The “Jump Victory Carnival” event is underway this weekend in Tokyo and many Japanese Dragon Ball fans have been tweeting out pictures of a flyer being handed out to attendees for the upcoming Dragon Ball Z movie. The artwork is the same as that used on the movie’s official “teaser” website, with the front of the flyer featuring Son Goku and the back showcasing Shenlong, along with a reprint of author Akira Toriyama’s initial comments about the movie. The only new piece of information is inconspicuously tucked away in the lower right-hand corner of the front of the flyer, listing veteran animator Tadayoshi Yamamuro as the movie’s director.

Earlier today, Japanese entertainment news website Oricon had reported the same:

監督は、アニメ『ドラゴンボール』シリーズの作画監督を長年務めた山室直儀氏が務める。

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Serving as director will be Tadayoshi Yamamuro, who worked for many years as an animation supervisor for the “Dragon Ball” anime series.

With Tadayoshi Yamamuro becoming Toei Animation’s “go-to guy” for anything Dragon Ball-related in the past, including acting as the character designer and chief animation supervisor for Battle of Gods, it is unclear what will be happening with the animation supervisor position for this film. More than likely it will be filled by another animator, as opposed to having Yamamuro perform both roles, but nothing has been officially announced as of yet. Yamamuro has previously only provided direction for the opening and ending animations in Dragon Ball Kai, so it will be interesting to see how he adapts to a much larger, and more important, project such as this.

Thanks to JacobYBM for forwarding the Oricon article onto us!

Though the company registered “dragonball2015.com” in the early hours back on the 15th, Toei Animation has opened an official website for the upcoming new Dragon Ball Z movie at “d2015gw.com“.

The website, whose debut is no doubt in conjunction with this week’s September 2014 issue of V-Jump (which contains the first official reveal for the movie), currently features an opening splash with an ominous message:

史上最悪の願い。それは、絶望の始まり。

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The worst wish in history. That is the beginning of despair.

Additionally, the page refreshes to the same image of Goku as seen in the magazine reveals:

The website features little else, other than production information attributed to the generic “2015 Dragon Ball Z Production Committee” and the “GW” in the URL and page text referring to an expected opening during “Golden Week” in 2015.

The new film’s story will be crafted by original manga author Akira Toriyama, who stated he is writing it, “…as though it were a continuation of the manga when it was in serialization,” and that while it will, “…of course be a continuation of the previous Battle of Gods,” he has also, “…deliberately increased the amount of action scenes by a good deal.”

An article on Natalie also announces the new film.

Thanks to DongHyun for the heads-up.

With the impending “official announcement” of a new Dragon Ball Z movie coming this weekend in both V-Jump and Weekly Shōnen Jump, Toei has been hard at work creating the new movie’s official website. On 15 July 2014, mere hours after news of the movie first broke online, Toei acquired the dragonball2015.com domain and shortly thereafter updated it with the message “coming soon”. As of this post the website is currently locked down, requiring a password to gain access, presumably so it can be updated without the prying eyes of the internet. However, the page’s code is still viewable, and many fans took note of a metadata image hidden within the page’s code that will appear when the site is linked to on various social media networks, such as Facebook.

The illustration itself appears to be the movie’s official promotional artwork, as it is the same one being used for the official announcements in V-Jump and Weekly Shōnen Jump. The top of this promotional image appears to contain the movie’s tagline:

全宇宙待望。神次元バトル、開戦。

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The Whole Universe Has Been Waiting. A Godly Dimension of Battle Begins.

The tagline is chock full of wordplay, which can be somewhat misleading. In this case the 神 (shin; read as “godly”) is a pun on something “new” and 次元 (jigen; read as “dimension”) can also be interpreted as a synonym for “scale”, giving us an indication that the battle, and possibly even the movie itself, will be on a “new level” (not necessarily that it’s taking place in a “new/godly dimension”). You’ll also notice that this is very similar in character to the original taglines used for Battle of Gods, which was 最強、始動。(“The mightiest make their move.” — or perhaps in light of the plot revealed later on, “The Strongest Stirs.”), followed by 全人類待望。かつてない興奮へー。 (“All Humanity Has Been Waiting. Toward an Unprecedented Excitement–.”).

The movie is still yet unnamed, which was also the case back in 2012 with the lead-up to Battle of Gods, and is simply being referred to as “Dragon Ball Z”. No exact premiere date has been set yet, but the movie is slated to open during Japan’s “Golden Week” in 2015. As with Battle of Gods, original author Akira Toriyama will once again be providing the original concept, writing the script, and drawing character designs. The official website will more than likely go live to the public this weekend when the aforementioned Jump anthologies hit store shelves, so stayed tuned!

Thanks to Avenged and JacobYBM for the heads up about this!