The International Version of the Buu-Kai Arc

[DBZ_Lee]

FUNi are heading to Tekko 2015 this weekend and they have say they have big plans, and their July solicts are likely to drop next week, so could we finally get an announcement and release date for Buu arc?

Here is a tidbit they wrote:

FUNimation Industry | Panel Room 1 | Saturday from 6pm – 7pm
From Akira to Dragon Ball Z, hear the latest news and information from North America’s largest anime distributor – FUNimation.

Fingers crossed.

Thanks for the news, Baggie_Saiyan!. Please, let this be it, they've kept us waiting long enough. At the very least we know they are recording for definite now.
If it's not this weekend, then it is surely a matter of time.

[Valerius Dover]

Well, they do mention that it is Dragon Ball Z news, and it's implied to be something big, so it's gotta be this, right?

[Baggie_Saiyan]

You would think, or it could mean they are going to unveil the exact date and cast for Resurrection "F" in the summer.

Anyway. forgot to post a link to the full blog post:

http://www.funimation.com/blog/2015/04/13/hello-tekko

[Darkblade1995]

I really, really hope they are going to announce it this weekend. I imagine they are almost if not already done with the English dub, considering Sean Schemmel talked about that scene where Goku says goodbye to Gohan last December. That episode is the 50th episode of The Final Chapters. Though that doesn't neccessarily have to mean that all of the voice actors have recorded their lines up to episode 50.

I don't think Toei is preventing Funimation at all anymore. Maybe when the Buu arc aired in April last year, but I can hardly imagine why they would be preventing Funimation at this point. I think that this is the case of the voice actors not being available at the time. I mean France is already done dubbing it and is simulcasting it, so why would the English dub get pushed back?

Anyways, I hope they announce it, and at this point what is there left to announce. They recently finished the DBZ Blu Ray season sets, so I don't think funimation will do another release. The 2 big ones are Resurrection F and Kai and seeing they already announced the new movie...... just plz let it be The Final Chapters.

[Theophrastus]

The reasoning behind the suggestion that Toei is holding Funimation's release back (or, at least my personal reasoning for thinking that) is that Funimation's release is all but guaranteed to be direct-to-DVD/Blu-Ray.

Japan and North America share the same Blu-Ray region coding (Region A), so it requires zero effort for someone in Japan to import a US Blu-Ray and watch it. Because of this, Japanese anime companies tend to forcibly hold back US Blu-Ray releases until the Japanese releases have been out for a certain amount of time, because the Japanese releases are incredibly expensive and the companies know that savvy Japanese fans, given the opportunity, will happily import the much cheaper US releases for 1/3 of the price and just watch those with the Japanese audio track turned on.

The assumption is that Toei wants to get the maximum possible amount of money from their own Kai Blu-Rays before allowing Funimation to release their version, because there's a decent chance that no one will want to spend the extra money to buy Toei's domestic release after that happens.

[TheBlackPaladin]

The reasoning behind the suggestion that Toei is holding Funimation's release back (or, at least my personal reasoning for thinking that) is that Funimation's release is all but guaranteed to be direct-to-DVD/Blu-Ray.

Japan and North America share the same Blu-Ray region coding (Region A), so it requires zero effort for someone in Japan to import a US Blu-Ray and watch it. Because of this, Japanese anime companies tend to forcibly hold back US Blu-Ray releases until the Japanese releases have been out for a certain amount of time, because the Japanese releases are incredibly expensive and the companies know that savvy Japanese fans, given the opportunity, will happily import the much cheaper US releases for 1/3 of the price and just watch those with the Japanese audio track turned on.

The assumption is that Toei wants to get the maximum possible amount of money from their own Kai Blu-Rays before allowing Funimation to release their version, because there's a decent chance that no one will want to spend the extra money to buy Toei's domestic release after that happens.

That theory, while plausible, still brings two points to mind.

1) Even if FUNimation did hold out until Toei released it first, FUNimation's release would still be cheaper. So the problem of a cheaper alternative is still present, even if FUNimation does hold out until Toei gets it first.

2) Granted, Toei is treating Kai as a different property than DBZ...having said that, the Japanese version of DBZ* did get a DVD release through FUNimation before Toei released any DVDs, so why would this be different? We were the first to get the Japanese version of DBZ on DVD. For a number of years, buying FUNimation's DVDs was the only legal option of seeing the Japanese version of DBZ on DVD. So Toei allowed for that once...I wouldn't be surprised if they allowed for it again.

*As in the TV show, not the movies.

[kei17]

2) Granted, Toei is treating Kai as a different property than DBZ...having said that, the Japanese version of DBZ* did get a DVD release through FUNimation before Toei released any DVDs, so why would this be different? We were the first to get the Japanese version of DBZ on DVD. For a number of years, buying FUNimation's DVDs was the only legal option of seeing the Japanese version of DBZ on DVD. So Toei allowed for that once...I wouldn't be surprised if they allowed for it again.

The Internet has drastically spread in the last decade. Some expensive import DVD shops were the only way to buy FUNi's releases in Japan at the time, but now they're cheaply and easily available on Amazon.co.jp, which is a threat for domestic distributors.

[sintzu]

The Internet has drastically spread in the last decade. Some expensive import DVD shops were the only way to buy FUNi's releases in Japan at the time, but now they're cheaply and easily available on Amazon.co.jp, which is a threat for domestic distributors.

Why do they price their products the way they do if they know people can't buy them ?

In the US it'll cost 200$ to buy the entire 291 DBZ episodes on DVD while in Japan it'll cost over 1500$.

When the competition is selling something for a certain price don't other companies usually try to rival it with better offers or at least similar ones ?

[TheBlackPaladin]

The Internet has drastically spread in the last decade. Some expensive import DVD shops were the only way to buy FUNi's releases in Japan at the time, but now they're cheaply and easily available on Amazon.co.jp, which is a threat for domestic distributors.

Why do they price their products the way they do if they know people can't buy them ?

In the US it'll cost 200$ to buy the entire 291 DBZ episodes on DVD while in Japan it'll cost over 1500$.

When the competition is selling something for a certain price don't other companies usually try to rival it with better offers or at least similar ones ?

I've always been curious about that myself. I would think the domestic distribution business for anime in Japan would be in big trouble by now, if it isn't already. Isn't the secret kind of out now that it's much cheaper to import?

Here are the only benefits I can think of to buying the Japanese domestic releases:
-Optimal video and audio quality, because no extra room had to be made on the discs for an additional (dub) audio track. Even then, the decrease in audio and visual quality on foreign releases--at least nowadays--isn't noticeable in a casual viewing experience.
-Perhaps Japanese fans are willing to pay the extra money to get anime releases that are father along than foreign releases. One Piece comes to mind. Toei is waaaaay ahead of FUNimation in terms of home video releases for that show.
-Finally, some animes don't get foreign releases, leaving the domestic release as the only option.

[JulieYBM]

Home videos are priced highly in Japan because few people actually want to own them. Japan is small, so there's not exactly a surplus of room in homes. This is exactly what has allowed small publishers (which is what 99% of the Japanese animation industry is) to thrive. Remember how in the 1980s US VHS used to sell for $80-120 a VHS? Japan was that way, too. The popularity of this weird 'home video' concept was introduced, cartoons were quite popular, so investors began churning out OVAs made especially for home video release. The 1990s came and the introduction of late night slots and satellite channels made it easier to create more violent and adult-aimed television animation. Programs could survive not on ratings but high video sales, but on the purchasing power of dedicated fans. The quantity and quality of series wouldn't be nearly as high as it is today if it weren't for the high prices of home videos and the determination of fans to support the works they love.

[Theophrastus]

Funimation July solicits are out, still no Final Chapters announcement.

So either we hope the solicits get amended pending a con announcement, or we're stuck looking to August now.

[Baggie_Saiyan]

Funimation July solicits are out, still no Final Chapters announcement.

So either we hope the solicits get amended pending a con announcement, or we're stuck looking to August now.

Hmm that does seem a lite month especially for July so hopefully they were are saving Kai for the con announce. I hope, this wait is killing me!

[DBZ_Lee]

Funimation July solicits are out, still no Final Chapters announcement.

So either we hope the solicits get amended pending a con announcement, or we're stuck looking to August now.

Hmm that does seem a lite month especially for July so hopefully they were are saving Kai for the con announce. I hope, this wait is killing me!

Me too! they need to get this announcement done, the wait has been long.... I'm sure it'll be worth it in the end.

[Freeza Soldier #156]

Funimation July solicits are out, still no Final Chapters announcement.

So either we hope the solicits get amended pending a con announcement, or we're stuck looking to August now.

Hmm that does seem a lite month especially for July so hopefully they were are saving Kai for the con announce. I hope, this wait is killing me!

Me too! they need to get this announcement done, the wait has been long.... I'm sure it'll be worth it in the end.

Crossing my fingers for this weekend!

[SuperSaiyanHedgehog]

Come on, FUNi, don't let us down. The road has been long and hard. We need the Final Chapters dub.

[Valerius Dover]

Hmm, I think it actually could be The Final Chapters. Announcing the cast list for Resurrection F wouldn't be a big deal since we can figure out most of them right off the bat. We can assume that VAs that were in Battle of Gods will reprise their roles in this movie. We're also pretty sure about Jaco and Frieza. The only ones that would come out of the blue are Sorbet and Tagoma. Hardly con-worthy news. As for the exact release date, I think it may be a little early for that, given that they most likely haven't even started recording yet.

[Cold Skin]

Speaking of the international version that will feature Let It Burn, there's really a simple way that the Japanese market could replace it if they don't want an English song: the "super exclusive track for the big finale" will simply be one taken from Resurrection "F", likely the most epic one available.

They now have access to a bunch of new high-budget tracks, they won't bother to replace tracks in general since their objective is to make minimal differences between both versions right now and spare themselves some efforts, but if one track happens to be problematic like Let It Burn in Japan, they have an easy solution to replace it while still making it a memorable "one-time-only soundtrack" moment.

Meanwhile, I wonder if Funimation has a say into what they'll get and how they'll modify it.
English openings and endings by non-native speakers will do for countries that don't have English as their natural language: most people won't notice that it's not native English.
But in countries that naturally speak English, those openings/endings might sound very weird with their non-native accent, so I wonder if Funimation can actually tell Toei "we want your Japanese opening and endings instead" or "We want our own singer to sing those opening and ending you've made for us" or if Toei will be like "you take what we give you and you don't argue."

[Valerius Dover]

Ah, nice idea Cold Skin! A Resurrection F track is likely in this case it seems.

Regarding the theme songs, I think Funimation probably doesn't have a say in what they do with them. If this airs on TV, most kids will probably think it's in Japanese and won't notice it's in English. Not to mention that Naruto Shippuden currently airs with its Japanese songs no problem.

However, I could be wrong. We'll see soon enough, hopefully.

[DBZ_Lee]

Just under 4hrs 30m away from FUNi's last panel event at Tekko '15. I have a feeling Kai isn't going to be announced unfortunately.

[Valerius Dover]

Just under 4hrs 30m away from FUNi's last panel event at Tekko '15. I have a feeling Kai isn't going to be announced unfortunately.

Same here. I'm pretty skeptical about it overall. Then again, I can't really think of anything else that'd be big at all. A cast list would be predictable (and probably too early, too) and the release date for Resurrection F is likewise also too early to tell.