Dragon Ball Z "Seasons" On Blu-ray: News & Discussion

[BlazingFiddlesticks]

The only thing that could ever make me buy the Dragon Ball series on Blu-Ray is a higher sound quality for the Japanese voice track and Kikuchi score.

This. I loved hearing the Japanese track on 5.1. Also, I thought the picture quality was stunningly good. Even with the grain.

How did Dolby Digital tracks work? The Japanese source is still mono.

Of course Blu-ray has a higher price than DVD, with most Blu-ray releases also containing a DVD copy and special features being phased off of DVDs in favour of Blu-ray.

Ugh, don't get me started on that one either. Few things get me more annoyed then when I do pick up a DVD/Bluray combo, only to discover they put pretty much all of the extras (if not literally all) on the Bluray disc only, leaving the DVD copy that I'm actually watching to have nothing but the film itself. Bleh.

Those memories of my parents format hopping slightly with the earlier Harry Potters movies. Chamber of Secrets DVD? 2 Disc set with DVD-ROM bonuses. Order of the Phoenix and beyond? Movie and otherwise empty package. Not complaining, DVD's been the cheap collector's format since Blu-Ray's install base picked up, but funny to see comparing one film series.

[Bardo117]

I'm sure this is just the Level sets with more episodes included, no way they're releasing anything worth buying before Toei.

[qjz123]

I'm sure this is just the Level sets with more episodes included, no way they're releasing anything worth buying before Toei.

What do you mean? What's wrong with the Level sets. They're the best DBZ has ever looked Imo.

[theoriginalbilis]

Guess it's too much to hope for that we might hear the broadcast-quality Japanese audio masters in this new BR release?

Probably so.

[Bardo117]

I'm sure this is just the Level sets with more episodes included, no way they're releasing anything worth buying before Toei.

What do you mean? What's wrong with the Level sets. They're the best DBZ has ever looked Imo.

Anything worth looking at always comes from Toei first, then we have to hope and pray Funi releases it stateside... And yeah the Blu-Rays looks great, it was just a stupid idea to have 14+ sets, rather than having 7-9 Volumes

[Kojiro Sasaki]

Guess it's too much to hope for that we might hear the broadcast-quality Japanese audio masters in this new BR release?

Definitely. I don't think that many people complained about this. Most of the fans are only hoping for that FUNi would read their mind and do everything as they want.

I don't think that FUNimation will take steps to get better audio source from fans only because one person wrote about this in the survey

[Choujin Daizenshuu]

FUNimation is really going to have to pull out all their guns for this release. People are already sick and tired with issues that come up with every single re-release of the series.

But then again, people will always find a reason to bitch about the releases, no matter how minor they are.

The UUs because 3-4 episode DVDs were becoming outdated and the Blu-rays because they weren't cost efficient.

Outdated? Like that's an excuse to cancel the discs without compromise to loyal customers!

[Fizzer]

FUNimation is really going to have to pull out all their guns for this release. People are already sick and tired with issues that come up with every single re-release of the series.

But then again, people will always find a reason to bitch about the releases, no matter how minor they are.

Don't you think Funimation will always find a way to have their new release sell well, while having a flaw that's big enough to make people still want yet another release in a few years?

[Choujin Daizenshuu]

Don't you think Funimation will always find a way to have their new release sell well, while having a flaw that's big enough to make people still want yet another release in a few years?

Don't you think that you, as a customer, should let FUNimation know that you won't accept being treated like a glutton for the umpteenth time just because the company holds the cards to your favorite show?

[OutlawTorn]

Don't you think Funimation will always find a way to have their new release sell well, while having a flaw that's big enough to make people still want yet another release in a few years?

Don't you think that you, as a customer, should let FUNimation know that you won't accept being treated like a glutton for the umpteenth time just because the company holds the cards to your favorite show?

Don't you think that you may not be the target audience for the release? As crazy as it may sound, it is entirely possible that there are people who have just gotten into Dragon Ball thanks to Kai and may be interested in picking up this release. Just because you may have the Dragon Boxes does not mean everybody else is as lucky and, at the very least, this isn't just another DVD release but a high def release.

Anything worth looking at always comes from Toei first, then we have to hope and pray Funi releases it stateside... And yeah the Blu-Rays looks great, it was just a stupid idea to have 14+ sets, rather than having 7-9 Volumes

I don't buy the whole "Toei is best" line for one moment (Yes, Toei will always have the best masters with which to make HD masters), as they have proven to be incredibly lazy when it comes to licensing out DBZ, providing the FUNimation cropped and DNRed to hell masters to companies because they're already available and means nobody had to do any work on a proper remastering. Besides, isn't Japan still stuck on the whole single releases for mass market release, so you'd have to buy 50 or so volumes to get DBZ in its entirety?

The Level sets could certainly be improved upon, but they are definitely "worth looking at," despite not being released by Toei.

[MarcFBR]

By definition they should keep treating fans as piggy banks, because fans keep giving them their money.

I want more and fancier DBZ re-releases. It helps make sure they have money to risk on fun and quirky shows and license rescues for shows that have been MIA for a long enough time that no one is quite sure how marketable they are anymore.

Get these Blu-rays out Funi, Onegai Teacher and Twins aren't gonna license rescue themselves. Also, Seitokai Yakuindomo.


DBZ is Funimation's signature franchise, and a cash pinata (and Uncle Gen needs his candy.) There is no reason for them to not treat it as such, every company does it with any shows they have that can handle it.

And lets be honest. We all like it that way. If it wasn't a fat pinata the orange bricks would have been it, a season by season re-release, maybe with repackaging of those later. We like knowing that it was popular enough to get us the Dragon Boxes afterwards and remastering on Blu-ray, taking the show basically past the edge of how it was ever meant to be seen. (And it's not like we are getting Buu saga done in Kai after the series was canned because DBZ is your average series. For Kai fans, that's happening because even a 'not completely successful' Dragon Ball is still gonna be more successful than most shows.)

In Japan it's random new figures of characters many fans already own dozens of times, for the USA, it's a new packaged release of the show. There isn't a huge difference in the long run. What's that? They are re-releasing Robotech AGAIN with new extras? 'counts how many times I own that show' Back to the well for another go I guess...

[Vegard Aune]

I'm sure this is just the Level sets with more episodes included, no way they're releasing anything worth buying before Toei.

What do you mean? What's wrong with the Level sets. They're the best DBZ has ever looked Imo.

Anything worth looking at always comes from Toei first, then we have to hope and pray Funi releases it stateside... And yeah the Blu-Rays looks great, it was just a stupid idea to have 14+ sets, rather than having 7-9 Volumes

...So FUNi never does anything worth buying that hasn't already been released by Toei... and yet you admit that the BluRays, which are a product Toei has yet to provide and that FUNi put together themselves, are great if overpriced? Sorry if I sound rude, but what you're saying here doesn't quite add up...
Oh, and FUNi does sometimes do releases that are far superior to Toei's own. Case in point: One Piece. Not only did they release the eighth movie on BluRay way before Toei bothered putting out the movies in HD themselves, but they also got the proper widescreen-masters for episodes 207+ whereas Toei to this date has only ever released episodes 207 to... 229, I think? in cropped 4:3. Oh and starting with episode 206 FUNi's DVDs are also encoded in progressive scan, (Toei's are still interlaced), so they also have a sharper image than the Japanese releases do.

As for this release... Unless they can somehow get the broadcast-audio and actually bother to provide the Japanese title-cards for episodes (I'm kind of nitpicky and having the dub title-cards showing up when watching the show in Japanese might just drive me marginally insane) I'm most likely not gonna buy it, as I'm quite content with my Dragon Boxes. That said, please FUNi, don't just slap the season-set remasters on to a BluRay-disc and call it a day. From what I could see you were on to a good thing with that last BluRay-release of the show, and even if the process wasn't cost-effective enough to warrant doing the entire series that way, could you at least try to continue the series with a similar manner of remastering? Or heck, I'm pretty sure even just taking those film-prints you were working off of for the level-sets and scanning them at 1080p without doing any cleanups on them whatsoever would still look one hell of a lot better than putting the dreaded season-set masters on BluRay.

[qjz123]

http://www.rightstuf.com/1-800-338-6827 ... 9680/4/0/0

Pre order is up $26.99!!

[Ajay]

http://www.rightstuf.com/1-800-338-6827 ... 9680/4/0/0

Pre order is up $26.99!!

That price really, really worries me about the quality of this product.

[ShadowDude112]

http://www.rightstuf.com/1-800-338-6827 ... 9680/4/0/0

Pre order is up $26.99!!

That price really, really worries me about the quality of this product.

$26.99 is the pre-order discount you get. It's actually meant to be $44.98.

[eledoremassis02]

Dec 31 2013? Thats right around the corner!! So anxious!!

[Ajay]

$26.99 is the pre-order discount you get. It's actually meant to be $44.98.

That's the RRP and nobody sells at that price. Same as Rock The Dragon's RRP is $100 but sells for $60.

[qjz123]

Dec 31 2013? Thats right around the corner!! So anxious!!

I think that's just a place holder. According to this http://www.junkiemonkeys.com/dragon-bal ... uary-2014/ It's supposed to come out January 8th. That's a little over three months I wonder when Funimation's going to officially announce it.

[ultimateemail5000]

http://www.rightstuf.com/1-800-338-6827 ... 9680/4/0/0

Pre order is up $26.99!!

Sold.

[qjz123]

http://www.rightstuf.com/1-800-338-6827 ... 9680/4/0/0

Pre order is up $26.99!!

That price really, really worries me about the quality of this product.

I wouldn't worry the Level sets had a MSRP of $35 and sold for $20 thats a 43% discount. This release has a MSRP of $45 and is selling for $27 that's a 40% discount. Nothing out of the ordinary.