Mystical Adventure Movie - Dragon Ball

Dragon Ball: Mystical Adventure is a Japanese animated fantasy and martial arts film that follows an alternate telling of the Dragon Ball series that was originally written by Akira Toriyama. The movie premiered in Japan on July 9th, 1988 at the Toei Manga Matsuri Film Festival along with Kamen Rider Black: Terrifying! The Phantom House of Devil Pass, Bikkuriman 2: The Secret of Muen Zone, and Tatakae!! Ramenman. This film adapts the story of the Red Ribbon saga and the 22nd World Martial Arts Tournament saga from the original Dragon Ball manga. The film made around one billion yen in the box office ($7.8 million at the time).

Summary

The young students of Master Roshi, Goku and Krillin, are training diligently to prepare for the 22nd World Martial Arts Tournament, which is to be held in the country of Mifan. Chiaotzu, the Emperor of Mifan, looks for his missing doll named “Ran Ran”. Master Shen (Minister Shen in the movie) and Tao are actually the ones who took it, but did so in order to have Chiaotzu order his men to search for the Dragon Balls. The two claim that they can use the wish for collecting the artifacts to find Ran Ran, but are secretly planning on killing Chiaotzu and taking over the country.

Meanwhile, General Blue announces that the doll is in Shen’s room. Tao then kills Blue for foiling their plans. Bora and Upa, two of Goku’s allies, manage to find the last Dragon Ball and attempt to use it as leverage to persuade Mifan into calling their soldiers near Korrin’s tower back. Tao tricks Bora into participating in the tournament and is eventually killed by Tao. Goku’s other friends, Bulma, Launch, Oolong, and Puar search for the other Dragon Balls. When they find the Dragon Balls, however, they accidentally end up falling to the bottom of the moat surrounding Chiaotzu’s castle. Tien eventually gives Ran Ran back to Chiaotzu and tells him that he had to hide it because of Minister Shen and Tao. After this, he blows the minister away.

The story of Goku meeting Arale from the original manga is included as well, but it changed slightly, as it is Goku and Tao that find her rather than Goku and General Blue. In the movie, Goku manages to kill Tao with the help of Arale. After all of the Dragon Balls are collected, Goku wishes to bring Bora back to life.

Main Voice Cast

• Goku: Masako Nozawa
• Arale: Mami Koyama
• Yamcha: Toru Furuya
• Bulma: Hiromi Tsuru
• Master Roshi: Kohei Miyauchi
• Krillin: Mayumi Tanaka

Music

The opening theme song for this movie is called “Makafushigi Adventure” and features lyrics written by Yuriko Mori, music by Takeshi Ike that is arranged by Kohei Tanaka, and vocals by Hiroko Takahashi. On the other hand, the ending theme, “Dragon Ball Legend”, has lyrics written by Onikado Izumi, music by Takeshi Ike that is arranged by Seiichi Kyoda, and vocals by Hiroki Takahashi.

Releases

Aside from the original Japanese release, an American company named Harmony Gold USA created a double feature with Curse of the Blood Rubies that had their own original English dub. It was broadcast mainly in Pennsylvania, but other test market channels showed the films as well. They also allegedly had a home video release in the early 90s, but went largely unnoticed. The Harmony Gold dub features several changes to the original dub and included things like new character names and censored scenes. That said, this dub is often seen as more faithful to some of its other counterparts.

Like with previous Dragon Ball films, a Malaysian company named Speedy Video also released an English dub on VCD (video CD).

Funimation later released another dub themselves in 2000. The DVD version of this release features both the original Japanese dub and their new English dub.

On March 14th, 2004, Madman Entertainment released Mystical Adventure on DVD in both Australia and New Zealand. This release included Funimation’s English dub from 2000 and the original Japanese audio, but had some unique cuts as well. The original opening narration, Pilaf’s cameo appearance, and Goku and Krillin’s opening training sequence are removed from this release. These cuts were replaced with the regular opening of the TV series. The closing credits showing Bora being revived were also replaced by the TV series’ ending sequence as well.

Later Funimation releases use the original Japanese openings and endings, but use several still frames to remove all of the Japanese credits. A box set that included Mystical Adventure, Sleeping Princess in Devil’s Castle, and The Path to Power was also released by Funimation on December 6th, 2005 and again re-released on February 12th, 2008, but has since been discontinued. Mystical Adventure was also a part of a four-pack Dragon Ball movie set released by Funimation on February 8th, 2011. This release includes all of the previously cut footage from the original film, but has no English credits.

Another English dub performed by an uncredited cast was released by a French company named AB Groupe in the early 2000s.

Links

Dragon Ball Series
Dragon Ball Z Series
Dragon Ball Kai Series
Dragon Ball Super Series
Dragon Ball GT Series
Super Dragon Ball Heros
Akira Toriyama