Siliconera has an interesting article this morning detailing a couple recent trademark filings from Namco-Bandai that may be Dragon Ball-related.

First up is “Ultimate Butôden” (アルティメット武闘伝), which would be a clear toss back to the Super Butōden series of games on the Super Famicom, and as the Siliconera article correctly notes, a series that concluded with Shin Butōden on the Sega Saturn (a re-vamped version of the PlayStation’s Ultimate Battle 22 with some of the older games’ aspects brought back, such as split-screen).

The second is “ZENKAI Battle Royale” (ZENKAIバトルロワイアル). Unfortunately, the article’s author makes a standard misstep by stating that “zenkai” is a “Saiyan-only power”, presumably the technique used by Saiyans to power-up after recovering from near-death. Never in the entire series is the word used this way (transformed from a verb into a proper noun). Much like “USSJ”, the word “zenkai” in this instance is just a halfway-incorrect fan term. That being said, the word is certainly used in the title of the first closing theme to the Dragon Ball Z TV series, but it not a word specific to just Dragon Ball.

By my admittedly-poor Japanese trademark searching skills, I do not see the Dragon Ball franchise’s name specifically attached to either of these filings. They are coming from Namco-Bandai, however, which at least hints in that direction combined with the words’ prior use with the franchise. Will we finally return to a multi-developer, multi-game cycle on the consoles? This is definitely something we will keep an eye on!