Tying in with various Dragon Ball Heroes updates (and eventually Episode of Bardock), last summer Shueisha announced a Dragon Ball Z Special Selection DVD which would contain both the Bardock and Trunks TV Specials on DVD at an incredibly reduced price (¥1000). The disc came in larger packaging typical of convenience-store-esque cheap items, and brought the two TV Specials to an individual disc for the first time ever in Japan, having only previous been available as extras on each of the two Dragon Box releases for the Dragon Ball Z TV series.

It seems Shueisha is teaming up with Toei again for another Special Selection release at an appealing price, this time with the Jump Super HEROES Special Selection DVD Vol. 1:

The product will span six different franchises, presenting the first episodes from Dragon Ball, Hokuto no Ken, Saint Seiya, Slam Dunk, Dr. Slump, and Kinnikuman. The DVD will only run you ¥1200, and is available today (25 May 2012) in Japan — it is up for order on both CDJapan and Amazon Japan.

If this is “Vol. 1”, perhaps we can expect some additional “Special Selection” DVDs in the future? Maybe the first episodes from various “sequel” series like the second Dr. Slump from 1997, Dragon Ball GT, etc.? We will stay on the lookout!

Thanks to sumpter360 for the heads-up!

As per the norm, the European branch of Namco-Bandai is pumping out new trailers for their upcoming Dragon Ball games ahead of both Japan and North America! This time around, Dragon Ball Z for Kinect is featured with its QR code functionality, which was revealed back during the game’s original announcement:

Over 20 QR codes will be made available through various means, which will allow for new characters and power-ups.

(It is a shame they reverted on the “Saiyan” pronunciation in the trailer! Oh, well…)

UPDATE: It seems fandom got a bum steer on this one. The sources listed below grabbed the news per the usual cycle and locations (text descriptions of upcoming magazines 3-5 days before release on Japanese chat/image boards), but it was unfortunately all just a ruse on the part of one Japanese fan, most likely taking advantage of the confusion over the supposed Dragon Ball Z HD (Collection). Additionally, it seems said fan has been trying the Sparking! OMEGA name for several years at this point, and just happened to get it to stick this time around. Needless to say, there is absolutely nothing about the supposed game in this month’s issue of V-Jump (or its monthly website refresh), which is now officially on Japanese shelves.

Andriasang and Siliconera are both reporting that the upcoming issue of V-Jump (2012 Issue #7, on sale 21 May 2012) will reveal Sparking! OMEGA for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. The game is apparently set to have the largest cast ever and will be available this winter.

Coming off a three-game Dragon Ball Z (Budokai) series for the PlayStation 2 (and Gamecube for the first two games) developed by Dimps, Dragon Ball Z: Sparking! was originally announced and released for the PlayStation 2 back in 2005, released internationally as Budokai Tenkaichi, as developed by Spike. The sequel, Sparking! NEO (Budokai Tenkaichi 2), was released the next year and eventually also made its way to the Wii, including a few extra characters in its Japanese and European incarnations. The final Sparking!-proper games in the series, Sparking! METEOR (Budokai Tenkaichi 3) was released simultaneously for the PlayStation 2 and Wii in 2007, featuring just under 170 distinct character forms to play as (running the gamut from Super Saiyan 4 Gogeta to nameless Freeza Solder).

The series received a reboot of sorts when the “next generation of Sparking!” was released as Raging Blast for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 in 2009. The following year saw Raging Blast 2 (with its included special feature, Plan to Eradicate the Super Saiyans), while this past October saw the release of Ultimate Blast (Ultimate Tenkaichi), a re-skinned version of the games with simplified controls and a character creation story mode. Along the way, TAG VS (Tenkaichi Tag Team) was released for the PSP in 2010 featuring tag-team battles and a control scheme more similar to the original Sparking! games.

It will be interesting to see how a Sparking!-proper game will be handled. The shift to Raging Blast on the current generation of consoles also shifted the control scheme significantly enough, changing up the implementation of super moves from button combinations including the triggers, a directional button, and an action button to simply knocking the right analog stick in one of four directions. Additionally, all three of the Sparking! games and all three of the Blast games in Japan received a musical score with newly-synthesized versions of the original Shunsuke Kikuchi score from Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z (along with a couple key pieces from Dragon Ball GT, movie, and insert songs) — the international releases of the games all received replacement soundtracks.

This is all in addition to the confirmed Dragon Ball Z for Kinect due out this October, and the nebulous Dragon Ball Z HD (Collection) floating around international retailer sites, the latter of which may or may not be related to the Sparking! series in some way. Maybe we will finally have that Battle of Omega that many fans have been waiting for…?

It was back at the end of March that Walmart and a couple other online retailers put up listings for a so-called Dragon Ball Z “HD” / “HD Collection” for both the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. The price was set at a full $59.99 with a release date of 02 October 2012, and the game collection’s genre of “Action/Fighting” lined up exactly with both Raging Blast 2 and Ultimate Tenkaichi.

Since then, Dragon Ball Z for Kinect has been announced and promoted a bit. Amazon puts the Kinect game at a reasonable $39.99 with a release date of 31 October 2012.

Along the way, Walmart’s listings shifted a little bit. The “HD Collection” page remained for the 360, but mysteriously disappeared for the PS3, leading us and many others to believe the listing was intended for the Kinect game all along — the genre still made sense, the release date could still make sense, etc.

This past week, Spanish retailer XtraLife.es also had listings for this Dragon Ball Z “HD Collection” for both the PS3 and 360, but now with (very dodgy) cover art and specifically noting it as a collection of Budokai Tenkaichi games (originally released in Japan under the Sparking! titles):

As we and other folks like good ol’ reliable Super Saiyan Prime have pointed out over on our forum, there are tons of issues with this cover art. The most striking is the “HD Classics” banner, which is Sony-exclusive branding, yet is present on both the PS3 and 360 versions of this supposed collection’s cover art. Even on cross-platform HD collections such as Metal Gear Solid, for the European market (which is where these Dragon Ball Z images would supposedly come from), “HD Classics” is Sony-exclusive, while the 360 version uses its standard version of cover art decoration tying in the game’s own name of “HD Collection”.

As others have pointed out, it is worth noting that XtraLife is responsible for first putting up listings for the Devil May Cry HD Collection prior to its announcement. At that time, it was also revealed that XtraLife’s box art for said collection was a mockup created elsewhere… which seems oddly similar to what we are seeing with this Dragon Ball Z listing.

Walmart’s Xbox 360 listing for “Dragon Ball Z HD” remains while the PS3 listing is still gone, while both of the XtraLife listings have been removed.

I suppose we can conclude that something is on the way.

C21Media reports a couple little updates from Latin America this week. Colombia’s CityTV is on a roll, having acquired all 291 episodes of the Dragon Ball Z TV series as well as the 98 episodes of its 20th anniversary “refreshed” edition, Dragon Ball Kai. Additionally, Ecuador’s Ecuavisa has renewed its license for the franchise, as well as obtained what the site describes as “20 telemovies based on the franchise” — if we had to guess, the twenty items are likely the three Dragon Ball movies, thirteen Dragon Ball Z movies, two Dragon Ball Z TV specials, the 10th anniversary movie, and the Dragon Ball GT TV special.

Dragon Ball Kai seems to have recently debuted on Ecuavisa back on 14 April 2012. The Dragon Ball Z TV series somewhat came under fire in Ecuador back in July 2009 when The Simpsons and other shows caught the attention of the government which was concerned by the impact of “programs and messages that promote violence, racial and gender discrimination.”

Those of you who keep up with the international items in the “releases” portion of our weekly podcast have probably been wondering where the Dutch kanzenban has been for the last year. So have we!

Our forum member Nils_McCloud tossed a note over to Glénat to see what was going on. Last summer’s Volume 13 was the most recent one to come out, now trailing far behind the French release which just hit Volume 19 this past month. The response (translated below) was not an encouraging one:

Dear Nils,

We’re sorry to say issue 13 will be the final release in the series.

Kind regards,
Greet Eskens

Looks like fans of the Dutch kanzenban translation are out of luck!