Oh, beloved Google alerts. Picked up word on Muhyojo that a brand new Dragon Ball anime is going to be announced in volume 21 of Weekly Shounen Jump, along with a new One Piece anime.

But before you get all excited about new TV shows– it’s just short specials, coming out this fall as part of a Shounen Jump tour, though it may also be televised eventually.

Now, I don’t follow Dragon Ball stuff more than I must, so I hadn’t heard of this before, and I figured maybe some of you hadn’t either. But did you know that the upcoming Dragon Ball live-action flick, which has been delayed until 2009, is NOT the first live-action movie made of the series? And I’m not talking about cheap low-budget versions done by teenagers on YouTube– I’m talking big-scale.

Yeah, turns out that in 1989, an unoffical live-action remake of the anime movie Dragon Ball: Curse of the Blood Rubies was made in China. It’s bad, and it’s been dubbed into English (can’t figure out who by). Apparently it was also remastered recently. I don’t have the remastered version for you, but here’s the beginning of the original version.

Enjoy the mayhem! It’s STILL probably better than the official flick they’re workin’ on…

VIZ (see liveblog thread) is going to start publishing some of their series in their new “BIG” format, which is three volumes put into one book. The books will cost $17.99, which means you’re getting three volumes at the price you’d normally get two for. The books will also have new covers with gateflaps, as well as some color pages inside - nice stuff. The launch titles for these reprints will be Rurouni Kenshin (pictured), Dragon Ball, and Dragon Ball Z. And if you just thought “wow, now I can buy DBZ the MANGA over and over again, too,” you weren’t alone.

On the new license front: Aside from a number of titles that were leaked a while back, VIZ has picked up Yumekui Kenbun: Nightmare Inspector by Shin Mashiba and Record of a Fallen Vampire by Kyo Shirodaira (story) and Yuri Kimura (art).

And then there’s anime. Two licenses we’ve ALL been waiting to hear about for ages: the Nana (top) and Honey and Clover (bottom) anime series. SO SURPRISING I FORGOT TO GASP!

EDITED TO ADD: They also have the download to own license for Bleach now. (Sorry for adding that on late; I had to clarify because they talked about Bleach, went to Nana, and then jumped back to Bleach, and wasn’t sure which one they had the DTO license for.)

I spotted this on 2ch, where they were discussing the fact that Suzumiya Haruhi no Yuuutsu is NOT on the list. What is? Well, #1 is Lupin the 3rd, followed by Dragon Ball, Doraemon, Ashita no Joe, and Mobile Suit Gundam in 2nd through 5th place.

The list comes from TV Asahi, and it’s mostly pretty good…but it DOES seem odd that Haruhi was left off while Naruto, Bleach, and even Pokemon stayed on.

Hit the jump for the full list. Read the rest of this entry »