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Dragon Ball, K: The Anime and Hakuoki Released Monday

On Monday April 28, Manga Entertainment will release the first volume of the original Dragon Ball TV series, which first played on Japanese TV in 1986. The series depicts the adventures of a very young Goku, and his first introduction to such characters as the girl inventor Bulma, the eccentric old-man martial artist Kame-Sennin and the shapechanging pig Oolong. The four-disc set carries the first 28 episodes, plus the cinema feature Dragon Ball Movie 1: Curse of the Blood Rubies. (The TV episodes are both dubbed and subtitled; the film is a dub-only version.)

Manga Entertainment is also releasing the television series K as a Blu-ray/DVD combo pack. The anime was shown on Japanese television from last October, with Shingo Suzuki (Mardock Scramble) as the director and character designer. Set in contemporary Japan, the series concerns an apparently ordinary schoolboy who is accused of murder and finds himself pursued by clans of fighters who have deadly powers.

MVM will release Hakuōki: A Memory of Snow Flowers, an OVA side-story in the Hakuōki franchise. The Anime-on-Line website describes the title as follows. ' When rumors reach the Shinsengumi that a group of rogue warriors intend to attack their headquarters, they must investigate the situation or risk perishing before they've even begun to fight. The only safe meeting place seems to be the Sumi Inn inside the red light district of Shimabara. It is up to Chizuru to disguise herself as a geisha and infiltrate the inn. But life as a geisha can be filled with hazards of many kinds, especially for one as beautiful as Chizuru.'