Predictably (and predictedly), announcements are shooting up all over the place as the Tokyo Game Show draws ever nearer. Now that E3 has become an undead husk of its former self, TGS is the industry’s most important trade event, with enough gravity to pull news items not even pertinent to Japan into its lower orbit. Really, it doesn’t take much to surmise that the Japanese audience is at least matched by those of us angling for information worldwide, so there’s little reason not to send a few morsels our way. Companies get eyeballs, we get a briefly sating glimpse of what’s to come; everyone’s happy.

Case in point: an English trailer for Dragon Ball Origins. It’s significant just to have reconfirmation that this is coming out here, since Dragon Ball’s main appeal in the West has always been the cavalcade of grimacing muscle-men it became in later years, rather than the fanciful globetrotting adventure it started out as. Origins places its focus firmly with the latter, although someone in advertising clearly recognized the cultural divide, setting the trailer to the same kind of droning synth-rock that plagued the English dub of Dragon Ball Z. It’s only by the sanity of modern localizations that I trust the game itself will retain the lighthearted orchestral score of the original anime.

The ESRB notice gives the game a T for “partial nudity” and “suggestive themes,” which hopefully will be enough to account for the disparity between Toriyama’s outwardly kid-friendly art style and his blue sense of humor. In particular, it’ll mean the world to me if this brilliant use of the DS hardware goes unedited:

[[image:nn_081003_bulma_01.jpg:I would explain what’s going on here, but honestly, the context just makes it worse.:center:0]]
Oh, yes. The gap beween screens may have gotten you killed in Contra 4, but never forget the time it spared you the indignity of Bulma’s dainty parts.