One of the original plans back when we first launched the “DVD Guide” on Daizenshuu EX was to detail all of the bonus materials included with each disc. This would have included on-disc extras, physical inclusions like cards, and additional notes on production aspects such as subtitle errors, etc. At the time this was a doable project: FUNimation had only been releasing DVDs for a couple years, and Dragon Ball Z DVDs typically had slim pickings in terms of these types of extras. It is laughably quaint to think about those times with yet another re-release of the series now in-print here in 2014.

ekx001 recently wrote in:

Regarding R1/FUNimation Dragon Ball Z DVD releases: Is there a comprehensive list of any/all inserts/promotional items included in the FUNimation DVD releases? Specifically, I was seeking information about DBZ CCG (?) promo cards included in DBZ Broly Movie.

While we unfortunately do not have as quite a comprehensive detailing of these DVDs as we had originally hoped and planned for, questions like these at least give us an opportunity to revisit this old material.

FUNimation’s original, single-disc, DVD version of Dragon Ball Z Movie 8 was released 26 August 2003 in an English-dubbed/edited-only format along with the standard uncut/bilingual format. Three promotional cards were indeed included inside the case (originally wrapped together in plastic):

Part of Score’s Dragon Ball Z collectible card game, the three cards were specifically labeled as “Movie 8 Promo” cards: BR1 (“Broly, the Calm”), BR2 (“Broly, Super Saiyan”), and BR3 (“Broly, Empowered”). As would be expected from the character, they all tie in to your anger and attack power in the card game.

The cards were the least interesting inclusion with the movie, however! Most on-disc extras with Dragon Ball Z DVDs from FUNimation were limited to things such as trailers for other series, the occasional merchandise commercial, and — most often, and generally on their own — previews for other Dragon Ball home releases. Movie 8 provided us with one of the best, most in-depth special features we have ever seen for the franchise, though: a behind-the-scenes look at the 2003 GameBoy Advance game Dragon Ball Z: The Legacy of Goku II.

The roughly-20-minutes-long special feature — introduced by FUNimation’s own Chris Sabat — takes the viewer into WebFoot Technologies, the developer of the various Legacy of Goku (and beyond) games, created under the supervision (at the time) of Atari. Everything from the original design documentation process to the sprite animations is discussed in surprisingly candid detail.

Perhaps one of the most amusing easter eggs is watching one of the staff members load up a debug version of the game on the VisualBoyAdvance emulator.

The Legacy of Goku II was released in North America in June 2003 (and was shockingly released in Japan as a “Reverse Import” under the title of The Legacy of Goku II: International the following year). Boo’s Fury (the third Legacy of Goku game in everything but name) was released a little over a year later, while Dragon Ball GT: Transformation would come a year after that. Despite this production schedule, it is apparent that Transformation was already in the early stages of at least brainstorming if not full-on pre-production as seen by the Dragon Ball GT reference sheets strewn about the office, clearly in the frame of the camera on multiple occasions.

There have been other fascinating — sometimes for the wrong reasons — “extras” on Dragon Ball home releases in the past, such as the “Goku vs. Vegeta” featurette on the first “Ultimate Uncut Edition” DVD, the various “remastering” behind-the-scenes videos, the “World of Dragon Ball Z” recap feature from the (TV broadcast) “Season 3” and “Season 4” days, and more. Some of these are being revived for FUNimation’s latest Blu-ray release of the series as archival bonus features. What were some of your favorites? What are some that were never actually produced that you wish could have been made back-in-the-day?