One of the original DBZ directors says FUNi Blu-rays where "what it was supposed to look like to begin with"

[VejituhTheWarriorGuy]

While watching the Blu-ray special feature with Justin Cook, he actually mentions that one of the original directors on Dragon Ball Z liked the look of the Blu-rays and had very positive things to say about them. This very information is stated at 16:46 in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YAYdAU04zJQ&t=

Thoughts? Because this is very interesting

[Kendamu]

I'm glad that the director in question was happy with what he saw from some earlier episodes, but that director needs to see some of the episodes from seasons 5 and 6. He might say something more like, "Uhh, you missed a spot there, guys."

[AnimeMaakuo]

The Blu-Rays were poor. There's nothing great about them. It should've been done in 4:3 with grain intact. Period.

[superrayman3]

While the director in question is certainly entitled to their own opinion, I vehemently disagree with what he says on the basis that if the series was indeed "supposed to look like that to begin with" then it would have been that way from the start, but as we all know it wasn't, the series was framed in a certain way (ie: 4:3 instead of 16:9) and it should stay that way period, another reason I disagree and I've said this before, modifying the picture and showing it in a way it was not originally intended to be seen is a massive spit in the face and insult to the actual animators themselves whom need I remind people slaved away for hours on end, meeting extremely strict deadlines in more likely than not some of the most abhorred conditions imaginable, and being paid basically pennies and peanuts, only for the director to then basically turn around and say "Nope about 40% of the animator's work and effort was actually a complete waste of time energy and resources and the series wasn't actually supposed to look like that from the start" I'm sorry but there's something wrong with that and it disgusts me to no end to see or hear of a director insult the people who did the majority of the back breaking labor required to make everything possible to begin with like this.

[sintzu]

I'm glad that the director in question was happy with what he saw from some earlier episodes, but that director needs to see some of the episodes from seasons 5 and 6. He might say something more like, "Uhh, you missed a spot there, guys."

I read something about 5&6 having some kind of problems, did they ever fix them ? and how bad were they ?

[Kendamu]

I'm glad that the director in question was happy with what he saw from some earlier episodes, but that director needs to see some of the episodes from seasons 5 and 6. He might say something more like, "Uhh, you missed a spot there, guys."

I read something about 5&6 having some kind of problems, did they ever fix them ? and how bad were they ?

Something was wrong with how they tried to sharpen the image and it caused outlines to actually be blurry.

[Cipher]

Possibly referring to colors and relative sharpness aligning more with cel art than the best Japanese release, which is the Dragon Box with its notoriously inaccurate colors?

I'd be hard-pressed to imagine that sentiment could refer to the framing, but I can see that release leaving a positive impression in other ways. Especially coming into it without the historical baggage of the orange bricks.

Also, a reminder that being an animation director does not make someone a videophile.

[Robo4900]

Well, in the sense that the original animation cels were made with vivid, contrasting colours, with no grain visible, yes that's what it was "Supposed" to look like. However, grain is inherent to the source material. The only way it won't have any real visible grain is if you watch it from a standard def master, using an analogue broadcast to a CRT with the original broadcast audio; that is the way it was "Meant to be seen."

But, the way people watch TV shows has changed. And unfortunately, it seems the general attitude for Dragon Ball is, rather than respecting and accepting the inherent limitations of the time it was created in, and working within that to make it the best possible version of what it already is, they want to modernise it, and turn it into something it's not, rather like what Funimation wanted to do with the tone and style of GT back in 2004, and we all know how that turned out.

The worst part is, since it's the "Default" release, and Toei seem to like it, we're going to be stuck with this for quite some time, so the best thing to do is to just accept it, and hope things get better in the future.

[Cipher]

Well, in the sense that the original animation cels were made with vivid, contrasting colours, with no grain visible, yes that's what it was "Supposed" to look like.

This is exactly what I was thinking. Someone involved in production looks at a snippet of the footage, says, "Ah, this looks like our cel art!", and comes away with a favorable impression, especially with how noticeably "off" the domestic release looks in certain ways. Could be refreshing to see something like that.

Of course that ignores the release's myriad problems, but I think it's reasonable to imagine the things that leave a favorable impression on an old director, especially with a casual glance at the product, might be different from the things that would leave a positive impression on an informed fan. Cel-art-esque appearance may have been a treat for him, whereas we're just desparate for a widely available release with the proper framing and without excessive DVNR.

[Baggie_Saiyan]

Pretty interesting I was wondering if FUNi would have to green light anything they do with Toei guess this answers that.

I'm glad that the director in question was happy with what he saw from some earlier episodes, but that director needs to see some of the episodes from seasons 5 and 6. He might say something more like, "Uhh, you missed a spot there, guys."

I read something about 5&6 having some kind of problems, did they ever fix them ? and how bad were they ?

6 is fine the problem is just on 5 half of the image became blurry:
[spoiler]
[/spoiler]
It corrects itself near the end of the season and 6 onwards is fine from what I remember. No FUNi haven't fixed them.

[Jinzoningen MULE]

I'm glad that the director in question was happy with what he saw from some earlier episodes, but that director needs to see some of the episodes from seasons 5 and 6. He might say something more like, "Uhh, you missed a spot there, guys."

That blurry line art in those Seasons is the least of that release's problems. What's far more noticeable is the color-correction on those sets , which is horrendous! A significant portion of the footage has a yellowish, sickly tint over the characters' eyes and skin (and anything else white, for that matter). The backgrounds were utterly destroyed as well, in a way that not even the Orange Bricks was able to accomplish.

Those are just two of the obvious problems with the remaster, and they'd be a deal-breaker if it weren't the best commercially available over here. I don't know who this guy was that approved of it, but I imagine that he saw a very limited selection of footage, there's just no way anyone who knew what they were talking about could approve of the release.

[NitroEX]

Don't believe everything a salesman tells you.

[TheGreatness25]

I don't understand why people are so strong in their stance on the grain. It wasn't drawn with the grain. Basically you're saying that just because it aired with dirty film, that's the way it is. Like... no. Obviously, it wasn't drawn with dirt or gain, right? I'm sure they don't care how it aired, they got it to look close to the animation cels. The way it aired in the 80s and early 90s on a TV that you would confuse with a very old microwave, is of no consequence to them. So in that aspect, I don't understand the issue. I don't think that the way it aired is the standard that we should judge "the way it was meant to be seen."

I'll concede to anything else: the blurred lines, the weird colors in some releases, sure. I haven't seen these instances myself with the Blu-rays, but I didn't exactly watch all of them, so I'll give you that if it exists. And yes, I'll give you the cropping. But overall, I haven't seen anything bad from these and the bright colors and grain do not bother me. Even if that's not how the production cels were done, even if that's not the "way it was meant to be seen," that doesn't automatically disqualify this from being a good-looking release.

What do people want from them? They released the singles, they released the Dragon Box. Now they're trying to get more money, but you can't release the same damned thing. They tried to give the people what they wanted with the Level Sets, but apparently they were losing money on those, so they opted for a cheaper option. Cheaper for them means cheaper for the consumer. How many people held off on the Dragon Boxes because they were "too expensive?" So the fans want a perfect product for low cost? That's not realistic.

I see the orange bricks, and then the Blu-rays, as being their attempt to take this old property and modernize it. I think they wanted to make it look like it can actually compete against other animes with beautiful animation by tweaking the colors, trying to get rid of dirt, and cropping it so that you don't have giant black bars on the sides. Whether they succeeded or failed is up to their CFO and accountant to decide. And they're practically giving these things away, they're so cheap. And yet, people want to poopoo on it because it doesn't look like it did 20 years ago. Come on.

I didn't watch every single episode from these Blu-rays, but anything I did see looked good. I'm not the type of person that wants to pretend like I'm watching it on an old school TV back in the early 90's. I don't care how it aired. I take it for what it is. And if I don't like it, well good news: I have plenty of other options.

To tie this back up: Yeah, I'm sure that whatever they showed the guy looked like the production cels. Thus, he said it looked good. Or he was being polite. Or he has dementia. Who knows? But what does that have to do with anything? If they give their blessing, suddenly that changes something?

[Dragon Ball Ireland]

Things like this make me wonder if we should really blame Funimation or TOEI for the whole "As it was originally intended" marketing gimmick we've had since the orange bricks. Obviously the former agreed to it, but Dragon Ball Z is ultimately TOEI's property and any seals of approval they give are equally their responsibility.

[Gaffer Tape]

I don't understand why people are so strong in their stance on the grain. It wasn't drawn with the grain. Basically you're saying that just because it aired with dirty film, that's the way it is. Like... no. Obviously, it wasn't drawn with dirt or gain, right? I'm sure they don't care how it aired, they got it to look close to the animation cels. The way it aired in the 80s and early 90s on a TV that you would confuse with a very old microwave, is of no consequence to them. So in that aspect, I don't understand the issue. I don't think that the way it aired is the standard that we should judge "the way it was meant to be seen."

Dirt and grain are not the same thing. At all. The picture having grain is not an example of "dirty film." Grain is the resolving texture of film. They are the tiny elements that make up the image in the first place, like how pixels make up a digital image or how brush strokes make up a painting. And you never hear anybody say, "Well, that painting would look so much more realistic and new if all those nasty strokes weren't in the way." And different types of film stock have different appearances of grain. Some of it's so fine you'd never notice unless you were looking for it. And others are so coarse as to purposely draw attention to it. And in filmmaking, directors and cinematographers choose film precisely for the specific look they're going for. Now, I'm not going to pretend a hokey little children's marketing cartoon had such lofty ideals for what their cels were photographed to. It's 16mm, get-it-out-the-door film stock, most likely. But just like when people mistake monaural sound for "grainy, scratchy old crap" when that is not what it means at all, I feel the need to set the record straight when people have the same misconceptions about film. Because it leads people to have a preconceived and incorrect bias going in to any discussion of this matter, which makes it even more difficult to get at the facts of the situation.

As for the philosophy, we'll definitely have to agree to disagree. As far as I'm concerned, the way it aired originally is the ONLY thing I'm concerned with. I don't care about good intentions, the best-laid plans, or any of that. What aired on TV is the show. Full stop. It's why it drives me crazy that the Super home releases are "correcting" bad animation. Put that kind of effort into not making the same mistakes in the future. But what's done is done, and it's too late to pretend it didn't happen. Not to mention some of the best trivia comes from "mistakes."

[TheGreatness25]

Be that as it may, surely the original production cels did not have the film grain on them, so in that aspect, that is the way that it was meant to be seen. You're right, I guess we'll have to agree to disagree because personally, I don't care how it looked on TV when it first came out. The only thing that I care about being preserved is content; I don't like anything being cut, edited, or changed. But just because the series came out with certain limitations in its day, does not make it "crap" when those limitations are removed; at least not in my mind. Again, I'll concede to anything regarding cropping or when the image looks bad, but I cannot say that the product is crap just because they tried to polish up the product to stay competitive in this century. We are not talking about some great film masterpiece, nor are we talking about a painting. We are talking about a cartoon that was drawn on something and then transferred onto film. Whatever the original cel is, that's kind of how it was meant to be and the rest is just the circumstance of the time.

Once again, there's no point of putting it on Blu-ray if you're going to have it looking like it did in the 90's. This is obviously a release to modernize the series, by trying their hand at making it look like it might have been released recently. That's what it's meant to be. It's obviously for the casual fan who just wants to watch it without breaking the bank. I don't think that the release was intended to provoke discussions about film. I'm fairly certain that all of these things like saying "It's how it's meant to be seen" were thrown in as fluff to sell more. But really, I thought they did away with that stuff after the orange bricks. I didn't think they promoted them as such anymore.

[VegettoEX]

I think another great way to equate it, with a similar/contemporary technology, is with an 8-bit video game. (This is on my mind because I was just relistening to Frank Cifaldi talk about game preservation.)

Mega Man was a game on the Nintendo Entertainment System. The game's internal aspect ratio is 256x240. You'll notice that's not quite 4:3; it's thinner. The game's pixels also aren't quite square (1x1); they're something like 8x7. However, the game developers knew that this was the case, and knew the system's output would ultimately be over an RF signal at worst and a composite cable at best, introducing both that stretching to 4:3 and a bit of quality loss in the process. The blue bomber gets a little more squat!

So there's a balance with modern technology in representing the "cleanest" look possible from the raw programming (something, say, an emulator on an LCD monitor would give you) versus what the actual visual experience would have been like on the technology of the day combined with what the developers understood about that process and how it would ultimately look on said technology of the day. Ever play a game in an emulator and you see something like a moon that's not a perfect oval? This is why. The developers knew that, and made the internal render thinner, knowing that when it ultimately hit a TV, it would be a perfect square.

For us DBZ visual snobs, we know that THEY knew that they were producing to 16mm film, and the show was produced in a way appropriate for that product for that time for that technology. Unlike a video game's digital source programming (which is a 1:1 perfect copy and can be emulated/ported forward with no loss of data), we don't have perfect source replicas of DBZ as it was produced back then. We have PIECES of it in various places across the globe (cels, audio tapes, etc.), but there's no singular master version that hasn't had some degradation due to the normal process of time.

If it's impossible to recreate a perfectly clean version from the source materials (which, again, we'd argue was never the intent in the first place ANYWAY), we want something that best represents the actual product of the time. I know I'm watching a show from the 90s. I don't need to be tricked. I'm comfortable in my own skin with my own age.

And let's be clear: we had FUNimation tell us in 2011 that it was important to respect the film, respect the source material, respect the aspect ratio, take time, etc. and then turn right around that same year and say "lolz nevermind". It's all spin. It's all fluff. It's all marketing. It's all propaganda.

Once again, there's no point of putting it on Blu-ray if you're going to have it looking like it did in the 90's.

Whoa, whooooooooooa now. No way. 100% factually incorrect. Fake news. Bad opinion. Full stop.

Blu-ray is simply a storage medium. There are so many benefits to Blu-ray that have nothing to do with "modernizing" a show. Blu-ray's larger storage capacity allows for great stuff like higher bitrates (giving you little or no macroblocking in high-action scenes, something that could be difficult to achieve on DVD, especially if you're cramming many episodes on a single disc), lossless audio (great for stuff with dynamic range to really avoid any audio artifacting, or simply great in and of itself as a perfect archive without the need for compression), and so on and so forth.

[dagame10k]

While watching the Blu-ray special feature with Justin Cook, he actually mentions that one of the original directors on Dragon Ball Z liked the look of the Blu-rays and had very positive things to say about them. This very information is stated at 16:46 in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YAYdAU04zJQ&t=

Thoughts? Because this is very interesting

If the director actually made a comment, I suspect he was looking at the material before it was messed up with cropping and DNR.

I don't understand why people are so strong in their stance on the grain. It wasn't drawn with the grain. Basically you're saying that just because it aired with dirty film, that's the way it is. Like... no. Obviously, it wasn't drawn with dirt or gain, right? I'm sure they don't care how it aired, they got it to look close to the animation cels. The way it aired in the 80s and early 90s on a TV that you would confuse with a very old microwave, is of no consequence to them. So in that aspect, I don't understand the issue. I don't think that the way it aired is the standard that we should judge "the way it was meant to be seen."

I'll concede to anything else: the blurred lines, the weird colors in some releases, sure. I haven't seen these instances myself with the Blu-rays, but I didn't exactly watch all of them, so I'll give you that if it exists. And yes, I'll give you the cropping. But overall, I haven't seen anything bad from these and the bright colors and grain do not bother me. Even if that's not how the production cels were done, even if that's not the "way it was meant to be seen," that doesn't automatically disqualify this from being a good-looking release.

What do people want from them? They released the singles, they released the Dragon Box. Now they're trying to get more money, but you can't release the same damned thing. They tried to give the people what they wanted with the Level Sets, but apparently they were losing money on those, so they opted for a cheaper option. Cheaper for them means cheaper for the consumer. How many people held off on the Dragon Boxes because they were "too expensive?" So the fans want a perfect product for low cost? That's not realistic.

I see the orange bricks, and then the Blu-rays, as being their attempt to take this old property and modernize it. I think they wanted to make it look like it can actually compete against other animes with beautiful animation by tweaking the colors, trying to get rid of dirt, and cropping it so that you don't have giant black bars on the sides. Whether they succeeded or failed is up to their CFO and accountant to decide. And they're practically giving these things away, they're so cheap. And yet, people want to poopoo on it because it doesn't look like it did 20 years ago. Come on.

I didn't watch every single episode from these Blu-rays, but anything I did see looked good. I'm not the type of person that wants to pretend like I'm watching it on an old school TV back in the early 90's. I don't care how it aired. I take it for what it is. And if I don't like it, well good news: I have plenty of other options.

To tie this back up: Yeah, I'm sure that whatever they showed the guy looked like the production cels. Thus, he said it looked good. Or he was being polite. Or he has dementia. Who knows? But what does that have to do with anything? If they give their blessing, suddenly that changes something?

While the show wasn't drawn on film, but animation cels, the fact remains that those animation cels were photographed on for the most part 16mm film, and a minority on 35mm film. Toei no longer has the entire set of animation cels they had produced for the series, they discarded them with the intention of the film cell being the final picture source.

While the film may have aged, degraded, gotten dirty over time, they are still the only master source for the anime in terms of picture. Film is inherently grainy given the nature of this analogue medium, who knows how many particles make up the average 16mm single film cell, but those particles are what make up the recorded animation cels that were photographed on the the 16mm and 35mm film reels, you can't expect to remove film grain without any consequence, and that consequence is detail.

The more film grain you remove, the more detail you remove, you can't just remove film grain like you could a film scratch, film scratches are minor damage that can be removed as they are only isolated to one section of a film cell, and with good software you can use the previous or next film cell to use as reference to remove the scratch and recreate the lost image information from the damaged section of film. With film grain on the other hand, there are millions of particle variations, they aren't isolated to an area of a film cell , they are what make up the film cell. When digitally scanned film cell photography is given digital Noise reduction(grain removal) treatment, various groups of pixels are smoothed together to better match their neighboring pixels which ultimately blurs the picture and hence removes a varying degree of detail. Depending on the level of DNR set in filtering program, the final result being the Orange bricks and the season sets which look like blurry pastel paintings that lack the detail of the animation cels that you like to reference.

What FUNimation released with the level sets, the high resolution film scan, color correction and tolerable amount of digital noise reduction, those Level releases have been the closest we've been to seeing the detail of original Animation Cels, just imagine what a similar release would like like with the original film Toei has in their possession. FUNimation has second generation Film copies, and with second generation film copies you get more grain added to the picture.

[Gaffer Tape]

Personally, I've never held much faith in the standard that the cels are the be-all, end-all, holy grail of what a production "should" look like. They are an invaluable reference and necessary step in the production process, but they are just a step, not the end product. It's like pulling the screen model of the starship Enterprise out of the box and saying, "Yep, this is exactly what it looks like." While that is indeed the starship you saw on your TV screen every week in its purest form, the model is not the same as the finished product. That's overlooking the multiple motion control camera passes that were composited into a single image. That's ignoring the lighting (both external and internal), the use of shadows, and every other element (starfields, shield effects, warp fields) used to create the whole thing. And I feel it's the same way with the cels.

No one working on cels was laboring under the impression that the cel is the final product. It's a component. A cel is not animation. A cel is not even a finished picture. It has to be placed on top of the proper background and photographed. And those who were creating the show were creating it with the entire process in mind: how television overscan would affect framing, how the photographic process would affect color and detail. And I very much doubt they simply threw up their hands and went, "Well, too bad technology isn't where we'd like it to be." No, they knew what the effects would be and had steps to make the final product as close to what they needed it to be.

To tie back in with Mike's example, it also reminds me of the Sleeping Beauty Blu-ray that came out several years ago, and how there was a furor when all the color correction was done to match the cels. Because the animators knew the cels weren't the final product, and that the photography would change the look. Because of that, they colored the cels in such a way so that when it was altered in photography, it would THEN look like what they wanted it to look like.

As for what is the purpose for a Blu-ray if not to modernize it, that's a question to ask every older film that has been put on Blu-ray, has looked better than it ever has on home video before, and yet nothing was significantly altered. The purpose of putting something on Blu-ray is to take advantage of the higher resolution the format allows. Now, if the product was, say, an '80s sitcom shot on video tape, you can upscale it and filter it all you want, but it's never going to be high definition. That level of resolution simply does not exist in the final product, and while you might be able to fool the eye into thinking it's there, it's never going to actually be there. But for shows and movies that were shot on film, that resolution has always been there in the final product. But in the case of the shows at least (since you'd see the actual film in theatres in regards to movies), the only reason you never saw it that way is because television and home video were incapable of displaying it at its full resolution. That's the point of putting it on Blu-ray, to help show what was always there, not to pretend it's something entirely different. And then, of course, there all the reasons that Mike already listed.

[TheGreatness25]

Again, agree to disagree. I do not try to justify anything with "how it was meant to be seen" or anything of the sort. I am very simple: if it looks good, I'm okay with it. If it looks like crap, then I don't like it. I don't take other factors into consideration. It's extremely subjective.

I'm just curious if the guy legitimately liked the footage or was being kind lol I mean, what was he going to say, "No, no, no, you got it all wrong! Why is it chopped up?"

Or this could just be B.S. "Yeah, some guy -- very high up guy -- was watching it, you know, it just landed on his desk, and he just had to call us to tell us how incredible of a job we were doing. He said something like how we did a much better job than they ever could. And he said that if you're a fan of any anime, not just Dragon Ball, or if you're a fan of any animation, or a fan of anything really, you definitely need to get this. I believe he said something like 'This is how it's meant to be seen uncut and digitally restored!' or something like that."