In addition to the previously-announced “Parents and Children Play Together! Mightiest Battle Goods, Round 1” items at KFC in Japan, the food outlet is going all-in with a new series of promotions.

Starting Thursday, 28 February 2013, KFC restaurants nationwide will begin a Dragon Ball Z promotion which will involve the selling of five different meals or packs that will come with a bottle with a glowing cap called “Hikaru! Dragon Bottle” with eight kinds of bottles in all. On a limited basis, they will also be selling “complete packs” with all eight included in one collection.

Seven of the bottles have a Dragon Ball (One-Star through Seven-Star Ball) as the cap, while the remaining one has a cap modeled after Goku’s hair as a Super Saiyan. The bottles themselves are made of aluminum and have a character from the upcoming film, Dragon Ball Z: Battle of Gods, on the side.

• “Hikaru! Dragon Bottle Mightiest Pack A” includes two pieces of Original Chicken, two pieces of “Colonel’s Crispy”, large French Fries, and one bottle
• “Hikaru! Dragon Bottle Mightiest Pack B” includes five pieces of Original Chicken, large fries, and one Dragon Bottle
• “Hikaru! Dragon Bottle Mightiest Meal C” includes one piece of Original Chicken, large fries, and one Dragon Bottle
• “Hikaru! Dragon Bottle Mightiest Meal S” has one Chicken Filet Sandwich, large fries, and one Dragon Bottle
• While supplies last, a “Complete Pack” will be available with all eight Dragon Bottles and an exclusive box alongside 6-piece Original Chicken

Prior to that, beginning 07 February 2013, KFC will introduce plastic takeout bags with a Son Goku design on them.

In addition, seven locations around Japan will have their statue of Colonel Sanders dressed in Goku’s dōgi, with each of them also holding a different Dragon Ball, starting 15 February 2013:

• Abeno Q’s Mall in Osaka
• Sapporo Esta in Hokkaido
• Sendai Station (changed from THE MALL Sendai Nagamachi) in Miyagi Prefecture
• Ebisu Station in Tokyo
• Sakae (Nagoya) in Aichi Prefecture
• Tenjin Southern-dōri (changed from Canal City Hakata) (Fukuoka) in Fukuoka Prefecture
• San-A Main Place in Okinawa

Starting 28 February 2013, if you “Like” KFC Japan’s Facebook page, you will have access to a “which character are you?”-style Facebook app where, by answering some basic questions, you will get one of 30 responses. You can do it as many times as you want.

Between 28 February 2013 and 24 April 2013, if you buy one of the Dragon Bottle meals or one of the Dragon Ball toy Smile Sets, you will get a stamp. Collect seven stamps, and you can be entered in a chance to win one of 777 sets that include a “Dragon Radar”-shaped detector item and seven Dragon Ball keychains that react by sounding a buzzer when the detector is brought close. At the same time, if you are one of the first 200 people to submit your seven stamps at a given KFC location, you will be given a free Battle of Gods poster — it is specifically noted as a “KFC Original Poster”, but the image provided is just of the theatrical poster.

Dragon Ball has not seen promotion like this in quite a while, with one of the last toy pushes in Japan back in 2008 at McDonald’s. We cannot wait to see what else is coming our way in 2013!

The promotion for the 30 March 2013 release of the new theatrical film, Dragon Ball Z: Battle of Gods, is hitting full stride. The movie was featured on this morning’s episode of Mezamashi TV, a news/magazine show in Japan. In the short feature, Fuji TV announcer Shin’ichi Karube is revealed to have a bit part in the new movie.

On what appears to have been the same day as the “open recording” with Shōko Nakagawa and Kaori Matsumoto, Karube went in and met with director Masahiro Hosoda, who showed him his character (not vetted by Toriyama, apparently). As they get set to record, he follows the director back into the control booth, where Hosoda comments on him being a “complete amateur”. His line, in the clip, is simply, “it’s called ‘sushi'”. Similar to Matsumoto, his character is based on his own appearance, and the knot on his headband looks like a bow tie. Afterwards, he has a Kamehameha-off with Matsumoto to see who can produce the greater ki — Matsumoto wins. He asks her how she would win if she were fighting against Goku, and she says that in the instant he fired a Kamehameha, she would dodge it and then do a one-armed shoulder throw (ippon-zeoi)… though Goku would be disqualified by using an outside object (that being the Kamehameha).

The spotlight also gives us a quick glimpse at some other scenes in the movie with animatics of Vegeta being hit, a fully-animated shot of Matumoto’s police officer character, and more.

Big thanks to our buddy kei17 for providing us with full coverage of the spotlight.

A recent “open recording” event for press was held in Japan promoting the voice performances of Olympic gold-medalist jūdō-ka Kaori Matsumoto and voice actress/singer/TV-personality Shōko Nakagawa with some of their lines from the upcoming theatrical presentation, Dragon Ball Z: Battle of Gods, set to debut in Japan 30 March 2013. The two were announced to be playing bit parts in the movie earlier this month.

Mainichi Shimbun Digital posted an abbreviated version of the session:

At the beginning of this particular clip, Nakagawa says that she is so happy she is in tears, but she will do her best anyway. They play back her lines (opposite “Birusu”), then she does them a few times. What appears to be the voice director (at least in this example video) tells her to do it one more time, then again, but cuter.

A similar video was posted by Movie Collection with more material:

Matsumoto’s line is, “Again? Are they setting off extra-large fireworks or something at Capsule Corporation?” The voice director (or whoever it is that is in charge and talking to her) asks her to do it again with more energy. Nakagawa’s advice to her is, “like you’ve raised your Battle Power to the max”. Next up is Nakagawa, and here (as in the other video), she says she is so happy she is in tears, but she will do her best as-is. The exact exchange of dialog, pulling from the two video sources above, comes out to:

BIRUSU: “Oracle Fish! Oracle Fish, are you here?”
ORACLE FISH: “[lots of weird warbling] … I was out for a stroll. What is it?”
BIRUSU: “39 years ago, you said that, 39 years hence, a strong enemy would appear before me.”
ORACLE FISH: “Did I say that?”
BIRUSU: “You did, didn’t you?”
ORACLE FISH: “Hmm… then, I said it!”

After the recording is a joint interview with Masako Nozawa. Someone asks Nakagawa how it was, and she says “I can’t stop crying today, I’m just too happy. The greatest miracle in my life has occurred.” The actress goes into a long spiel about how she has always gained courage and strength from the series, and how becoming an adult, and leafing through the pages of Jump, and seeing the announcement, and then to think she was called upon, etc. — the basic amount of incredible joy one might expect. Nakagawa continues (mirroring her official statement from earlier in the month):

Just to think I’d be in the same universe as Trunks, Goku, and Vegeta, breathing the same air, I really couldn’t sleep, so I did the recording without getting any sleep, but it’s a dream come true, I thought it was a fantasy, but today, I actually got to meet you, Nozawa-san, and I’m so happy, I… [incoherent blubbering]

As for the Oracle Fish, she did not want her voice to be recognizable:

… as far as Dragon Ball is concerned, I felt that a voice recognizable as “Shoko-tan” would be something fans would really dislike, so I tried a bunch of different voices in order not to give a “Shoko-tan” feeling, and finally I got the director’s OK, so I’m really looking forward to the movie.

Nozawa says it is her second time performing together with Nakagawa; the previous time was all right, but this time, with the power in her voice, and the way she broke into a cute voice, was good and not at all Shoko-tan-like.

A reporter asks how Matsumoto feels about having participated in recording, since she likes Goku:

MATSUMOTO: “I’m incredibly happy, but I don’t show much emotion, apart from matches…”
NOZAWA: “That’s fine, as long as you show it then.”
NAKAGAWA: “The moment you won the medal, did you use the Kaiō-ken? Like, times 20, or 30?”
MATSUMOTO: “I did it with the power of this world.”

Nakagawa was then asked if she had any special requests for Masako Nozawa:

NAKAGAWA: “Re- request? Um… well, could you say, ‘Heya, Shoko-tan!’ and then something like Goku would say?”
NOZAWA: “All right. ‘Heya, Shoko-tan! Wanna go get some grub with me?'”
NAKAGAWA: “YES I WILL! I can’t believe it! I’m terribly sorry, making such an extravagant request in front of all of you… and I think I’ve peed myself.”

The event wraps up with a triple-Kamehameha and a final remark from Nakagawa of, “Uwaa! My scouter just broke! That was the greatest…”

Big thanks to our various forum members for the heads-up!

UPDATE: In addition to the above videos, a new article on the Japanese website “CinemaToday” contains a small gallery of promotional photographs from the recording session. In the last few photos Matsumoto is holding a cutout of the police office modeled after herself, while Nakagawa is holding a scepter-like figure of the “Oracle Fish”, giving us a first glimpse at their respective characters.

A new update to the Dragon Ball Kai portion of the Miracle Battle Carddass series is on its way: the “MIRACLE OF GOD” booster pack will bring Battle of Gods into the on-going card game starting 12 April 2013 in Japan.

月30日公開の映画新登場! 新キャラ最速参戦! 映画でも活躍するキャラたちがブーストキラで登場! 限定キャンペーンカード収録!

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Appearing for the first time in the movie opening March 30! New characters join the battle at top speed! Characters that also have a role to play in the movie appear as “boost kira”! Limited-edition campaign card included!

In total for the new update, there will be 77 cards, plus six super-omega and one limited-edition. 45 cards of the total kinds are common, 10 are uncommon, nine are rare, six are super-rare, six are super-omega-rare, and seven are “boost kira cards”.

Booster pack boxes are currently available for pre-order on both CDJapan and Amazon Japan, with the former offering a special price of ¥3,600 down from the ¥4,200 tax-inclusive MSRP. Each box contains 20 packs of eight cards each, with the obvious note that you are not guaranteed to receive all of the set’s cards simply by purchasing a box.

The Miracle Battle Carddass series is one that spans five Jump franchises: Dragon Ball (still under the Kai brand), Toriko, One Piece, Hunter × Hunter, and Naruto. The game features “Character”, “Action”, and “Dramatic” cards, and the player’s mana (to use the terminology of one well-known collectible card game) is called “Jumpower”.

The Carddass brand goes back many years with Dragon Ball — Bandai celebrated the duo’s 20th anniversary back in 2008 with a two-part special re-release package.

Though the two brands do cross over from time to time, Miracle Battle Carddass cards are not interoperable with Dragon Ball Heroes cards and their respective arcade machines.