We have known for what seems like forever that new Dragon Ball GT DVD sets were on their way from FUNimation, but knew little else beyond that. We recently got our hands on what seemed to be the box art, which confirmed the “remastered” style release. FUNimation has been showcasing trailers for the upcoming release… which…

… is playing full-screen…?!

The new trailer plugs the same “Digitally Remastered” and “Original Japanese Audio” as the DBZ season sets, but makes absolutely no mention of it being “widescreen”. We have seen FUNimation create advertisements about the DBZ season sets where they remove wording about them being in the cropped widescreen format as early as season two, but this (obviously) did not change the end product. Even after FUNimation stopped mentioning the widescreen for DBZ, the trailers all at least still remained in widescreen. How about DBGT, though? Has the community backlash and its resulting segregation given FUNimation a double-take? Should we expect the “Sorry We Fucked Up”-edition DBZ sets in a few years, with promotions saying, “No, really… this is how it was meant to be seen… we promise, this time!”…? This is all speculation until there is any official confirmation from FUNimation on what the actual aspect ratio will be for the DBGT sets, but it is an interesting situation, none-the-less.

Namco-Bandai has opened up a website for the upcoming “Dragon Ball DS”:

www.bandaigames.channel.or.jp/list/ds_dragonball/top.html

So far there is a little bit of information about the story and characters (OK, just Goku), but there are some nice screen shots throughout to gaze at.

The Japanese cover art for “Dragon Ball DS” has been released:

The game drops in Japan on September 18th in Japan. Still no word on a North American (or European) release.

The red text we did not bother to read on the image from a few days ago tells us that the title of the newly-animated, upcoming Dragon Ball short will be “Ossu! Kaette Kita Son Gokū to Nakama-tachi!!” (“Heya! Son Goku and Friends Return!!”), with “Ossu!” being one of Goku’s early-catch phrases and introduction to all next-episode previews.

We did tell you, though, that we should be expecting some kind of new enemy/enemies. Super psyched!

Many years back, McDonald’s ran a promotion with their “Happy Set” (or “Happy Meals”) where you could get an exclusive DBZ figure. It seems like they are doing it again! We will send Julian on his way to pick them all up, giving him a perfect excuse to undo all of the working-out he has been up to.

Over on the toonzone.net forum, a new image showcasing minor information on the new Dragon Ball animation to air during the Jump Super Anime Tour has surfaced:

The picture does not give a whole lot of clues, but we can see a variety of characters from all over the chronology of the series and a hint at a new enemy…?! Could it be these two?

Exciting!

The upcoming hardcover “Collector’s Edition” Shonen Jump fifth anniversary release will indeed contain all of the manga from that first publication back in January 2003, along with features from the first five years, about a dozen rare interviews, essays by the editors, and a special “Yu-Gi-Oh” card.

According to Atari’s latest annual report:

Fiscal 2008 — the Dragon Ball Z franchise generated 49.1% of our publishing net product revenues, driven by the November 2007 release of Dragon Ball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi 3 (PlayStation 2 and Nintendo Wii)

That is right, folks. If you really want to boil it down to the nitty-gritty, you could say that half of the money Atari makes is solely based on the Dragon Ball franchise.