2 questions regarding purchasing dragon ball and Z

[DragonBallKing]

1. Are the blue bricks my only option for dragon ball, I've looked everywhere and can't find anything else.

2. I can't afford dragon boxes so are the blu rays as bad as they say?

[VegettoEX]

The blue bricks are the only consistent (1-153) product FUNimation has ever released for the original Dragon Ball TV series, and on DVD it's only the second product line overall anyway. The previous line was a series of two-disc sets, but these did not include the first 13 episodes due to outstanding sublicenses with Kidmark at the time (though Australia got these episodes uncut/bilingual in that same product line). We have all of these products outlined in our home video guide.

The "bad as they say" with the Dragon Ball Z TV series Blu-rays is up to the individual fan. Personally, a cropped picture is a deal-breaker before we even get started with the rest of the presentation. The video cleanup is certainly "better" (read: less aggressive) than the orange bricks (DVD season sets) were, but it's still worthy of criticism.

[sintzu]

I won't add anything to what VegettoEX said about DB but another issue with the Blu-Rays is that in Season 5 on 1 or 2 of the discs, half the picture gets really blurry for some unknown reason.

Currently the best option to own Z in English or in America is Kai.

[Jinzoningen MULE]

Unfortunately, there's no good, practical way to own Dragon Ball Z in English unless you're getting the Orange Bricks or the Blu-rays, both of which are absolutely horrid in the video quality department. If you don't care about that kind of thing, it won't be a huge deal for you. If picture quality is a big deal, you're left with the unfortunate predicament on whether to go with Kai, or pay a small fortune off the 2nd-hand market for an older, better release.

As for Dragon Ball, the Blue Bricks are perfectly serviceable. There's no need to seek out other releases, though they are out there.

[TheGreatness25]

The Blu-rays or orange bricks are really up to you. The cropped picture is not great, but it fits modern TVs pretty nicely. I personally have no problem with the colors or the removal of grain, but a lot of people who are much more knowledgeable than I am regarding video quality, would say that it makes the release pretty bad to look at.

So with Z, you can go down the route of getting single releases, though you'd have to improvise about the end of the "Vegeta" and "Namek Sagas."

If money is really tight, there is another option that will be entirely up to you. Funimation Now is like $50 a year (if I recall correctly) and uses blue brick footage for Dragon Ball and the blu-rays for Z. Though the quality will never be as great as a physical copy because it is streaming, that's probably the absolute cheapest way to have legal access to the series.

[sintzu]

Unfortunately, there's no good, practical way to own Dragon Ball Z in English.

Which is really surprising considaring how big the Z is for the company and in America. You'd think after all these years they would've gotten it right by now.

[Jinzoningen MULE]

Unfortunately, there's no good, practical way to own Dragon Ball Z in English.

Which is really surprising considaring how big the Z is for the company and in America. You'd think after all these years they would've gotten it right by now.

Actually, Funimation did recently replace some of their streaming footage with a 4:3 version (not sure if it's still up, though). Who knows? Maybe they're planning something.

[simtek34]

The Blu-rays or orange bricks are really up to you. The cropped picture is not great, but it fits modern TVs pretty nicely. I personally have no problem with the colors or the removal of grain, but a lot of people who are much more knowledgeable than I am regarding video quality, would say that it makes the release pretty bad to look at.

So with Z, you can go down the route of getting single releases, though you'd have to improvise about the end of the "Vegeta" and "Namek Sagas."

If money is really tight, there is another option that will be entirely up to you. Funimation Now is like $50 a year (if I recall correctly) and uses blue brick footage for Dragon Ball and the blu-rays for Z. Though the quality will never be as great as a physical copy because it is streaming, that's probably the absolute cheapest way to have legal access to the series.

Actually, FUNimationNow has the Orange Brick footage. When FUNimation first made the Orange Bricks, they made 1080p HD Scans which is the footage that is on FUNiNow and formerly Hulu.
Another pro for FUNimationNow is that the OG Dragon Ball movies 1-4 are in HD, even though they are not on Blu-ray.

[Dragon Ball Ireland]

Unless you want the Japanese title cards you can't go wrong with the blue bricks. If you just want a release that gets the job done, offers the dub and sub in respectable audio and video quality, they are worth it.

Z is a tad more difficult, although if you can't afford the Dragon Boxes (which while certainly a great release, the value of the price tag is debatable) and aren't interested in Kai I'd say just get the Blu-Rays. They're not perfect, but they are the best cost effective way to own the series and the remastering and cropping (for the most part) is no where near as bad as the orange bricks.

[Jinzoningen MULE]

Z is a tad more difficult, although if you can't afford the Dragon Boxes (which while certainly a great release, the value of the price tag is debatable) and aren't interested in Kai I'd say just get the Blu-Rays. They're not perfect, but... the remastering... (for the most part) is nowhere near as bad as the orange bricks.

I'd dispute that. They suffer almost all of the same issues to some degree. The texture is actually far worse in the Blu-ray version.

[Robo4900]

One thing you could do for Z is to get whatever release you can for the first 67 at least(Perhaps the Levels for 1-34, then the orange bricks for 35-67. Or the Ultimate Uncuts for 1-27, and the bricks for 28-67, or just the bricks for 1-67), then start getting the original DVD singles for the series starting from episode 68. You get a 4:3 picture, better colours than the DBoxes, and for the dub, you don't have to worry about all the inconsistent and jarring overdubbing that ended up cutting out most of the vocal filters.

As for the original series, the blue bricks are fine. Singles look a little better, and have the Japanese title cards, but they'll probably cost you more.

I'd dispute that. They suffer almost all of the same issues to some degree. The texture is actually far worse in the Blu-ray version.

I agree 100%. The orange bricks and the BDs suffer from blurriness, oversharpening, poor cropping, and a general disrespect for the film sources. However, despite the BDs being less blurry, and the cropping being handled better, the oversharpening is worse, there's even less respect for the original film source, and overall, it basically looks like a pretty crappy animated GIF. At least the orange bricks maintained some of the film texture.

But, let's not turn this into another OB vs BD debate. They're both terrible, this discussion has been played out a million times over, and everyone has either already made up their mind, or can look back at those older threads and draw their own conclusions.

[TheGreatness25]

The Blu-rays or orange bricks are really up to you. The cropped picture is not great, but it fits modern TVs pretty nicely. I personally have no problem with the colors or the removal of grain, but a lot of people who are much more knowledgeable than I am regarding video quality, would say that it makes the release pretty bad to look at.

So with Z, you can go down the route of getting single releases, though you'd have to improvise about the end of the "Vegeta" and "Namek Sagas."

If money is really tight, there is another option that will be entirely up to you. Funimation Now is like $50 a year (if I recall correctly) and uses blue brick footage for Dragon Ball and the blu-rays for Z. Though the quality will never be as great as a physical copy because it is streaming, that's probably the absolute cheapest way to have legal access to the series.

Actually, FUNimationNow has the Orange Brick footage. When FUNimation first made the Orange Bricks, they made 1080p HD Scans which is the footage that is on FUNiNow and formerly Hulu.
Another pro for FUNimationNow is that the OG Dragon Ball movies 1-4 are in HD, even though they are not on Blu-ray.

Oh really? I feel like the quality that they have up there is a lot better looking than what they used to have on Hulu and even before on FunimationNow. Hm. Well, either way, I really support this. It's so cheap, it's a great way to legally have access to all of Dragon Ball (including Super), as well as the rest of their fantastic library.

[GreatSaiyaJeff]

I'm probably one of the few fans that don't mind the orange bricks. They are affordable and the cropped picture never really bugged me. Although if you don't own them though, I do recommend getting the Kai sets though since they have a better quality dub on them.

[Robo4900]

From what I hear, FunimationNow are starting to replace some episodes of Z with Dragon Box footage, so if they carry this through the whole run, that will end up being the best option.

As for Kai, yeah it is the easest/best way to just watch the Z portion of the story at the moment. And it has the bonus of the dub being a lot better, and the Japanese track having better sound quality(And slightly better subs).
Plus, it's a lot simpler to tell someone to grab the seasons sets of Dragon Ball, then the season/part sets of Kai and Super than it is to have to explain the problems with the two season sets of Z, the expense of the Dragon Boxes, the fact the Rock The Dragon set is the censored Saban dub, and the incomplete nature of the Levels and UUs, and to a certain extent the original DVD singles...
It's quite a mess.

[tellyzbad1]

I'm surprised people consider the "cleanup" process in the season Blu-rays to be better and less aggressive than the Orange Bricks. The footage is indeed cleaner in the blu-rays...but less aggressive? Not sure if I can agree on that.

[TheKingOfKamehamehas]

From what I hear, FunimationNow are starting to replace some episodes of Z with Dragon Box footage, so if they carry this through the whole run, that will end up being the best option.

As for Kai, yeah it is the easest/best way to just watch the Z portion of the story at the moment. And it has the bonus of the dub being a lot better, and the Japanese track having better sound quality(And slightly better subs).
Plus, it's a lot simpler to tell someone to grab the seasons sets of Dragon Ball, then the season/part sets of Kai and Super than it is to have to explain the problems with the two season sets of Z, the expense of the Dragon Boxes, the fact the Rock The Dragon set is the censored Saban dub, and the incomplete nature of the Levels and UUs, and to a certain extent the original DVD singles...
It's quite a mess.

But even Kai is still kind of a mess because you can buy the Parts or the Season Sets if you want Yamamoto or Kikuchi for the Saiyan and Freeza Saga. I agree that it is still less of a mess than Z, but a lot of people still care about the musical score.

[Metalwario64]

I'm surprised people consider the "cleanup" process in the season Blu-rays to be better and less aggressive than the Orange Bricks. The footage is indeed cleaner in the blu-rays...but less aggressive? Not sure if I can agree on that.

Yeah. There are more filters, and while the lines don't disappear, there are odd remnants of grain throughout the images, and sometimes more details in the backgrounds are wiped out. I remember a comparison of the "season 2" releases, and the Blu-rays were even blurrier and had more fine detail scrubbed. Also, where the colors in the Season 3 DVD had colors that pretty closely resembled the Dragon Boxes with just a little too much contrast, the Blu-ray has a really strong color tint (sometimes green, but usually extremely purple).

Overall, I'd put them on relatively even levels, where the DVDs have missing lines, a center crop and sometimes overly blurry image (the blurriness is toned down after "season 2"), the Blu-rays have more filters, weird artifacts, and sometimes counter-intuitively framed shots.

[ecrockedboston]

I'm probably one of the few fans that don't mind the orange bricks. They are affordable and the cropped picture never really bugged me. Although if you don't own them though, I do recommend getting the Kai sets though since they have a better quality dub on them.

I have great affinity for the orange bricks. They kept me company when I got my first apartment 8 years ago when I realized that I maybe wasn't mature enough to go out on my own. They not only got me back into the series for the first time since '01, they got me through some really lonely times.

[Jinzoningen MULE]

I'm probably one of the few fans that don't mind the orange bricks. They are affordable and the cropped picture never really bugged me. Although if you don't own them though, I do recommend getting the Kai sets though since they have a better quality dub on them.

I have great affinity for the orange bricks. They kept me company when I got my first apartment 8 years ago when I realized that I maybe wasn't mature enough to go out on my own. They not only got me back into the series for the first time since '01, they got me through some really lonely times.

Codependency is a bad thing.

[GreatSaiyaJeff]

I'm probably one of the few fans that don't mind the orange bricks. They are affordable and the cropped picture never really bugged me. Although if you don't own them though, I do recommend getting the Kai sets though since they have a better quality dub on them.

I have great affinity for the orange bricks. They kept me company when I got my first apartment 8 years ago when I realized that I maybe wasn't mature enough to go out on my own. They not only got me back into the series for the first time since '01, they got me through some really lonely times.

Ahhhhhh its nice to see another kindred spirit of the orange bricks I am glad to hear they helped you out.