We finally have a release date for “Dragon Ball DS”, the new action / adventure / RPG game coming to the Nintendo DS! The game will see its release over in Japan on 18 September 2008. As-of-yet, neither Atari nor FUNimation has said anything about an American release of the game, though judging by the way Atari makes its money, it would be a shock to see this game not come out in North America.
A great new re-release of the Dragon Ball Z TV series, Dragon Ball GT TV series, and the movies will be coming out over in Italy. In addition to the standard Japanese audio track, a 5.1 Italian track will be included. It looks like our buddy Timo ordered a bit of this new release, so we look forward to hearing from him!
Episode #0136 of the podcast is available for download! We’re back into the swing of things this week with the “Manga Review of Awesomeness” as Jeff joins us for volume seventeen. If you are looking over at your collection of Viz manga and don’t see a “DB 17” over there, that is because in Japan the entire manga series is simply called DragonBall beginning to end, volume one to forty-two. The “Z”-distinction from the TV series was only applied to the manga by Viz when they began releasing it state-side so many years ago. Definitely check it out.
SHOW DESCRIPTION:
Episode #0136! VegettoEX, Meri, and Jeff finally hit the “Z”-era with volume seventeen of our “Manga Review of Awesomeness”. The innocence is lost as Goku discovers his true origin, and Toriyama’s story will never be the same. Julian rounds out the rest of the episode with us as we cover all of this week’s news, hit up the DBZ ABCs, read some e-mails, and start up a new contest!
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Episode #0135 of the podcast is available for download! This week, we checked in with KaiserNeko and Lanipator from the new DragonBall Z Abridged fan-parody series by TeamFourStar!
We only recently discovered this recent trend of creating “Abridged” series, ourselves, and so with the debut of this group’s take on the TV series we definitely wanted to check in with them and see how the whole thing works. It’s an absolutely hysterical take on the series that has so many clever jokes for so many different types of fans, and still retains that genuine charm and endearing qualities of the original. If you haven’t seen it yet, you absolutely need to do so. In addition to that, we also dive into some somewhat-artificially-created drama between two dub voice actors as well as a ton of other news. Definitely check it out.
SHOW DESCRIPTION:
Episode #0135! VegettoEX, Meri, and Jeff interview some of the brains behind the new “DBZ Abridged” series from TeamFourStar. Where did this hilarious new fandub series come from, and what can we look forward to in the future? Julian joins in to discuss all of the latest news, including our own creation of drama between dub voice actors, the live-action movie, video games, music, and so much more!
REFERENCED SITES:
Thankfully, Toei has decided that the previous placeholder art they showcased for the individual releases of the various Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z movies simply were not good enough. We have now been presented with what appear to be the final art for DBZ Movies 1 & 2, which are starting off the latest (last?) run of individual DVD releases in August:
Big improvement, guys ‘n gals. We like.
MUSIC JAPAN+ has an English-language interview with Toru Furuyu, the voice of Yamcha. It is extremely difficult to navigate — pay close attention to the tiny flashing next>> at the bottom. He is a really awesome guy, so definitely check that out.
We first told you about it way back in December, have seen more and more word coming in about it, and finally we have this:
Additionally, there was also the cover art for the forthcoming DBZ Movies 3 & 4 faux-“remastered” Blu-ray / standard DVD release (said image has been confirmed from trailers contained on previous FUNimation releases):
Big thanks to Futabatei Shimei for keeping us on our toes, as always. CDJapan has a new entry for a “PlayStation 2 & Wii Game DragonBall Z Sparking! METEOR / PlayStation 3 & Xbox 360 Game DragonBall Z Burst Limit soundtrack” coming out 27 August 2008 for ¥3000.
This is quite interesting because:
(1) The Japanese release of all the “Sparking!” games contained music composed by Shunsuke Kikuchi (plus one little DBGT BGM for the 2nd & 3rd games) from the actual TV series arranged for the games by Kenji Yamamoto.
(2) The American release of the first “Sparking!” game contained recycled music from the “Budokai” series. The American release of the second game contained all-new music. The American release of the third game also contained all-new music, though it was actually newly-composed in Japan.
(3) The American and Japanese releases of “Burst Limit” appear to have the exact same BGM, right from the get-go with the Japanese vocal opening theme performed by Hironobu Kageyama.
Now, as this is a Japanese CD produced for the Japanese market, my initial thought is that for “Sparking! METEOR”, this new CD will contain the music from the Japanese release of the game (which, if you are following along, was actually just BGM and arrangements [sometimes instrumental versions of vocal songs] from the TV series). Kenji Yamamoto is attributed to this CD, so there will (obviously) be music from him… but will it contain any of that “new” music composed for the American release of “Sparking! METEOR” (read: “Budokai Tenkaichi 3”)…?
It is somewhat mind-boggling at the moment, so we will of course keep you updated as more information comes out. All we know right now is that Kenji Yamamoto music from both games will appear in some capacity, and if precedent says anything, credit to Hironobu Kageyama means that the “TV-sized” versions of the vocal opening themes will appear on this disc. Remember that the full-length versions are coming out on a disc from Hironobu Kageyama next month!
The cover art for the forthcoming 5th anniversary hardcover release of Viz’s domestic “Shonen Jump” has come out:
Again, we do not really know what will be inside here. We all assume it will basically be a re-print of the original release from back in 2003, perhaps with some new items inside…? It will be out 05 August 2008 for $24.99, though you can pre-order at RightStuf for much less.
