Dragon Ball: Episode of Bardock - Recap!

So I finally managed to watch that new Dragon Ball Z "TV Special" short movie produced recently produced by Toei for this year's Jump Festa.

How was it? Well, I honestly found it rather pleasant, a nice surprise from something I wasn't expecting much to be honest.
[Warning! Might contain slight spoilers!]
First of all, lemme just start by saying I wasn't expecting much from this.
Announced as a ~20 minutes anime adaptation of a fan doujin by Naho Ooishi, not even Dragon Ball creator Akira Toriyama, produced as a tie-in for some obscure Japanese exclusive arcade game.
It looked cheap and simple.
Unlike 2008's original Dragon Ball special, backgrounds looked more simplistic, there was less characters around/animated/voiced, simpler plot....

But Dragon Ball Z: Episode of Bardock's special turned out pretty nice in the end.
The art style Toei took is closer to Toriyama than Ooishi's.
The fights were well choreographed and if the story was pretty paper-thin, it was nice just for this once to get some all-new Dragon Ball material, featuring such different and original content.

Freezer (Frieza as you Americans put it) was pretty creepy in the little instance we saw of him, the "end" of Bardock, Goku's father, was well rendered and the plot continued from that point didn't really ruin the original OVA's ending to me.
Oh, and the new baddie Chilled was a pretty nice addition to Dragon Ball's universe!
He had a pretty neat design all around.

It was quite short so it didn't really go anywhere, but it was a fun story in the end.

Now, to the question Otakus/Nerds all around the world are raging about... Is this "canon" or not?
Well, I guess isn't that clear and even at Toei they wouldn't care less about this question.
I mean if you count this, or any of the anime's original fillers (Son Goku and Picollo learning to drive a car..), or the OVAs (Cooler,..) or even the anime's original continuation Dragon Ball GT is really up to you in the end.. as long as it doesn't detract from the Toriyama's original manga.
You can decide to ignore any of these or accept all of them. It's up to your "nerdiness" to decide what's ok or not, all these are official produced materials.

I find it funny how Bardock becomes the legendary Super Saiyajin in this movie (being the first to gain that form chronologically), creates that legend in the past and fullfils it as well.
Though it turns later Super Saiyajins "not legendaries" (and ignores Broly or renders him "normal").

And I also like the fact it leaves on an open note, leaving many questions to be answered.
(was he the first Saiyain? would he form planet Vegeta as we later know it? did he live on, did he die shortly? what would he do now, living in the past? why didn't he chase the rest of Freezer's family?)

All in all, nice little special.
As M. Ebert would put it "Thumb up!"

Anime NEWS! More Dragon Ball!

In 2008, fans of Dragon Ball were treated to a special gift near Christmas, whole new Dragon Ball Z content in the form of an original new movie taking place at the end of the manga/in-between the DBZ and DBGT anime series.

This year, Toei allied with the Jump magazine did it again!

Dragon Ball: Episode of Bardock!!

But instead of making up some new content, this time it is actually an adaptation of a "doujin" follow-up to the old "Father of Goku" Bardock TV Special.
This manga was a sequel of sorts made for V-Jump by the mangaka Naho Ooishi.
Ooishi's got a pretty similar style to the master Akira Toriyama. Not quite the same though, the differences are there particularly on the faces and expression (and the over-use of gradients/shades in the backgrounds). But similar enough, she surely captured the rhythm, panels breakdown/angles and the narration narrowed down.

Anyway, her story was popular enough to get the animated treatment for this year's Christmas!


This all-new TV special was done by a branch of Toei purposely titled the "Dragon Ball Force Project".
(so...huh.. does that mean more original new DB content coming up...?)

This anime was made in a very similar art style to Toriyama's own instead of closely following the manga version. Some changes were made here and there.

It will air today December 17 actually, for Jump Festa 2012 (and will be available online later on Toei's official website).

And here's a clip from it:



For those who want to know, Ooishi is currently making a DB parody/tribute/summary called Dragon Ball SD.

and it looks sort of like this

It's not ground breaking work either, just simple fun tribute with chibi characters.
Not as hilarious as some actual DBZ parodies out there, but from a fan of Toriyama's work, to other fans.

Also, Chilled, the big baddie in this new story related to Freezer/Freeza/Frieza (pick your fav, according to where you live) was actually designed by Toriyama himself!
Check this piece of art:

Stay tuned for more!
This definitively looks like an easy winner!

As a long time fan (who kinda forgot and lost touch with mangas they years going by), I'm happy to see some brand new Dragon Ball stuff coming out!
And it seems to be a true work of love for the series rather than some cashing in as usual *cough*theamericanlivemovieadaptation*cough*.

Gamin' NEWS! Dragon Ball Z: Ultimate Tenkaichi Launch Trailer

Here's the launch trailer to Dragon Ball Z: Ultimate Tenkaichi.
What's the count? I lost track..
What does it make with this one, a bazillion almost identical Dragon Ball games?

Anyway, the trailer was neat, sorta, kinda:

Get More: GameTrailers.com, Dragon Ball Z: Ultimate Tenkaichi - Launch Trailer, PC Games, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360

Now you can create your own DBZ fancharacter!

....

Gamin' NEWS! - E3 continues -

Hey gang!
Here's some new trailers, footage and screens from stuff going on at E3~

First of all, some gameplay of that new nth Dragon Ball fighting game.
I did enjoy older 2D DB games..then played and followed some of the 3D ones (Final Bout, Budokai 1-3, Tenkaichi 1-3...), but since they make a new one every year...I kinda lost tracks of all the many DB games...

This new one is called Dragon Ball: Raging Blast 2. From what I understand, since they arrived on the HD system, the Dragon Ball games had kinda a reboot, on both current series.
Dragon Ball Z Budokai was remade into Burst Limit (so back to the plot and character roster of Budokai 1) and the Dragon Ball Z Tenkaichi Budokai series was also brought back as Raging Blast.

So if I wanna try a new DB with a correct roster and a well tuned gameplay, I should wait for Burst Limit 3 or Raging Blast 3 it seems...

Anyway, here's some gameplay, looking nice and correct, if a bit "plastic" like on the characters:




Now a bit of of Splatterhouse, my highly expected semi-remake semi-sequel to a classic beat 'em all series:




Some gameplay footage of Vanquish, Sega & Platinum Games new co-creation.
Looking like an epic mix of modern 3rd person shooters and P.N.03!




And now, some news about Sonic the hedgehog.
First some gameplay, the little we can see of Sonic Free Riders. The Xbox 360 exclusive.
Looks...messy. Not the graphics, they kinda look decent (hard to tell) but I'm not imagining myself playing that. Just imagine having to do those moves in front of your eyetoy Kinect.





This one will probably include some regular controller gameplay anyway, for those who'll want to try this game, let's be realistic. But the whole being the "Kinect control"...
*sigh*
I'll just play me some classic Saturn instead.


Here's some Sonic Colours gameplay now:



Well, forget about the autistic handicapped player here, it looks like it's the first time that guy played a videogame in his life.
The game looks pretty good and decent! Graphics are better than the Wii Sonic Unleashed!
This is turning into a pretty cool and enjoyable Sonic game! And isn't the main goal of games to be just that, entertainment?
Can't wait for this one~



Here's some footage of the Nintendo DS version, which really is in fact Sonic Rush 3 in disguise. And that will be good enough for me:






Moving on to Nintendo's own franchise now.
This new Metroid Other M sure is looking quite pretty, ain't it?
Seems to be a decent compromise of 1st view shooting action, not that far from the Metroid gamecube/wii trilogy, and 3rd person sidescrolling action like the original Metroid games!


Neat-o!




And now Portal 2, from the great studio Valve.
I wonder if this one will come out in 2011 or 2012, knowing Valve's legendary own relative time.



Seems to be more of the same ol'. Which is great since the original game was so original, addictive and smart!
This one does have a little horror vibe to it, with all the stuff and equipment abandoned.


And finally, for us fighting game fans, one of the coolest news about this E3, seems to be having finally some gameplay footage of Marvel Vs Capcom 3 Fate Of Two Worlds!

Once again, a kickass poster from artist Shinkiro!

The available characters in the E3 build weren't that many. But at least we have a nice enough look at Deadpool's first fighting game!
From what Capcom said, it seems like:
- Returning characters will have their original gameplay and special attacks back
- Dormmamu will be this game's main enemy final boss. I guess he'll have a giant transformation for the very last round~
- The fastest and more nervous VS ever (more thant MvC2 and Tatsunoko Vs Capcom)
- Every reason I love the VS series a bit more than the classical SF one, team-ups, changes/strikers/team strikes, super combos, etc.. 

Here's a new complete trailer:



And some gameplay video, to see how fun this one's turning out:





Looks like Deadpool will genuinely be funny, like he used to in his original comic series and in Cable & Deadpool. Not "retard"-like funny, how he is under Daniel Way writing.

Epic Random Xmas Comics

Yeah, the title sounds pretty silly I know...

Anyways, here's a comic I did for deviantArt on 2007 actually.

"hum...Well...This is my Christmas Special Page i've been doing for more than 1 week!!! I'm late i know! I'm sorry! but the thing is huuuuge!! I was gonna submit a bigger resolution but dA didn't want it ...sorry for some txt sizes!" My original description back then. :P

MERRY XMAS and have an HAPPY NEW YEAR 2010!!!
Thanks to everybody who's been following my blog already!~
I hope you all enjoy your holidays!

Have fun with this :)

Art&Stories (C) Eyz
Characters are
-Sonic characters (C) SEGA
-Crash char. (C) Vivendi universal
-Looney tunes, tiny toons, animaniacs (C) Warner Bros.
-VVV characters (C) zOdY&friends
-PowerRangers (C) Saban&Toho
-Jason Voorhees (C) New Line
-Mario (C) Nintendo
-Dragon Ball (C) Akira Toriyama, Bird Studio, Toei
-TotlSS (C) Eyz
-cameos: Frobman, LeSam, Bob, Clayman and Eyz (C) to themselves, did i miss something? too bad!