DBZ Blu-ray Orange Bricks are here to stay - "This is truly the best possible way to watch Dragon Ball Z"

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DBZ Blu-ray Orange Bricks are here to stay - "This is truly the best possible way to watch Dragon Ball Z"

Post by SuperCyan2 » Sun Feb 18, 2018 6:45 pm

That's a quote from an Amazon reviewer but why does his opinion even matter? Well, Dragon Ball fans here need to acknowledge that the Season Blu-rays were a huge success and they're loved by the majority even though they look like shit to me, but hey, they enjoy it and good on them, I guess.

Point being, FUNimation knows its market and this is it. They [FUNimation] will not spend excessive amounts of money, patience, time and talent when a crappy release can be so lucrative. FUNi is a business company, not a fansub.
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Huge fan of DBZ. I grew up watching this show and was ecstatic when I saw these available. I was buying the level sets untill they stopped making them. (LOVED those by the way) I think this is an awesome set! The cropping, although some people are complaining about it, is really not bad at all. In fact you soon forget its cropped at all. The audio options are great as well. If your a die-hard dbz fan and cant stand that kai crap then this is for you. Quality is really great! I pre-ordered seasons 2 and 3 and will be continuing to order seasons as they are available. I highly recommend this!
This is a great buy for someone looking for a bluray version of DBZ, the quality in the picture is amazing and re-watching in this format is awesome. It's crazy how clear the colors are and how well it looks. For someone that is looking to watch this with a new experience this is a great purchase and the front covers display a continuous scene if you line them up. I'm so glad I made the investment in purchasing these, especially seeing that I haven't had any other hard copies of the DBZ seasons
I wasn't sure if I should get the regular DVD set (orange brick) or just spend a little extra on the blu ray. I'm glad I chose the blu ray sets. The sound is amazing. The picture is so clear and the colors are just gorgeous. It's just amazing. I love DBZ AND I'm glad that I've finally started buying the seasons. I just need season 8 and 9 which are available for pre-order through Amazon. By December I'll have all 9 seasons. But anyways if you have a blu-ray player or in my case a PS3 then the blu-ray sets are the way to go. But if you don't want to spend a little extra cash then the orange brick sets are just as good. Heck anything DBZ IS good!!
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I'm loving this. However, it's not without it's flaws. The HD reolution is superb and they did a great job making it visually stunning. It's a shame they felt they had to crop it to be widescreen. It can be distracting at times when you feel part of a character is cut off.

I'm pleased to see that they have English with either the original Japanese music or the US version with the Bruce Faulconer music. If the US version was in 5.1 instead of Stereo, I would have been ecstatic, but it isn't sadly. And if you wanted to watch this subbed, you only get Mono sound.

All-in-all, a very solid purchase. I will recommend.
These blu-rays look great, a massive improvement over the dvds. Still, theres some issues I have. First of all, these are widescreen (when the original was fullscreen) so some is cut off the top and bottom. This issue is fixed somewhat by the fact that they adjusted the view pwr individual scene to try to avoid cutting anything important, but it's still obvious in some instances. Unfortunately, there's no set in production currently without this issue. Also, the English dub with Japanese music option does not feature the original opening songs; you have to switch to the japanese tracks to hear Head Cha-La or We Gotta Power. Additionally, the "textless opening" special feature doesn't have the original songs either and this can't be changed. Other than that, the set is fine; interesting special features and great picture quality, and if you can overlook the few issues, DBZ in HD is breathtaking.

This is probably the best way to watch Dragon Ball Z in HD however I have some issues. The music by default is not the falconer music. You have to physically switch the audio to audio English 2 in order to listen to this with Falconer music. It gets annoying having to do this for every disc but at least it’s there and available.

My biggest issue that I have is that in some episodes you will notice that the animated lines outlining characters are slightly blurry. As if the projector when scanning the film was not in focus. I’m curious if this is only the Blu Ray that was like this or if the original dragon ball z episodes had these blurred lines and we just couldn’t tell until now. It starts to happen after the Frieza Saga, maybe around season 5. One episode that stands out to me is the one where Vegeta becomes Super Vegeta. I’ll include some photos.

As for the wide screen crop I don’t mind it. Each scene was put into account when cropped that it wouldn’t effect the story. You honestly get used to it.

Besides some blurry episodes this is truly the best possible way to watch Dragon Ball Z
This was absolutely perfect for me as I'm a huge DBZ fan and a collector to boot. The package was well secured when shipped so it had no damage, it looks great next to my other collectibles... and now I get to enjoy my favorite series in great quality!
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Re: DBZ Blu-ray Orange Bricks are here to stay - "This is truly the best possible way to watch Dragon Ball Z"

Post by PacificOceanDub » Sun Feb 18, 2018 7:32 pm

While I don’t agree that the season blu rays are the best way to watch the show, I also don’t think they’re awful by any means. I have them all, alongside a complete collection of the FUNi singles. I find myself watching the blu rays for seasons 1 and 2, obviously because I wouldn’t be able to watch them in Japanese or even uncut for that matter on the Funi singles. But 9 times out of 10, when I pass the second season, I start watching the Funi singles strictly because of the image quality. The 4:3 standard definition DVDs are just the way I like DBZ to look, I guess. The Japanese audio sounds a little better on the blu rays though, so there are pros and cons.

Also, I’ve never really agreed with calling them Orange Brick blu rays. The cropping is waaayyy less noticeable.
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Re: DBZ Blu-ray Orange Bricks are here to stay - "This is truly the best possible way to watch Dragon Ball Z"

Post by Bruma rabu » Sun Feb 18, 2018 8:01 pm

Someone correct me if I'm wrong but from what I understand the reason it's like this is because of their film masters. Dragon Ball Z is long running show and doing it the way they did with the level sets is expensive. I don't know what kind of deal they have with toei but I'm pretty sure it's them holding them back from re-releasing the dbox. On top of that the average anime fan doesn't care or aren't well informed about picture and audio quality. So this was a win win situation for Funi. They can cheaply remaster their crappy film masters and people will get dbz. I wish more people in general were anal about picture and audio quality but they just aren't.
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Re: DBZ Blu-ray Orange Bricks are here to stay - "This is truly the best possible way to watch Dragon Ball Z"

Post by KBABZ » Sun Feb 18, 2018 8:26 pm

The problem is these folks usually don't know any better and bought into Funimation's misleading hype with the widescreen cropping and noise removal. The Dragon Boxes, HD aside, are objectively better ways to watch the show because the picture hasn't been destroyed and removed.

The Orange Bricks certainly helped DBZ availability for sure, but the reason why that statement doesn't ring true is because any other release of the show (such as the Ultimate Uncuts or Level sets) would have done that if the release schedule was retained.

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Re: DBZ Blu-ray Orange Bricks are here to stay - "This is truly the best possible way to watch Dragon Ball Z"

Post by snaku » Sun Feb 18, 2018 8:27 pm

Well at least you’re at the acceptance stage. :thumbup:

Honestly, I don’t see DBZ getting another release from Funi, unless Toei remasters the series themselves. Just doesn’t make sense for them to waste more time and money on it when they’ve got a product that’s still selling out on the market.

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Re: DBZ Blu-ray Orange Bricks are here to stay - "This is truly the best possible way to watch Dragon Ball Z"

Post by PacificOceanDub » Sun Feb 18, 2018 8:41 pm

It’s a shame that Funimation hasn’t gone the Manufacture-On-Demand route that a lot of other companies have gone, particularly in the field of cartoons on home video. Just to give us some of the things that we want, like in my case an affordable copy of Rock the Dragon, or in other peoples’ Cases, finished Level Sets.
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Re: DBZ Blu-ray Orange Bricks are here to stay - "This is truly the best possible way to watch Dragon Ball Z"

Post by Gligarman » Sun Feb 18, 2018 9:09 pm

I never bought any of the reasoning behind cropping the show. Especially considering how many times it’s since been released in its proper aspect ratio. I’m fortunate that I have the Dragon Boxes and as far as I’m concerned that’s it for me.

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Re: DBZ Blu-ray Orange Bricks are here to stay - "This is truly the best possible way to watch Dragon Ball Z"

Post by Robo4900 » Sun Feb 18, 2018 10:19 pm

Widescreen cropping is a cancer on Dragon Ball that we will probably never be rid of completely, whether we like it or not. Maybe we could have done something about this back in 2013 if we'd tried hard enough, maybe not. The fandom at large took the path of least resistance on that one at the time though, so unfortunately it's impossible to know either way. Maybe if there had been an organised effort around the internet to boycott the Season BDs, something might have happened. But, no one organised anything, or at least, no one listened to the few who tried; everyone just let it happen, so we will never know.

Still, pester Funimation(But not the actors, they have nothing to do with this), maybe if people are incessant enough for long enough, we'll get a re-released Dragon Box DVD set in 10 years or something, or maybe they'll put up the DBox masters for seasons 1-8 on FuniNow in a few years. Hey, it's better than nothing, right?
Though DBZ's 30th anniversary is next year, so maybe if we pester them hard enough over the next year, they might do it then. Can't hurt to try.
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Re: DBZ Blu-ray Orange Bricks are here to stay - "This is truly the best possible way to watch Dragon Ball Z"

Post by Forte224 » Sun Feb 18, 2018 10:58 pm

Yeah it's sad. People just take whatever they're given. I get the same way when people say they don't notice framerate in video games. "30fps and 60fps look the same to me." It's like, are you blind?!

Anyway, yeah the average fan just accepting it and saying it's fine is annoying to me. I did end up paying a pretty penny for the Dragon Boxes, but it's frustrating that I had to resort to that to see the show in a decent quality. The Dragon Ball franchise is such a mess when it comes to home releases.

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Re: DBZ Blu-ray Orange Bricks are here to stay - "This is truly the best possible way to watch Dragon Ball Z"

Post by GamerSkull » Sun Feb 18, 2018 11:55 pm

I have the blu-rays and while they aren't the best quality, I guess I can make do with them. Yeah, I might have contributed to them staying around but I really wanted to watch the series in the most affordable way and I'm not exactly into pirating it or anything. I'm not the type to do that. I just can't afford to get the series via Dragon Boxes since it's way expensive now.

I got the blu-rays because I thought there would likely not be another re-release but I'm not opposed to re-purchasing some better ones if FUNi decides to release it. (although even that would have to wait until I can afford to purchase them all). Still working on getting those blue bricks at the moment for original DB.
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Re: DBZ Blu-ray Orange Bricks are here to stay - "This is truly the best possible way to watch Dragon Ball Z"

Post by KBABZ » Mon Feb 19, 2018 12:11 am

The more confusing part about the Blu-Rays to me is that surely by that point the Orange Bricks had MORE than made back their production costs. There was no reason for Funimation to believe the Blu-Ray sets wouldn't do the same, especially since by that point Blu-Ray was a proven format, so they could probably have afforded to stick to the Level Set production.

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Re: DBZ Blu-ray Orange Bricks are here to stay - "This is truly the best possible way to watch Dragon Ball Z"

Post by dragondyle » Mon Feb 19, 2018 2:17 am

While I have never and will never agree that it's okay to even crop a show the way these have, I don't believe the product is overall terrible. I personally think the video quality is great and, while the Japanese audio isn't perfect, it still sounds pretty good. This is how I own the show now. Yes, it's not perfect, and neither is the Viz manga, but it's what I have now and I'm not going to buy the series over again and again any more. I've settled that the DBZ Blu-rays are my way of owning the show now, and yeah that kind of does suck.
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Re: DBZ Blu-ray Orange Bricks are here to stay - "This is truly the best possible way to watch Dragon Ball Z"

Post by KBABZ » Mon Feb 19, 2018 4:40 am

dragondyle wrote:While I have never and will never agree that it's okay to even crop a show the way these have, I don't believe the product is overall terrible. I personally think the video quality is great and, while the Japanese audio isn't perfect, it still sounds pretty good. This is how I own the show now. Yes, it's not perfect, and neither is the Viz manga, but it's what I have now and I'm not going to buy the series over again and again any more. I've settled that the DBZ Blu-rays are my way of owning the show now, and yeah that kind of does suck.
I made do with DBZ Kai (which is my preferred format of Z anyway), but that means I have to put up with cropping, green and Super music in the Buu saga.

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Re: DBZ Blu-ray Orange Bricks are here to stay - "This is truly the best possible way to watch Dragon Ball Z"

Post by TheGreatness25 » Mon Feb 19, 2018 8:41 am

I always felt that this release looked fine. I get that compared to its intended look, it's different, but if you never see a cel or the Dragon Boxes, it looks okay. I'm not sure about the cropping -- I know it had its terrible moments in the orange bricks.

The thing is that this is obviously for casual fans, who don't know what those cels look like, who never saw the Dragon Boxes, who saw DBZ as a kid and thought it was "cool" and are now like, "Hm, I remember this! Oh, it's so inexpensive! Why not?" And then they're, of course, happy with it. I've seen it with my own eyes. A friend of mine had that exact reaction and he couldn't care less about what they did to it because he just wants to see it again for nostalgic purposes. So, I guess I get it. But, they do know better, and they do know that fans like us are out there... which is why I guess they tried the Dragon Box experiment. They know their different markets and which to hit (case and point, the Rock the Dragon set).

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Re: DBZ Blu-ray Orange Bricks are here to stay - "This is truly the best possible way to watch Dragon Ball Z"

Post by KBABZ » Mon Feb 19, 2018 8:54 am

TheGreatness25 wrote:The thing is that this is obviously for casual fans, who don't know what those cels look like, who never saw the Dragon Boxes, who saw DBZ as a kid and thought it was "cool" and are now like, "Hm, I remember this! Oh, it's so inexpensive! Why not?" And then they're, of course, happy with it. I've seen it with my own eyes. A friend of mine had that exact reaction and he couldn't care less about what they did to it because he just wants to see it again for nostalgic purposes.
I feel the problem becomes when the "casual" release of the series becomes the "definitive" release of the series in the fandom, in the sense that it defines the show for them. Similar to how the Falcouner music is basically the soundtrack for DBZ among most US fans, any representation of the franchise on the internet will use Orange Brick/Blu-Ray material, from memes to IGN Top 10 videos, which to me is a disservice.

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Re: DBZ Blu-ray Orange Bricks are here to stay - "This is truly the best possible way to watch Dragon Ball Z"

Post by TheGreatness25 » Mon Feb 19, 2018 1:13 pm

Sure, I get it. But if you think about it, it's Funimation definitive release. I guess the logic is that they don't really owe anyone anything and they'll put out what they want the series to be and whoever has a problem with it, can always pick up a non-Funimation DBZ DVD. I'm not justifying what they did to the series because I'm a big fan of the Dragon Box and whatnot, but as the official distributer of DB content for the US (and provider of the dub for Australia), they've been given free reign to do what they want with the series. If this is what they chose, we kind of have no choice. If they decided to do what they originally were doing and inky released a heavily edited version with no Japanese soundtrack, we might hate it, but ot would be within their rights to distribute their definitive release.

Basically, they decided that this was it for them -- this is how they choose to market the series. Unfortunately, we might not like that it's becoming the casual fans' definitive version, but that's only because it's Funimation's. I don't know if I'm making my point, but either way, fans shouldn't be blamed for liking it. After all, it's Funimation's "perfect release" ... which is sad.

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Re: DBZ Blu-ray Orange Bricks are here to stay - "This is truly the best possible way to watch Dragon Ball Z"

Post by Tylerman29 » Mon Feb 19, 2018 5:16 pm

I have been holding off on buying these with the hope that maybe the dragon boxes will get a blu-ray release/ re-release, but with each year that passes it seems less likely. I have Kai for my dub fix but would like the entirety of dbz for my eventual japanese watch through/collection's sake.
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Re: DBZ Blu-ray Orange Bricks are here to stay - "This is truly the best possible way to watch Dragon Ball Z"

Post by dragondyle » Tue Feb 20, 2018 9:27 pm

KBABZ wrote:
dragondyle wrote:While I have never and will never agree that it's okay to even crop a show the way these have, I don't believe the product is overall terrible. I personally think the video quality is great and, while the Japanese audio isn't perfect, it still sounds pretty good. This is how I own the show now. Yes, it's not perfect, and neither is the Viz manga, but it's what I have now and I'm not going to buy the series over again and again any more. I've settled that the DBZ Blu-rays are my way of owning the show now, and yeah that kind of does suck.
I made do with DBZ Kai (which is my preferred format of Z anyway), but that means I have to put up with cropping, green and Super music in the Buu saga.
That’s a very good way to go about it. That’s my personal reason for not preferring Kai because of TFC’s inconsistencies with the 98 episodes prior.
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Re: DBZ Blu-ray Orange Bricks are here to stay - "This is truly the best possible way to watch Dragon Ball Z"

Post by KBABZ » Tue Feb 20, 2018 9:37 pm

dragondyle wrote:That’s a very good way to go about it. That’s my personal reason for not preferring Kai because of TFC’s inconsistencies with the 98 episodes prior.
It's a real shame, that would have been bar-none the definitive way to watch had they stayed the course. But no, it had the word Kai in it, so it became endlessly confusing and squandered its potential.

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Re: DBZ Blu-ray Orange Bricks are here to stay - "This is truly the best possible way to watch Dragon Ball Z"

Post by GreatSaiyaJeff » Tue Feb 20, 2018 10:34 pm

I personally was never bothered by the cropping. Does it stink that they did that? Sure, but I personally still think they look pretty good. Although I do admit, I probably would have bought the dragon box sets if I didn't already have orange bricks. Then again, those were aimed more towards the hardcore Japanese fans and didn't have the falcouner score. I liked to switch between tracks time to time.
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