American spin-off cover band Animetal USA is gearing up for their debut live performance at Anime Expo later this month, as well as the domestic release of their self-titled album (originally released last October in Japan). This domestic release is set to include all of the original pressing’s tracks, along with a few bonus tracks stemming from their recent second album in Japan, Animetal USA W.

Their first album — the one due out here in the USA on 26 June 2012 — contains a cover of the first Dragon Ball TV series’ opening theme, “Makafushigi Adobenchā!” (“Mystical Adventure!”), which is available for free streaming over on the band’s official website.

The new album in Japan contains a “Dragon Ball Medley” track, itself a combination of the two Dragon Ball Z TV series’ opening themes, “CHA-LA HEAD-CHA-LA” and “We Gotta Power”.

The band — an off-shoot of the original Japanese cover band — describes themselves as a “metal super group”, an appropriate phrase with members having stints in bands like Quiet Riot, Whitesnake, Slayer, and more.

The original Japanese Animetal band has also covered Dragon Ball songs in the past, including both “Makafushigi Adobenchā!” and “CHA-LA HEAD-CHA-LA”.

California-based Anime Expo has announced Ryō Horikawa — whom our audience will likely best know as the voice of Vegeta — as a Guest of Honor for their upcoming convention, which will take place in Los Angeles from June 29th to July 2nd.

For the record, all of the mistakes in the press release below as from the original version — it is tough to not point out the various punctuation mistakes, never mind the hilariously-incorrect naming of the Dragon Ball Kai insert song “Saiyan Blood” as “Saiyan Brad” (a song which has since been wiped entirely from the show due to it being composed by Kenji Yamamoto).

Anime Expo 2012 Welcomes “Dragon Ball Z” Voice Actor Ryo Horikawa As An Official Guest of Honor

LOS ANGELES (June 4, 2012) – Anime Expo (AX), North America’s largest anime, manga, and Japanese pop culture celebration, today announced legendary voice actor Ryo Horikawa as an Official Guest of Honor when it returns to the Los Angeles Convention Center from June 29 – July 2, 2012.

Best known for the voice of Vegeta in “Dragon Ball Z,” Ryo Horikawa has been performing in movie and TV dramas since grade-school. He has over 28 years experience as an voice actor and over 45 years experience as an actor. His other credits include, “Saint Seiya” (Andromeda Shun); “Detective Conan” (Hattori Heiji); “Legend of Galactic Heroes” (Reinhard); “Mobile Suit Gundam 0083: Stardust Memory” (Kou Uraki( and “Yū Yū Hakusho” (Karasu).

In addition to using his acting talents in animation, Horikawa frequently works on stage, in voice drama, games and other mediums. He is also a singer and his latest tune is the theme song “Saiyan Brad” of Dragon Ball kai. As an AX Guest of Honor, he will participate in a meet-and-greet, autograph signing and focus panel.

Ryo Horikawa joins the previously announced Anime Expo 2012 line-up that includes composer Yuki Kajiura/”FictionJunction;” anime-inspired heavy metal band ANIMETAL USA; Culture Japan’s Danny Choo; Fate/Zero” creative team Hikaru Konda, Ei Aoki and Rikiya Koyama; animation director Tatsuo Sato; voice actors Nobuhiko Okamoto, Jamie Marchi, Monica Rial and Steve Blum; Japanese pop star LiSA, Lolita fashion designer Cyril Lumboy, Lolita model Misako Aoki and the Gallery of Fantastic Art.

About Anime Expo

Now in its 21st year, Anime Expo is North America’s larges celebration of anime, manga and Japanese pop culture. Anime Expo gives fans the rare opportunity to meet and hear from some of the most famous anime, manga, musical, game, and fashion artitsts from Japan. AX 2012 will feature and exciting schedule of exclusive screenings; artists’ panels; live concerts; cosplay; dance parties, karaoke, and video competitions; non-stop video gaming and unsurpassed shopping from more than 3,000 vendors. AX 2012 takes place June 29-July 2, 2012 at the Los Angeles Convention Center. To register or for more information, please visit www.anime-expo.org. Connect with Anime Expo on Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube.

About the Society for the Promotion of Japanese Animation

The Society for the Promotion of Japanese Animation (SPJA) is a non-profit organization whose mission is to popularize and educate the America public about anime and manga, as well as provide a forum to facilitate communication between professionals and fans. This organization is more popularly known by its entertainment property, Anime Expo®. For more information, please visit www.spja.org

Horkiawa released a voice acting coach DVD, Seiyu ni Naro Voice Acting Studio, back in 2009 — we reviewed it briefly back on Episode #0205 of our podcast.

Earlier this week, the official website for Zenkai Battle Royale, the arcade-only, multiplayer fighting game in Japan, announced an upcoming update for the game coming in July: Super Saiyan Awakening (Sūpā Saiya-jin Kakusei):

Four of these Super Saiyans will be added as “new characters”: Goku, Vegeta, Gohan, and Trunks. In addition to being able to enjoy a deep single player mode, the battle system has evolved and will allow you to to get into even more intense fights. Some of the elements noted are that:

• you can experience “that story” (with a screenshot of Vegeta and Nappa);
• the “matching class evaluation system” has also improved;
• and there are fights to level up.

There are apparently a lot of other new elements coming to the game, but the announcement (of course) says to wait for further information.

Zenkai Battle Royale has continued to receive consistent updates since its original test launch in December 2010 — Mr. Satan and Majin Boo were both added as playable characters just last month.

Tying in with various Dragon Ball Heroes updates (and eventually Episode of Bardock), last summer Shueisha announced a Dragon Ball Z Special Selection DVD which would contain both the Bardock and Trunks TV Specials on DVD at an incredibly reduced price (¥1000). The disc came in larger packaging typical of convenience-store-esque cheap items, and brought the two TV Specials to an individual disc for the first time ever in Japan, having only previous been available as extras on each of the two Dragon Box releases for the Dragon Ball Z TV series.

It seems Shueisha is teaming up with Toei again for another Special Selection release at an appealing price, this time with the Jump Super HEROES Special Selection DVD Vol. 1:

The product will span six different franchises, presenting the first episodes from Dragon Ball, Hokuto no Ken, Saint Seiya, Slam Dunk, Dr. Slump, and Kinnikuman. The DVD will only run you ¥1200, and is available today (25 May 2012) in Japan — it is up for order on both CDJapan and Amazon Japan.

If this is “Vol. 1”, perhaps we can expect some additional “Special Selection” DVDs in the future? Maybe the first episodes from various “sequel” series like the second Dr. Slump from 1997, Dragon Ball GT, etc.? We will stay on the lookout!

Thanks to sumpter360 for the heads-up!

As per the norm, the European branch of Namco-Bandai is pumping out new trailers for their upcoming Dragon Ball games ahead of both Japan and North America! This time around, Dragon Ball Z for Kinect is featured with its QR code functionality, which was revealed back during the game’s original announcement:

Over 20 QR codes will be made available through various means, which will allow for new characters and power-ups.

(It is a shame they reverted on the “Saiyan” pronunciation in the trailer! Oh, well…)

UPDATE: It seems fandom got a bum steer on this one. The sources listed below grabbed the news per the usual cycle and locations (text descriptions of upcoming magazines 3-5 days before release on Japanese chat/image boards), but it was unfortunately all just a ruse on the part of one Japanese fan, most likely taking advantage of the confusion over the supposed Dragon Ball Z HD (Collection). Additionally, it seems said fan has been trying the Sparking! OMEGA name for several years at this point, and just happened to get it to stick this time around. Needless to say, there is absolutely nothing about the supposed game in this month’s issue of V-Jump (or its monthly website refresh), which is now officially on Japanese shelves.

Andriasang and Siliconera are both reporting that the upcoming issue of V-Jump (2012 Issue #7, on sale 21 May 2012) will reveal Sparking! OMEGA for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. The game is apparently set to have the largest cast ever and will be available this winter.

Coming off a three-game Dragon Ball Z (Budokai) series for the PlayStation 2 (and Gamecube for the first two games) developed by Dimps, Dragon Ball Z: Sparking! was originally announced and released for the PlayStation 2 back in 2005, released internationally as Budokai Tenkaichi, as developed by Spike. The sequel, Sparking! NEO (Budokai Tenkaichi 2), was released the next year and eventually also made its way to the Wii, including a few extra characters in its Japanese and European incarnations. The final Sparking!-proper games in the series, Sparking! METEOR (Budokai Tenkaichi 3) was released simultaneously for the PlayStation 2 and Wii in 2007, featuring just under 170 distinct character forms to play as (running the gamut from Super Saiyan 4 Gogeta to nameless Freeza Solder).

The series received a reboot of sorts when the “next generation of Sparking!” was released as Raging Blast for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 in 2009. The following year saw Raging Blast 2 (with its included special feature, Plan to Eradicate the Super Saiyans), while this past October saw the release of Ultimate Blast (Ultimate Tenkaichi), a re-skinned version of the games with simplified controls and a character creation story mode. Along the way, TAG VS (Tenkaichi Tag Team) was released for the PSP in 2010 featuring tag-team battles and a control scheme more similar to the original Sparking! games.

It will be interesting to see how a Sparking!-proper game will be handled. The shift to Raging Blast on the current generation of consoles also shifted the control scheme significantly enough, changing up the implementation of super moves from button combinations including the triggers, a directional button, and an action button to simply knocking the right analog stick in one of four directions. Additionally, all three of the Sparking! games and all three of the Blast games in Japan received a musical score with newly-synthesized versions of the original Shunsuke Kikuchi score from Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z (along with a couple key pieces from Dragon Ball GT, movie, and insert songs) — the international releases of the games all received replacement soundtracks.

This is all in addition to the confirmed Dragon Ball Z for Kinect due out this October, and the nebulous Dragon Ball Z HD (Collection) floating around international retailer sites, the latter of which may or may not be related to the Sparking! series in some way. Maybe we will finally have that Battle of Omega that many fans have been waiting for…?