Following up on their website for ZENKAI Battle Royale from just a few days ago, Namco-Bandai has just opened up the official website for next February’s DS fighting game, Dragon Ball Kai: Ultimate Butōden:

www.bandaigames.channel.or.jp/list/ds_dragonball_kai/

There are a couple screen shots of the game seen before in Jump, but we are probably only just getting going with the information overload. If the opening page is any indication, the game will span the length of the full, original Dragon Ball Z series.

This past weekend’s episode 82 of Dragon Ball Kai featured a new insert song: “Tatta Hitori no Senshi” (“The Lone Warrior”), performed by Takeshi Kusao, who happens to be the voice actor of Trunks. The song recently appeared on the new album Dragon Ball Kai Soundtrack III & Songs, though there was no hint that it would eventually end up in the show — while many vocal songs from the first Dragon Ball Kai Song Collection ended up being used in the show, just as many remained image songs relegated to disc-only status.

The song played during Trunks’ fight with Cell after powering up to the third stage of the standard Super Saiyan form. Incidentally, the title “Tatta Hitori no Senshi” was originally used as the title for the special chapter in the manga showcasing Trunks and his future timeline.

The last insert songs to be used in Kai were back in episode 41 when both “Saiyan Blood” and “Super Ultra Dragon Soul” were used. Trunks is no stranger to insert songs, though, previously having both “Battle Point Unlimited” (episode 120) and “Mind Power …Ki…” (episode 139) associated with him in the original version of the Dragon Ball Z TV series.

Check out our review of Soundtrack III & Songs back on Episode #0237 of our podcast. For a little extra Trunks commentary, we reviewed and compared the manga and TV versions of the Trunks special back on Episode #0213 of our podcast.

Earlier this week, we reported news from Siliconera that Namco-Bandai had trademarked two new video game titles that potentially had something to do with the Dragon Ball franchise, including one called “Ultimate Butōden” (アルティメット武闘伝).

A Japanese Tales fansite/blog is reporting that an upcoming magazine will reveal Dragon Ball Kai: Ultimate Butōden as a fighting game for the Nintendo DS game set for release rather soon 03 February 2011 for the standard price of ¥5040.

UPDATE: Jump pages are starting to float out there, confirming everything we have been reading so far:

We know that Namco-Bandai is working on a game for the 3DS, but if this news is true, it will be the first (and possibly last?) fighting game for the regular Nintendo DS since 2005’s Bukū Ressen (released stateside as Super Sonic Warriors 2). While the PSP has exclusively seen fighting games (four in total), the library of DS games has included traditional role playing, action/adventure, fighting, and more.

This would be the second game to receive the Kai branding in Japan — the first was Dragon Ball Kai: Saiya-jin Raishū (also for the Nintendo DS), released stateside as Dragon Ball Z: Attack of the Saiyans last year.

Thanks to Marc for the tip.

Raging Blast 2 was released in Japan 11 November 2010, which means that we now have some first-week sales figures for the game. It managed to grab the number-two spot this past week, selling 47,610 copies on the PS3 (the Xbox 360 version does not appear anywhere within the top twenty performing titles).

There are a couple different ways to look at this story, though.

Sure, it was the second-best-selling game of the week in Japan, coming in only after the Tactics Ogre PSP re-release. On the other hand, it sold over 10,000 less copies than the first Raging Blast sold one year prior (57,972 copies, all also on the PS3), despite a significant upgrade in many areas, as well as including Plan to Eradicate the Super Saiyans as a viewable feature.

Despite a re-release of the first Dragon Ball movie coming at the end of December, a new four-pack of Dragon Ball movies is due for 08 February 2011. Presumably consisting of the three original Dragon Ball movies and the franchise’s 10th anniversary movie (another re-telling of the early story combined with the Red Ribbon arc), this “remastered” pack will retail for $34.98, and is being solicited as two discs (two movies per disc, perhaps?).

The bilingual discs will of course include the original Japanese language track. There is no word yet on whether the second and third movies will be receiving an updated dub; both were recorded before FUNimation returned to dub the entirety of the Dragon Ball TV series (the second movie was actually the first thing FUNimation recorded in-house before even picking up production on “season three” of the Dragon Ball Z TV series in 1999).

UPDATE: Our buddy Marc notes for us that an upcoming trailer for the set showcases the set as indeed containing the expect four Dragon Ball movies, and will include the original dubs for the three movies previously released uncut.

A three-pack (sans the first movie) was released back in 2005 (itself re-released again in 2008 as a thin-pack), and was the first time that the second movie was available uncut and in Japanese in North America.

Additionally, we already had the third volume of Kai on-schedule for release this December, and now FUNimation has updated with a release date for the fourth set. “Part 4” (containing episodes 40-52, right before the end of the Freeza story arc) will be available on Blu-ray and DVD in North America on 08 March 2011 for the standard MSRPs of $54.98 and $49.98, respectively.

FUNimation has confirmed that their re-release of the first Dragon Ball movie will contain a new dub featuring the updated cast from Kai. This will be the first time the movie is available uncut both in English and Japanese in North America, despite being one of the first items ever produced in the mid-90s. We reviewed the movie based on its Dragon Box release almost two years ago back on Episode #0112 of our podcast, so tune in to that for a “sneak-peak” if you have never seen it before.

FUNimation recently blogged about a production error with the third Dragon Ball Z season set (the orange bricks from several years back), where the second disc is accidentally pressed with the content from the fifth disc. Only those who have purchased a copy of the set from its latest production batch within the last month or so may be subject to this error, but if you have any issues, they are offering a replacement version. Check out their blog entry for all the full details.

Needless to say, we encourage all of our readers to abandon these flawed sets and instead invest in the Dragon Box releases!