Although it typically gets updated each week with chapters, it's time for a proper, and much larger update. We've actually got a couple new things, some of which we've been working on since last June (don't judge us). So, we'll start off with the "best" part of the update, everybody's favorite, some movie ani-manga!

As you may know, Shueisha released 20 film animation comics from 1992 to 1997, covering all of the DragonBall movies and TV specials. These "ani-manga" releases contained screen shots of the film presented in a comic format, and were much cheaper than buying the actual movie on a home media format, which made them quite popular at the time of their release. Unlike typical tankoubon sized releases, they were printed in full-color on high quality paper. Each volume contained short biographies of all the characters in that respective movie, and on occasion featured some special bonus material relating to either the movie or the TV series.


You'll now find dedicated pages for the first 10 of these comics in the "Manga Guide"! Each page includes full scans of the cover, insert posters, and some of the comic's pages. You'll also find a translation of the table of contents, along with notes describing each section of the comic. Of particular interest is the very first film comic that was released, DragonBall Z Movie 5 (pictured above). It was actually the very first film comic ever released by Shueisha, and because of that, it came with some pretty neat things. Also note that for the most part, all of the comics were released out of chronological order, giving the currently running movies preferential treatment.

Moving on, we have a new addition to guides main page; Kids Animation Comics. At the moment we have no dedicated page detailing each individual release, but for better or worse, it is now listed on the page. I've been meaning to put them up and acknowledge their existence, but better late than never I suppose.

Finally, something a little more current has been added to the guide. Since late 2005 we've been updating with Shueisha's TV animation comic releases. Well, it appears that Shueisha has begun to release remix versions of these comics in Shueisha Jump Remix magazine, a line that publishes previous Jump series. This line had previously re-released all of the film animation comics back in 2004 and 2005.


Similar to the film comic re-releases, each volume is comprised of roughly two volumes from the original release. The Jump Remix re-prints are printed on lower quality paper, similar to that of the tankoubon, allowing them to be sold at a much lower price mark of ¥550 (~$5.50). However, these re-prints omit almost all of the extra supplemental material available in the originals. But if all you want is the comic, they'll suit you just fine. So far 7 volumes have been released, covering up to Goku's battle with Freeza on Namek. If anything, this gives us another release to keep track of...

Links: Manga Guide, Film Animation Comics, Shueisha Jump Remix Comics, Picture Archive