"Drag-On Ball Z." That's what Comics Alliance's assistant editor Caleb Goellner used to call "Dragon Ball Z," the anime and manga series that inspired a horrible movie starring James Marsters. We can point and laugh at Caleb's ridiculous name-calling later, but to be fair, he has a point. That show had overly extensive battle sequences and plot lines that did indeed drag on for far too many episodes. It was pretty tough to watch at times without wanting to kamehameha yourself in the face.

Years later, somebody involved in the franchise woke up and realized how gratuitously long these battles and story-arcs were, and as a result, they created "Dragon Ball Z Kai," an updated high definition version of the anime with the express purpose of streamlining the original "DBZ" series. As a result, the original 291 episodes of "DBZ" were cut down to a number much closer to 100 episodes, eliminating entire story-arcs in the process for a series that's much closer to the "DBZ" manga. That number should give you an idea of just how hilariously wasteful some of these episodes were.

While "Dragon Ball Z Kai" has already started airing in Japan, it's now coming stateside thanks to an acquisition by Funimation. The plan is to release a series of DVDs starting later in the year, but a release date isn't firmly set just yet. But when it does hit the U.S., at least one "Dragon Ball Z" fan will never have to make a "Drag-On Ball Z" joke ever again. Not unless he wants to get punched in the shoulder by me, at least!

[Via ICv2]