We have some “breaking news” for you coming out of Jump Festa courtesy of our old buddy Greg (who you old-timers will remember as the maintainer of The Ultimate DBZ Information Site). He has had a couple of his real-time comments transferred over to an Arlong Park thread, so we shall catch up with a couple of these that relate to Dragon Ball:

(23:20 EST) Dragon Ball Stage started. If he does it like the Luffy/Goku Talk, he’ll take meticulous notes and get them down on the board himself in the near future it seems. I haven’t heard a word of specifics about the last one.

Greg: “Bulma’s Bike is here evidently. This looks bad; they pulled out Akiba Idols to promote Nozawa. What were they thinking?”

(23:33 EST) Greg: “So far I am severely unimpressed. We’re listening to airheads talk about some very basic stuff.”

“Finally some interesting information coming out. Nozawa thinks Cell is the most frightening villian.”

(23:51 EST) Greg: “First game pictures look like DBZ Sparking but with real textures. Bulma seems to be a fighter this time around. They’re also giving out door prizes; Movie Tickets, etc. One guest won a role in the dub of the movie.” (Live Action Movie?)

(00:05 EST) Greg:”Toriyama left a message to the cast and crew of the movie: He felt surprised when he saw everything but after meeting the cast and crew, he felt they were splendid. He hopes that it will become a new Dragon Ball to be enjoyed and confirms that he is very much looking forward to it.”

There you have it! Perhaps an upcoming Shōnen Jump or V-Jump will give us some more information on this secret game in the near future (which may or may not be the PSP game based on the live action movie). It is intriguing how they are once again pumping out video games this year after a slight lull in early 2008. Toriyama’s comment about the live action movie is the expected response, falling right in line with his comments about Dragon Ball GT as it began to air. It does not really say anything one way or the other, it does not really prove anything one way or the other, but it is interesting none-the-less.

UPDATE: Greg confirmed for us that the game footage was indeed PSP-based. He also noted the following:

Oh, and I didn’t deem this as urgent enough to write home about, but yesterday Nozawa talked smack about the American Kame Hame Ha. Details to follow.

CDJapan has a small version of the cover art for the upcoming CD single containing the Infinite World (PS2 fighting game) opening and ending themes:

It is due out 25 December 2008 in Japan.

Gamekyo.com has a scan from the latest Shōnen Jump with info on a new, traditional handheld RPG! Dragon Ball Z Story for the Nintendo DS will feature teams of three (you will have six characters on reserve, and choose your three team members) and will run from the Ma Junior / 23rd Tenka’ichi Budōkai arc up through (at least) the Saiyan arc (with the subtitle of the game being “The Saiyans Attack”).

The game is coming from Namco-Bandai to Japan in Spring 2009, and the February issue of V-Jump will have more information.

With Viz running out of things to do with the Dragon Ball manga (monthly releases, large graphic novels, smaller graphic novels, “Viz Big” omnibus editions, collector’s edition hardcovers, box sets…), it only makes sense that they would find some other way to exploit one of their best franchises. Coming out mid-2009, the new “Chapter Books” under the “Viz Kids” label seem to be something along the lines of… well… we do not quite know. Manga is already mostly pictures, so how do you “kid-ify” that even more? Perhaps it will be very simple words with the occasional illustration?

These see a release beginning 04 August 2009 with the first two volumes, and then on 01 September 2009 with the next two volumes. They are priced at $4.99, so do not expect a whole lot out of these.

This tidbit of news comes to us courtesy of Jump over in Japan — Namco-Bandai is going to be developing a game for the PSP based on the American-made live action movie:

There are no details other than that it will be coming out in Japan March 2009, which corresponds with the movie’s release over there. There is no word yet on a North American release, but if we know Atari, they will jump all over the chance to put out more games.

Head on over to dragonballtoys.com to check out some of the awesome Dragon Ball stuff Banpresto will be releasing next year. It looks like we have everything from key chains to mini figures to large figures to tissue holders coming our way!

This is something that you older fans are going to immediately recognize and get pretty psyched about! Bandai is re-releasing the entire Carddass series over in Japan in big box sets to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the “Carddass” line:

The “Cardass Dragon Ball COMPLETE BOX vol. 1 premium set” set (which will also contain four all-new cards) is due out 26 December 2008 for a hefty ¥10,500, but it is a huge amount of cards…!

Once we saw that FUNimation was going to package Dragon Ball Z movies 7 and 9 together for their next double feature, we all correctly assumed we would see some type of (additional) Broli compilation to DVD and Blu-ray. Sure enough, Wal-Mart put up a listing for a “Triple Feature” with DBZ movies 8, 10, and 11 (all three Broli movies). Interestingly enough, they seemed to get a placeholder image with some odd background choices:

Yep, those are images from the two feature-style DBZ TV specials in the background. Hopefully this will be corrected before the package’s release 31 March 2009.

If you remember there being a Blu-ray release back in November 2007, you are correct — a sort of test-run Blu-ray with movies 8 and 10 (the first two of three total movies featuring Broli) was released by FUNimation that did not fit in with any other particular line of releases. It seems this will be the “proper” version going forward.

A few more details about the Infinite World (PS2 fighting game) OP/ED CD single have trickled out. Right now we are seeing it listed with four tracks:

1. “Hikari no Sasu Mirai e!”
2. “Dragon Ball Party”
3. “We Gonna Take You There”
4. “Hikari no Sasu Mirai e!” (Instrumental)

There is no word on what exactly that third track is, but we have heard that there would be at least one English song on the disc, so it is possible that it is an English version of the opening theme (“Hikari no Sasu Mirai e!”). The CD is due out in Japan 25 December 2008 for ¥1200 from King Records (LACM-4555).