Let the shenanigans continue! Toei Animation’s official Dragon Ball Kai website has updated with the new voice of Nail. Taiten Kusunoki will be taking over the role of Nail in Dragon Ball Kai, replacing Katsuji Mori who had originally voiced the character in Dragon Ball Z. He also provided the voice of the popular action star Panput in Dragon Ball during the 22nd Tenka’ichi Budōkai. Again, we are not sure why Katsuji Mori is being replaced, as he is still very active as a voice actor — he even runs his own talent agency, Office Mori.

Finally, probably the biggest blow to all of Dragon Ball fandom… the original voice of Appule has been replaced. However, it is a real slap in the face because his recasting never got an official announcement! As you may know, Appule recently appeared in Dragon Ball Kai episode 023. Unfortunately, according to the credits, Yūji Machi has been replaced by Takahiro Yoshimizu. For anyone familiar with One Piece, Yoshimizu provided the voice of Paulie, one of the five Dock One foremen of Water 7. Needless to say, he has some pretty big shoes to fill.

It has certainly been a rather slow week in terms of news! The best we have for you is that Amazon has new listings for even more “Chapter Book” volumes of the Dragon Ball story they have begun releasing under their “Viz Kids” label. We absolutely adore the cover art for the releases, but are conflicted over the actual content.

Unlike the first four volumes which came out two at a time, it looks like these are going the one-every-other-month route:

• Volume 5: 03 November 2009
• Volume 6: 05 January 2010
• Volume 7: 02 March 2010
• Volume 8: 04 May 2010

We are sad to report that the Arabic voice actor for Son Goku, Mr. Zeyad Errafae’ie, passed away on August 26th. He was involved with a car crash and apparently seemed to be getting better, but ultimately did not pull through in the end. Our condolences go out to his family and all of the Arabic dub fans that may have grown up with his performance.

Toei Animation’s official Dragon Ball Kai website has updated with the cast for the Ginyu Special Squad members. As is starting to become the trend, all five members have been completely re-cast with none of the original voice actors returning to take on their original roles:

• Ginyu: Katsuyuki Konishi
• Jheese: Daisuke Kishio
• Butta: Masaya Onosaka
• Recoom: Sasaki Seiji
• Gurd: Yashuhiro Takato

Jheese’s original voice actor, Kazumi Tanaka, passed away in late-2007 from pulmonary heart disease. Also of note, Kenji Utsumi , the original voice actor for Recoom, has already returned to reprise his role as Shenlong in Dragon Ball Kai, but appears to have given up voicing Recoom. He had left following the 100th episode of Dragon Ball Z, shortly after voicing Recoom, who was last credited in episode 95. Finally, Kōzō Shioya was the voice actor for Gurd in Dragon Ball Z, but since this character has been re-cast, it makes me wonder if the rest of his roles will also be re-cast in the future. If you will remember, Shioya was the sole voice for all of Majin Boo’s forms. So, did he decide he would rather return to voice Boo later rather than do Gurd now, or will he not be returning at all? I suppose only time will tell.

Our buddy Tanooki Kuribo tracked down the European cover art for the upcoming Attack of the Saiyans on the Nintendo DS:

It is certainly nice to see the Japanese cover art remaining consistent across the world! We are hoping the American release gets the same thing when it drops this November.

Back in late April it was announced that Shueisha would be releasing all subsequent editions of the tankōbon with newly “refreshed” covers and newly drawn spine art. As homage to the original tankōbon volumes, Coca Cola, in collaboration with the Lawson convenience store franchise, began releasing limited edition figures of the tankōbon spine art. The series itself was called the “DragonB all Original Comic Spine Figures”. There were 24 figures released in total, which were split up into two release groups. The first twelve figures were released on 28 April 2009 and the final twelve figures were released on 18 August 2009, as shown below. The best part is you can connect all of the figures together to form the entire tankōbon spine art image. They even left in some of the little things; two Yajirobe, Kaio running with a stick (absent of poop), and Gohan’s weird colors.

Each figure was separately packaged as a special bonus item for buying a dual-pack of any Coca Cola product from a Lawson convenience store. It really does not seem that bad if you think about it; a free 24 figure set of the entire tankōbon spine art image for buying 48 bottles of soda. However, you would of course have to find the dual-packs that contained whatever figures you did not already have. Oddly enough, Lawson convenience stores originated in Ohio, but are now the second largest convenience store chain in Japan — there is some trivia for you!

Last but not least, here is a short video from jetdaisuke, where he takes a look at the second “Goku on Kinto-Un” figure. It should give you a good idea of how they were packaged, and just how big, or small, these figures are.

CDJapan has a listing for yet another CD for Dragon Ball Kai, this one simply called the Dragon Ball Kai Song Collection. With the “Koro-chan Pack” CD canceled, it seems like this may be its spiritual successor. Due out 21 October 2009 for ¥2940 with a catalog number of COCX-35798, it is set to contain at least the opening and ending themes, as well as several other songs. No complete track list is available, but the Japanese description notes three specific songs:

• “Kuririn’s Theme”
• “Super Saiyan’s Theme”
  (or “Super Saiyans’ Theme”, since the pluralizing is inherently vague in Japanese; it is literally “suupaa saiya-jin no teema“)
• “Vegeta’s Theme”

It seems there may be an extra bonus for at least the first-press pre-orders, so get them in soon!

The line-up for the 2009 Jump Super Anime Tour (JSAT) was announced earlier this month. Sadly, it seems Dragon Ball fans will have to wait at least one more year to see if there will be another new animated special. The tour kicks off 12 October 2009 in Tokyo and will finish up 29 November 2009 in Sapporo. In addition, the tour stops have been cut in half from the 10 made last year, down to only five.

Here is a quick run-down of the series that will be featured in this year’s tour.

• Naruto – A new special in honor of the manga’s 10th anniversary.
• Toriko – First time the manga series will be animated.
• Yu-Gi-Oh! – Screening of the 10th anniversary special, “Yu-Gi-Oh! 10th”.
• Letter Bee – Continuation from last year’s animated premiere at the JSAT.
• One Piece – Screening footage of the series 10th movie, “Strong World”. In theaters December 12th.
• Katekyou Hitman Reborn! – An animated special covering the Vongola mafia family.

The true highlight of the tour is definitely the screening of footage from the 10th One Piece movie, Strong World, which was written and closely supervised by the series author Eiichiro Oda. Again, it will be interesting to see how they handle the online streaming this year. In conclusion, though, there will unfortunately be no newly animated Dragon Ball special this year.