In addition, since these two arcs comprise 44 episodes, each Blu-ray box set will now contain 11 episodes instead of the typical 12 as was previously done with the first portion of the series. The last disc of each Blu-ray box set will only contain 2 episodes, while the others will again contain 3. Similarly, the last DVD volume will also only contain 2 episodes.

The listing on CD Journal states that the Dragon Book included in the first “Artificial Humans and Cell arc” Blu-ray box set will contain another interview with a cast member, and an interview with Team Dragon (AKB48), the group responsible for Kai‘s new ending theme. It will also come with a non-credit version of both the new opening and ending animations that premiered in Kai episode 55. The first “Artificial Humans and Cell arc” Blu-ray box set and DVD are due out 02 October 2010. The Blu-ray box set will run you a pretty ¥14,679 (~$168), which is a tad cheaper than before due to having one less episode, while the DVD is staying at the standard ¥2,940 (~$30).

It will be interesting to see if the cover designs for both releases will change at all. The Blu-ray box sets in the first portion of the series were printed in a light blue, and when placed side-by-side on your shelf, the spines combined to form the light blue kanji for Kai (改). I imagine they will stick with the same design, but simply change the color to clearly distinguish between the different portions of the series. We could probably also insinuate that the DVD colors will change from red to royal blue, as that is what happened on Happinet’s site, but that may be a bit of a stretch. The one thing we do know is that Tadayoshi Yamamuro will continue to provide the artwork, so do not plan on that changing anytime soon!

Thanks to both Desire Campbell and Dan_the_Rebirth for their image help.