As if you didn’t see this coming. Funimation, in continuing their quest to acquire everything Dragon Ball-related, has confirmed the license of Dragon Ball Kai. In case you don’t know, Dragon Ball Kai is a remastered version of Dragon Ball Z formatted for HD and widescreen. It also removes all the “filler” content that wasn’t part of the original manga, thus shortening the series down to about 100 episodes (though an official number of episodes has yet to be confirmed).

Funimation has yet to confirm the details of its release, but knowing how well DBZ has done outside of Japan, it seems fair to bet that they will push for a major TV network airing of this show. Let’s hope they can get it on an HD channel. A Blu-ray release should also be expected.

To you fans who bought the DBZ box sets (and possibly even the recently released Dragon Box): Will you be “double-dipping” on this series? I’m sure that many hardcore fans will be willing to spend as much money as they can towards what is arguably one of the greatest anime series of all time.

As for me, this will be my chance to finally get into the Dragon Ball franchise. So, I will most definitely be picking this up when it gets released.