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"There is no DBZ OVA!" (Well... there sorta is.)

One of the biggest misconceptions raging through the DBZ community over the last near-decade has been that of the fabled "DBZ OVA." An OVA (or OAV, whichever) is an "Original Video Animation." OVAs are generally higher-budget productions, and are always released straight to home format (although they may later find themselves with TV airings, their initial release is straight to video and/or DVD).

Some of the more popular OVAs have been those of the Ranma 1/2 and Fushigi Yûgi series, or complete series such as Blue Sub. 6 and Ah, Megami-sama! (Oh, My Goddess!). For some time, there has been misinformation floating around that a "DBZ OVA" exists. Sometimes it's referred to as the "Lost Movie."

So is it an OVA? Is it video game footage? Or is it something different all-together?

Most people familiar with the Japanese version of DBZ know that in Japan, Bandai is the company responsible for the buttloads of DragonBall video games. From their Mystery of Shenlong (Dragon Power in the US) Famicom / NES game, all the way through the Sparking! series (Budokai Tenkaichi in the US) on the PS2/Wii... Bandai's been the company shoving them down our throats.

In August 1993, a game was released for the Famicom (NES) in Japan entitled Gaiden: Saiya-jin Zetsumetsu Keikaku (Side Story: The Plan to Eradicate the Saiyans). The plot revolved around a Tsufuru-jin seeking revenge for their destruction. Done in the traditional card-battle style of the time, it was one of the later games released for the Famicom (actually done after the Super Famicom / SNES had already been released!).

That same month, two VHS volumes were released, called "Official Visual Guides" for the games. What were they? Completely new, fully-animated, fully-voiced features telling the story to the game!

Amazingly, Bandai was able to pull together production on these "Visual Guides" that showcased the original cast in an all-new animated feature that essentially walked players through the "correct" path in the game (alternate paths could be taken resulting in a different ending). Released in two parts (Jôkan / Part 1, and Gekan / Part 2), these "Visual Guides" received an OVA-style release.

While all of the original seiyû returned to voice their appropriate characters (including all of the old movie villains!), the music was, sadly, entirely new. Best described as "bad techno," the score is quite obnoxious at times and has very little redeeming value to it. Still, it ended up getting its own CD release (FMCC-5006; 11 tracks, 45 minutes).

But that's pretty much an OVA, then, right? Let's keep going.

In 1994, two games were released for a system that few people in the US have even heard of: the Playdia, a system released by Bandai, themselves.

The system came out in 1994, as well. In the age of the new Sony PlayStation and Sega Saturn, it would seem odd for a company like Bandai to suddenly throw a new console into the mix; it was odd. The system was marketed as a "family" console, and towards a younger audience. Imagine in the image of the Nintendo 64 in America with the physical style of the Super Famicom in Japan, make it CD-based, and you've got your Playdia The system even used wireless controllers (so children could play with their parents from the comfort of their couches, of course!). Wireless controllers coming standard with the system was virtually unheard of until Microsoft took the hint.

Rather than traditional console gaming, the Playdia was based more on FMV ("full motion video"; similar to most early Sega CD games). Press a button, something happens. Pretty simple.

Other games based on popular anime were released (such as Sailormoon). As to be expected, however, the system did not do all that well. Bandai eventually resorted to selling "Idol CDs," in which popular, attractive, young Japanese girls would undress themselves at the player's command. By going against their own "family" image, Bandai at least made enough to cover their initial losses.

So there's two DBZ games for this system?! That's right. And that's where the story of this new footage continues.

September and December of 1994, respectively, saw the release of parts 1 and 2 of Gaiden: Saiya-jin Zetsumetsu Keikaku (Side Story: The Plan to Eradicate the Saiyans). The games were just like the other Playdia games; press a button, and something happens in FMV. It's pretty good looking FMV, but it's still "point-and-click" at heart.

Wait, DBZ FMV?!

Exactly! The footage used in the two Playdia games is the exact same footage released to home video as the "Official Visual Guides" a year earlier (it's slightly more pixelated in its compression for the video game system, but it's still the same footage).

So how did the footage from this game end up being called an OVA? Well, in the technical sense, it probably is. Toei occasionally refers to it as an "OVA" in production history listings, but the phrase "OVA" was most known to American anime fans in the sense described earlier in this article. Most fans were completely unaware that the story originated in an NES game from 1993, never mind an extensive history with a VHS release and then re-used in another series of video games in 1994!

Needless to say, the footage on the official VHS release is in completely raw Japanese; the Japanese have no need for English subtitles! And, being an official release, it didn't look half bad. So why is the copy you're possibly watching subtitled and pretty crappy-looking? (Yes, we realize that since this time, digital bootleg subs have been released.) Back in the day before digi-subs were as common as they are, "Carddass" (whom REALLY old fans will remember as Gokou3, the owner of Paozu Yama) timed out the translations for a copy of the footage on VHS, which he eventually handed over to Ramza (whom slightly younger, but still older, fans will remember as the owner of Dragon Ball Blast). In the winter of 2000, Ramza completed the subtitling of the footage and released it as the "DBZ OVA" on VHS.

The subtitles leave a lot to be desired. The font is incredibly difficult to read (there's not much of a border around the yellow subs), and since the video quality, itself, is pretty bad... bad subs on bad video = ouch on the eyes. The grammar's not always fantastic, either ("Goku" is always spelled as "Gokou," plus punctuation errors and other general no-nos). The screen blips out to garbage at least three times, even on a decent VCR. Lots of bending at the top of the screen, and lots of discoloration throughout the entire feature. Ramza later went back and redid the subtitling with better-looking subs and a completely re-timed script, but by this point, the lower-quality copy had already made its rounds.

The term "OVA" to describe the footage probably mostly originated in its original translators and distributors in the US (being Carddass and Ramza, mentioned above), in combination with listings from Toei. That doesn't mean it's wrong (it's technically "correct"), but it at least gives a good idea of where it came from. Many DBZ fans from the mid-to-late-90s actually didn't know the difference between the Playdia games and the VHS releases. In fact, some thought they were one-in-the-same, further complicating the origin story.

In a shock to fans, Toei Animation included the footage in its entirety as an extra on their second DragonBall Z "Dragon Box" (giant DVD box set) in Japan, released in 2003. While the footage for this feature wasn't "remastered" (as the rest of the series was), it finally received another release on a decent home format.

So... now you know the history behind the legendary "DBZ OVA," and its true origins as a video game for the NES in 1993, a home VHS release that same month, recycled footage in two Playdia games in 1994, and finally a decent DVD release in 2003. Whether or not to call it an "OVA" is truly up to you; it's received such strange releases with an even more bizarre history behind them all, it's impossible to truly classify it as anything. We use the title "There is no OVA!" mostly as an attraction to lure you all into reading its history, but we do also think of it as a true statement! With such an amazing past, this footage is more than an OVA... it's fanboy legend ^_~.

Special thanks to the following sites for the images on this page:
- www.superpope.com
- darkwatcher.psxfanatics.com/console/playdia.htm
- www.dragonball-benelux.com

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