Shueisha’s official listing website has finally updated with some information about the upcoming Dragon Ball: The Golden Warrior illustration book. The listing included the book’s cover and a little blurb describing the book:

Dragon Ball Anime Illustration Collection
“The Golden Warrior”

Available: April 16, 2010

Retail: ¥1,200 (~$13.00)

Size B5 (17.6 x 25 cm)

Length: 96 pages

Of note is the size of the book (B5), which will make it the same size as the daizenshuu. However, at only 96 pages, it is about half the size of Daizenshuu 1: Complete Illustrations. You can grab the book from Amazon Japan at the full retail price — expect a review as soon as ours comes in. Hopefully this illustration book does well enough to give Shueisha an excuse to release more!

It seems like the last remnant of the Trimark/Lionsgate sub-licensing disaster is about to finally come to a close. When FUNimation began dubbing the franchise with the first series back in 1995, home distribution was sub-licensed to what eventually became absorbed into Lionsgate. Word on the street was that said sub-license (for the first 13 episodes and first movie) was “indefinite” and even FUNimation representatives were unable to concretely-comment on how or if that would ever be resolved. When we contacted Lionsgate almost exactly one year ago for comment on the situation, we were referred to their legal department who claimed that such information was not something they would share.

Fast-forward to July 2009 when FUNimation confirmed the worst-kept-secret of the day — they would be re-releasing the first TV series in a new “remastered” format, which would include the first 13 episodes fully uncut for the first time ever in North America.

Over the last couple weeks, folks have discovered that the latest issue of Otaku USA magazine has a review of a supposed upcoming new release of the first series’ first movie (domestically titled Curse of the Blood Rubies).

Interestingly, the review seems to hint at the inclusion of the original, edited dub (which used a replaced musical score and FUNimation’s first voice cast from Canada). I reached out to Daryl Surat, the author of the review, for some extra clarification. He noted that the final disc had not been completed at the time of review, but was informed it would not include a re-dub of the movie, and would be uncut.

At this point, we still do not have final clarification, though we have also reached out to FUNimation themselves. Will it contain two video tracks, one for the original Japanese version, and one for the old/edited dub (which actually spliced in TV footage at certain points)? Was an uncut dub of the movie never produced with their current cast?

Most importantly, a RightStuf listing for the disc has recently popped up with a release date of 27 July 2010 and an MSRP of $14.98. While listed as “hybrid” (indicating two audio tracks), this could also just be a mislabel or placeholder. At the very least, we know it is coming and it will probably contain at least the original Japanese version uncut, and it will be the first time the movie has ever been released in that fashion in this part of the world. That’s a win for everyone.

Our buddy EvilGamerX already nailed the May 24th, Monday through Thursday news about (Z) Kai for us several weeks back, so you were already up-to-speed on that, right? He also tossed out there that 8 pm was being discussed as a possible broadcast time, though that was still up-in-the-air. Whether convenient rumor or not, plenty of folks are discussing a seemingly-concrete 8 pm broadcast time across the internets this week, pointing to a supposed commercial that has yet to make its way online. File it as “rumor” for now, but it seems to have some legs.

Our buddy Haseowolf once again comes in strong with some RightStuf information, this time showing their latest brochure with a 14 September 2010 release part for “Part Two” of Kai from FUNimation.

That seems like a rather long time between releases with “Part One” coming out in just a few weeks on 18 May 2010. Does the Nicktoons broadcast somehow come into play here? Possibly. FUNimation has a flip-flopping past of having some aspects of the franchise appear first on television and some appear first on a home release, so there is really no consistency to point back to as a solid precedent. There is also the issue of Blu-ray region coding being the same (Region A) for the US and Japan, so there may be a release schedule stipulation in the contract from Toei.

The next three episode titles have been leaked early for Dragon Ball Kai — here is a quick run-down of what to expect in the upcoming weeks:

Episode 054 – April 25, 2010
「宇宙に消えた悟空…甦れ！超戦士たち」
“Goku Vanishes in Space… Super Warriors, Return to Life!”

Episode 055 – May 2, 2010
「あれが地球だよパパ…フリーザ親子の逆襲」
“That’s Earth, Papa… Freeza and his Father Strike Back”

Episode 056 – May 9, 2010
「フリーザはボクが倒す！もう一人の超サイヤ人」
“I’ll Defeat Freeza! Another Super Saiyan”

As you can see, the series is jumping straight from Freeza’s demise on Planet Namek to his arrival on Earth. This is great to see, since it follows suit with the manga, but it also means we get to say goodbye to the Garlic Jr. arc. No matter how you feel about this change, it does appear that we will indeed be seeing Trunks in episode 55. Just as a reference, Trunks did not appear in Dragon Ball Z until episode 119. Also, although nothing official has been stated yet, many Japanese sources are indicating that Takeshi Kusao will in fact be reprising his role as Trunks in Kai. This is not really all too surprising, considering he is still voicing Trunks in all of the recent video games, but I will feel even better once it is officially announced.

It is a very loose connection to be drawing for a news update, especially on a site where we so strictly focus on just one of Toriyama’s series… but we will make a slight exception since there are crossovers with Dragon Ball.

According to ICv2, Toei will be shopping the rights to at least one of the Dr. Slump TV series at MIPTV in Cannes, France next week. At one point in time in the 1980s, the series was briefly held by Harmony Gold, who also did a brief test-run of the Dragon Ball series and movies. Since then, all we have had in North America has been a censored manga release from Viz.

Us fans of 1980s-1990s anime might have a lot of good things to be looking forward to in the near-future!

As anticipated, new pages out of Jump are showcasing the upcoming Dragon Ball TAG VS for the PSP:

There is not a whole lot to say about it just yet, other than that it appears to be coming this summer in Japan and will feature two-on-two battles (as expected from the title). Confirmed characters from the screens thus-far appear to be Goku, Vegeta, Freeza, and Cell.

Folks have already started describing these as “Saban-era” edits, and that may very well be an accurate description.

As predicted, the Nicktoons website is streaming clips of the English dub of Dragon Ball (Z) Kai, which appear to be from the censored broadcast version. In the first clip (of several linked on our forum), we can clearly see not only is the blood removed from Bardock’s face, but also his iconic scar:

Japanese Kai Broadcast

US Nicktoons Broadcast

Kame-Sen’nin is also rocking a nice, poorly-colored, frosty glass of… uhh… white something, which definitely reminds us of the good ol’ days back in 1996:

US Nicktoons Broadcast (Kai)

US Syndicated Broadcast (Z)

We dislike this just as much as the rest of you, trust us. In the case of Bardock’s scar, it may simply be an unfortunate necessary evil in order to properly remove the rest of the blood on his face. It makes one wonder, however, just how much will be edited to justify an “uncut” release, similar to “Season 3” VHS releases that had minor verbiage adjustments that seemed to do little more than, as noted, merely “justify” the existence of both an edited and uncut version. Will the dreaded “next dimension” rear its ugly head yet again? Some buddies have already told us that things like “death” will not be mentioned, along with plenty of other dialogue changes…

This is a different case than back in 1999, however, with the edited version being produced exclusively for Nicktoons, rather than a simultaneous home release alongside an uncut version. It is important to note that the home releases on DVD and Blu-ray will be fully “unedited”, and that word (finally) holds true for even the dialogue on the English dub side of things now that the series is being treated the way it is. Furthermore, the original Japanese version will always be there intact. If you care about the series to the degree that we do, the home release is probably what is most up your alley. That is essentially the only version we are interested in and will not extensively be covering the TV broadcast from this point forward. The nice thing about it not being 1999 anymore is that there are no worries about which version(s) will be available for a home release!

Rumblings about a new PSP entry for the franchise have been going on for months now, so it is not a particularly huge surprise to hear that it may be true.

Japanese blogs are reporting that an upcoming issue of Jump reveals a new game called Dragon Ball TAG VS. Not a whole lot of details are listed, other than it will be coming sometime in 2010 from Namco-Bandai in Japan.

With hints from English voice actors that at least two games are in the works for this year, everything seems to be falling into place.

Will it be a team fighting game, a la something like Tekken Tag or Capcom’s VS series…? Seems likely!

A great bit of news has been leaking about the English-dubbed production of Dragon Ball Z Kai. Based on what we have been told from several independent sources, as well as information made public at the conventions this past weekend, here is what we can tell you:

• The series will be edited on Nicktoons, and will occasionally contain different verbiage than the home release, which will be entirely unedited;
• This include character attacks, many of which will regain their correct and untranslated-proper-noun announcements in the unedited dub (Makankō-sappō, Kienzan, etc.);
• Some names that are deeply engrained in the English reversioning will unfortunately remain the same (namely the pronunciation of “Saiyan”, Tenshinhan’s adapted name, etc.);
• English-dubbed/performed versions of both the opening and closing themes have been created;
• General dialogue is indeed being treated with much more respect than ever before for an English dub of a Dragon Ball product;
• Episode titles are also faithful translations of their original Japanese versions.

We typically do not cover a dubbed product even close to this extensively on the site, but we will not deny how exciting it is to finally be able to see an at least somewhat comparable product sitting alongside the original Japanese version on the forthcoming domestic home releases. Something that all types of fans have discussed within our community is that with the simple fact that the English dialogue coming out of characters’ mouths will finally be an approximation of what it said in Japanese — that actually allows fans to have a genuine discussion with each other without first endlessly clarifying which version is being recalled and all sides being met with dumbstruck faces. That is a plus, folks.