Looks like Dragon Ball is following the steps of Evangelion (which took a page out of George Lucas’ playbook), and is re-releasing their series to please long time fans, as well as to milk more money from an aging series.

Fan favorite, Dragon Ball Z will be remastered and re-aired in high-definition for this coming Spring’s Anime lineup. This remastered series will be titled: Dragon Ball Kai, and will be following more closely to Akira Toriyama’s original Manga. This will mean the anime only fillers like the Garlic Jr. Saga, will not be included (ANN).

This will also mean that some of the drawn out battles which we were sitting through in the anime, will be shorten to follow the original pacing of the Manga. Yay no more powering up for an entire episode, or wasting three episodes to charge up a Genki Dama. Don’t worry, Goku’s power level should still be over 9,000.

With the Dragon Ball series being one of the first animes I’ve watched and got me hooked on anime, I am really looking forward to this. Also with the new live-action movie (Dragonball Evolution) expecting to leave a bitter taste in our mouths, hopefully Dragon Ball Kai will wash it all away, and remind us why this series will always be one of our all-time favorites.

Here is a commercial for the upcoming show: