News
Navarre Reveals Funimation's Dragon Ball Kai License (Updated)
posted on by Egan Loo
Navarre has revealed during its Q3 2010 earnings conference call on Tuesday morning that its North American anime distributor Funimation has licensed the Dragon Ball Kai fighting anime series for release in the "latter part of the upcoming fiscal year." Funimation has confirmed the license with ANN, and it hopes to provide more details soon.
The Dragon Ball Kai television series condenses the 1989-1996 Dragon Ball Z anime series to more closely follow Akira Toriyama's original Dragon Ball manga. In addition to a digital high-definition remastering and a re-recorded soundtrack, Dragon Ball Kai also enhances selected scenes with new effects or re-animated footage. Due to the years that have passed since the broadcast of Dragon Ball Z, some of the Japanese cast members have been replaced in Dragon Ball Kai's re-recorded dubbing.
Dragon Ball Kai premiered in Japan on April 5 of last year, and has consistently ranked among the top 10 anime in viewer ratings every week since.
Funimation already licensed both the Dragon Ball Z television series and the earlier Dragon Ball television series. Viz Media publishes the original manga in North America.
Thanks to Daizenshuu EX for the news tip.
Update: More background information added.
Update 2: Funimation has posted a blog update with the revised Dragon Ball Z Kai logo.
Image © Bird Studio/Shueisha, Fuji TV, Toei Animation
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