1997 was a critical year for the Dragon Ball franchise in the United States:
Between the home video releases and the video game, you can start to form a picture of how the merchandising empire was starting to take hold. What rarely gets mentioned alongside them was the fact that action figures were finally coming out in an official capacity (not just Japanese originals imported from the back of gaming magazines or shipped across the border from Mexico).
In 1997, Bandai themselves (in a pre-Irwin world) began releasing the “Super Battle Collection” series of figures in North America… and one of them has a very notable name spelling!
That’s “Freeza” with a double-“ee” spelling on an official piece of merchandise under FUNimation’s license and released directly by Bandai.
My recollection and cross-referencing leads me to think that I must have purchased these around summer 1998 during a family vacation visit — I bought a Cloud Strife figure alongside them, and that’s not only dated as 1998, but wouldn’t have been released yet in 1997 (it, too, was a American Bandai release). Some light searching back on Usenet also reveals that most people start chatting about these figures come spring 1998, but online conversations were always delayed from reality just a tiny bit back then. At least one comment in 1998 does specifically note a “last year” release for these American-specific “Super Battle Collection” figures in US comic stores and Canadian Toys ‘R’ Us stores (which makes sense considering the dual English/French verbiage on its packaging).
The packaging of this “Freeza” figure specifically notes 1997 on the back, and were it to come out (or perhaps be produced) any later than early/mid-1997, it likely wouldn’t be sporting that name spelling — but we’ll get to that momentarily.
Leading up to the the character’s name being written out in a title card, every single instance of the name uses the “Freeza” spelling. For example, if you turn on the closed captioning for TV broadcast recordings of episodes before (and even sometimes after!) #34, during any case in which a character speaks “Freeza” by name aloud, it is written with the double-“ee” spelling:
The double-“ee” spelling is also used on various “Ani-Mayhem” cards of the era, including ones specifically dated for 1997:
Once we hit original, edited, dubbed episode 34 (titled “The Ruthless Frieza”) circa October 1997, things start to change and the “i” spelling becomes standardized across all FUNimation-adjacent products — though Viz remains unbeholden to this decision and (so far) continues to use “Freeza” to this day in all official English-language Dragon Ball manga releases.
Thankfully there appears to be a semi-functional archive of Bandai America’s website from 1997 via the Way Back Machine… and it is indeed likely 1997 — June, specifically — that these figures started to make their way to store shelves:
DRAGON BALL Z GOOD GUYS:
AVAIL JUNE 1997
Goku, Super Saiyan Goku, Piccolo and others–10 action figures, each 6-inches tall with fun snap-on accessories.DRAGON BALL Z BAD GUYS:
AVAIL JUNE 1997
Vegeta, Freeza, Super Saiyan Vegeta, and Cell–each 6-inches tall, poseable and coming with a change of accessories.
I personally still have the Goku, Vegeta, Super Saiyan Vegeta, and Freeza figures still in their original packaging, and it’s always a trip to trot out the double-“ee” spelling!
The post From the Past Friday: Bandai’s North American “Super Battle Collection” Release appeared first on Kanzenshuu.