More Upcoming Releases
Amazon.com has dates for the next two Dragonball GT DVDs, as well as the second King Piccolo boxed set. Dragonball GT #5 (Baby Saga -- Ramifications) and #6 (Baby Saga -- Preparation) will be released 6/26/03. King Piccolo set #2 will be released 6/3/03.

This does merit some questions. Why are they skipping the General Blue and Commander Red sagas? Are they included in the Red Ribbon Army boxed set?

The next (previous?) DBZ video game "Ultimate Battle 22" for the PS1 is being released in the US on Mar 25. This game was originally released in Europe and Japan in 2001, but never made it to the US. It's similar in spirit to Budokai but includes characters from the Buu saga. Of course, it's PS1 so may seem dated.

Last DBZ DVD
The official site has just announced a Mar 11 release on "Kid Buu -- A New Beginning", the final volume in Dragonball Z. of course, while it is the final volume in sequence, there is still a big gap between the beginning of the Cell Games saga and the World Tournament saga. No DVD release dates for those have been announced yet.

Also, there are reports that Funimation will be re-dubbing the horribly edited Saiyan and Namek sagas. Both of these sagas were released on DVD, but only in English and in a badly mangled form. The first 63 English episodes were actually edited from 77 Japanese ones.

Even given all that, it may still be possible to have uncut DVDs of all of Dragonball Z by the end of the year. One can only hope...

Dragonball GT
The official Dragonball GT website has now opened at dragonballgt.com and it looks pretty good. There's lot of spoiler information in there about characters and the early episodes, at least.

I don't know if I'm actually looking forward to GT, right now. Unlike Dragonball and Dragonball Z, GT was not based on the original Dragonball comic book/manga. Other Dragonball sagas and events that were not based on the mangas were somewhat lackluster: the "dream" Namek (right after the Saiyan Saga), the entire Garlic Jr. plotline, and the movies (just to name some off the top of my head). To give the same people that created those episodes free reign for a complete spin-off series is... scary. We can actually look at the past a bit to predict the future: in Japan, Dragonball GT was not as popular as the previous incarnations. We shall see how it goes for the US.

Answers
To answer my own questions, from below:

Sandland has only 14 chapters (compared to 519 of Dragon Ball!) and was released (in Japan) in a single collection.

What I said was chapter 140, was actually 335... I think. Chapter 195 is the first chapter in the Saiyan Saga and where DBZ starts so I assume they just started renumbering from there. I could be off by own or two, I'm trying to find out the exact number. Regardless, these chapters take place in DB vol #28.

I need to find a good manga chapters list someplace...

March Shonen Jump
The 3/03 edition of Shonen Jump (US) has been released and should be available in newsstands, many book stores, comic shops, and anime stores. If you haven't checked it out yet, I highly recommend it.

This issue includes Dragonball issues 140 through 142, essentially the latter half of the Trunks saga. (This will probably be in DBZ #11 or #12, but I haven't checked the numbers. There's probably a reference someplace...)

Shonen Jump also features Sandland, another excellent Akira Toriyama manga. This month's issue is #3. I'm not familiar with the manga enough to know how many issues were released or how it's broken down, and I'm just enjoying it as it's being released.

And to further your AK fix, there's also a short interview with him about Dragon Ball and a feature about the Dragon Quest series, inluding information about the in-development Dragon Quest VIII. (In the US, the Dragon Quest series is better known as Dragon Warrior.) I fell in love with the games long before I knew that Akira Toriyama did the artwork and character designs and I highly recommend you check them out.

Oh, and there's supposively some information about the DBZ card game and a free card or something, but I really don't care at all about that.

Final Season of Dragon Ball Z starts in March
According to Animation Insider (and confirmed by looking at Cartoon Network's posted schedule), the final season of Dragon Ball Z will begin airing March 17th and continue through April 7th. This is a final shortened season to finish off the Buu saga in perparation for the launch of Dragon Ball GT, possibly in the fall.

As a side note, it appears that Cartoon Network will stop airing episodes of original Dragon Ball at that time. We know that Funimation is producting episodes of the Piccolo saga for DVD, so it is likely to only be a temporary interruption until new episodes start in the fall.

Manga Releases?
I have been completely failing to unearth future release dates for volume 11 of Dragonball and Dragonball Z mangas. Does anyone know a site that actually keeps this information? The most that I can get from Viz is that it won't be released in Feburary.

Amazon.com comes closest to providing any information at all. They list a large number of releases in June and July, most of which claim to be 192 pages (about right for a new manga volume), but whose prices are too low to be a new manga release.

To make this more confusing, they list a release date of this month for DB #10, when I purchased mine at the end of December. So, the date could still be completely wrong.

In any event, the next released volume is likely to be DBZ #11 (AKA DB #27) which progresses nearly to the end of the Frieeza saga. DB #11 will follow and continue with the 22nd Budokai. (what Funimation calls the "Tien Shinhan Saga".)

Red Ribbon Army Saga DVD Official
The official Funimation store announced the availability of the Red Ribbon Army DVD boxed set. RightStuf announced this a couple of months ago, so it's a good sign that the date held true. This probably covers VHS volumes 12 through 16, although the exact data doesn't seem to be available yet. Given that the next release is for the beginning of the King Piccolo saga, it is possible (but not likely) that it will continue through the Commander Red and General Blue mini-sagas. To make it all the way to the King Piccolo saga though, it would also be necessary to do the Fortune Teller Baba and Tien Shinhan sagas-- and neither these nor the Blue or Red sagas have been completely released on VHS. Time will tell.

I have also added an upcoming release guide for DVDs on the right of the page. This took a little bit of work since the blog templates that Tripod uses doesn't make it obvious how you can edit it to your liking-- but it is possible. I hope it shows up well on other browsers.

Dragon Ball Releases
Tomorrow is the day for the first ever release of Dragon Ball (not Dragon Ball Z) on DVD, with the release of the Tournament box set. This set includes episodes covered in volumes 7 through 11 of the VHS. ("Roshi's Request", "Turtle Hermit Training", "Fighters Begin", "Semi-Finals", and "The Final Test")

The first six volumes were released some time ago on DVD, edited and in English only, by the previous dubbing company. Funimation has produced uncut versions of those episodes, but have to wait until they can buy the distribution rights before they can sell them. (The edited versions of Funimation's dub are what aired on Cartoon Network. They can broadcast those eps, but not sell them.)

The next box set, for the Red Ribbon Army Saga, is set to release 2/25.