Will DB/Z/GT Ever Get a Proper Release?

[JohnnyCashKami]

I have pretty much most of those you named there, with the exception of the original DB as i have the Blue Bricks which aren't that bad. Mostly because they are the most convenient way to get the series as the Saga collections are harder to come by these days.

So for me it's like this

Dragon Ball= Blue Bricks

Dragon Ball Z= Dragon Boxes

Dragon Ball GT= Singles/Box sets

Z/GT Specials= Singles

Movies= Mash up of Movie packs and singles (I may get the rest of the movie singles and the third Z movie pack to have all the films in both fullscreen and widescreen)

The Saga Sets are a bit of a drag but I got the Madman version which was the entire series in two boxes so couldn't complain about that, even moreso the price I bought it for. Manga UK's covers look way nicer than FUNimation or Madman's releases but not something I'd be willing to double dip 'cause it's the same discs from Madman's sets.

Sounds nice if you are over in Australia, though of course we don't have anything like that here in the States as it's just the five seasons individually. Though the DB "Blue Bricks" aren't too bad of releases for what they are and certainly much better in video quality as far as FUNimation's remastered series of releases go than the season sets of DBZ.

The Saga Sets used the Japanese episode titles so, it's really good.

[SuperSaiyaManZ94]

The Saga Sets are a bit of a drag but I got the Madman version which was the entire series in two boxes so couldn't complain about that, even moreso the price I bought it for. Manga UK's covers look way nicer than FUNimation or Madman's releases but not something I'd be willing to double dip 'cause it's the same discs from Madman's sets.

Sounds nice if you are over in Australia, though of course we don't have anything like that here in the States as it's just the five seasons individually. Though the DB "Blue Bricks" aren't too bad of releases for what they are and certainly much better in video quality as far as FUNimation's remastered series of releases go than the season sets of DBZ.

The Saga Sets used the Japanese episode titles so, it's really good.

That's pretty cool actually, though the thing that holds them back from truly being the best releases is of course not having the next episode previews or second opening and first, third and fourth closing animations which only the Dragon Ball: Dragon Box has. That is an issue in a sense but it has more to do with the materials that Toei gave to FUNimation back in the day.

Of course there's also the caveat that the first 13 episodes are not available in the same style as the rest of the Saga releases here in the U.S, being that when they were first coming out on DVD FUNi still could not release those episodes uncut themselves on account of the the seemingly never ending sublicense for the first arc that was still being unrelentingly held by Lionsgate. Up until 2009 when said license lapsed the only way you could get the Pilaf arc uncut and bilingual was the Region 4 Australian Saga of Goku set or the collections either the two original box sets, or later on in the reissued fat pack editions.

In spite of that, i am now more tempted to get them.

[JohnnyCashKami]

Uncut version of Saga of Goku was released, but only via Madman. And also re-released in UK by Manga UK.



It's easier to find this on Collection Part 1 (AU) or Season 1 (UK).

[SuperSaiyaManZ94]

Uncut version of Saga of Goku was released, but only via Madman. And also re-released in UK by Manga UK.



It's easier to find this on Collection Part 1 (AU) or Season 1 (UK).

Yeah there is that release, of course you would need to have a region free DVD player to watch it though i know there are some alternative things you can use to get around the region lock in order to play them in Region 1 players.

I believe you can in fact change the settings on DVD compatible PC drives to where they are region free.

[KBABZ]

I believe you can in fact change the settings on DVD compatible PC drives to where they are region free.

Correct, although many operating systems, including MacOS, only let you change it a limited amount of time, like five.

[SuperSaiyaManZ94]

I believe you can in fact change the settings on DVD compatible PC drives to where they are region free.

Correct, although many operating systems, including MacOS, only let you change it a limited amount of time, like five.

Yeah i knew of that, and if i were to eventually import those Australian DB Collections at some point i would most likely set my drive to region free/0 and leave it.

[Choujin Daizenshuu]

I sincerely doubt that Dragon Ball and all its various follow-ups will ever receive a proper release considering how polarized and subjective the fandom has become. I would even dare say they're as polarized as the Star Wars fandom meaning that nobody will ever come to a collective agreement regarding how the releases should appear to the common audience.

It also doesn't help matters that Gen Fukunaga was and still is willing to throw current fandoms under the bus to appease the interests of new fandoms if he believes it will benefit him and FUNimation any further.

[SuperSaiyaManZ94]

I sincerely doubt that Dragon Ball and all its various follow-ups will ever receive a proper release considering how polarized and subjective the fandom has become. I would even dare say they're as polarized as the Star Wars fandom meaning that nobody will ever come to a collective agreement regarding how the releases should appear to the common audience.

It also doesn't help matters that Gen Fukunaga was and still is willing to throw current fandoms under the bus to appease the interests of new fandoms if he believes it will benefit him and FUNimation any further.

Yeah, it sucks that we don't have another release of DBZ that isn't cropped to faux widescreen and DNR'd into oblivion or a release of the original series with all of the opening/ending animations and next episode previews. FUNi so far has in it's 24 year history as a company and holder of the franchise's license has only given us a couple of releases that i would call remotely good, including the domestic Z Dragon Boxes and sadly shelved Level Blu-Rays. Unfortunately the former didn't remain on the market very long and now fetches crazy money, while the latter was a victim of poor timing in the midst of other releases and was prematurely pulled.

Even now, i still say that if they had instead simply stuck better encodes of their digibeta masters into the Orange Bricks that they would have sold just as well as with their crappy faux remastering and DNR smear fest.

[Choujin Daizenshuu]

I would've preferred that FUNimation had completed all their previous releases like the UUEs and the Level Sets or had given the fans the opportunity to trade-in their incomplete releases for the complete releases at a set percent discount. It could've saved Fukunaga and his company a lot of PR points. But, look what happened.

As far as I'm concerned, I can't in good faith trust FUNimation to handle Dragon Ball responsibly anymore. They've set themselves up to be the country's arguably biggest anime distributing powerhouse but can't give their biggest property a respectable release without benefiting one section of the fandom at the expense of the other. If Fukunaga hadn't been such a fathead 20 years ago, we could've had a respectable release of DBZ by now.

[SuperSaiyaManZ94]

I would've preferred that FUNimation had completed all their previous releases like the UUEs and the Level Sets or had given the fans the opportunity to trade-in their incomplete releases for the complete releases at a set percent discount. It could've saved Fukunaga and his company a lot of PR points. But, look what happened.

As far as I'm concerned, I can't in good faith trust FUNimation to handle Dragon Ball responsibly anymore. They've set themselves up to be the country's arguably biggest anime distributing powerhouse but can't give their biggest property a respectable release without benefiting one section of the fandom at the expense of the other. If Fukunaga hadn't been such a fathead 20 years ago, we could've had a respectable release of DBZ by now.

There's no doubt that they've had a bad track record of canceling releases for one reason or another, and IMO the death of the Ultimate Uncut Editions were a bigger tragedy because of the completely under the radar way in which FUNi axed the releases just as they had started on the next set of discs. Thereby leaving a set that could never be completed, and not to mention the rest of the Saiyan and early Namek arcs unavailable uncut. I feel that had they just tossed the video/audio tracks of the singles on the seasons albeit encoded better instead of their god awful attempt at "remastering" it would have been a better situation than what eventually came to pass in 2007, it would have definitely saved a bunch of fans a lot of pain. And by pain, i mean such things as the trailers that promoted the OB's which were full of obvious misinformation and outright false claims.

This is one that i immediately thought of in regard to some of the deceptive BS they were spouting.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=miXN6645TfM&t=86s

[Choujin Daizenshuu]

There's no doubt that they've had a bad track record of canceling releases for one reason or another, and IMO the death of the Ultimate Uncut Editions were a bigger tragedy because of the completely under the radar way in which FUNi axed the releases just as they had started on the next set of discs. Thereby leaving a set that could never be completed, and not to mention the rest of the Saiyan and early Namek arcs unavailable uncut. I feel that had they just tossed the video/audio tracks of the singles on the seasons albeit encoded better instead of their god awful attempt at "remastering" it would have been a better situation than what eventually came to pass in 2007, it would have definitely saved a bunch of fans a lot of pain. And by pain, i mean such things as the trailers that promoted the OB's which were full of obvious misinformation and outright false claims.

What still gets me about the cancellation of the UUEs to this day is that FUNimation set up the fanbase to believe that anime releases like Dragon Ball Z can only continue to be released in singles format despite the glaring evidence that the anime bubble in America had long burst and people wanted to see anime released in boxsets on DVD similar to how their local TV shows were being released. Furthermore, the old generation (20th century patrons) still chose to purchase the discs for no other reason than:

A. It was the first season of Dragon Ball Z legally released in America, uncut, for the first time
B. Unconditional support for the industry
C. Unconditional support for FUNimation
D. General love for anime

They also had no reason to believe that an "A" list title like Dragon Ball Z would be subject to premature cancellation because it was a top-seller in the eyes of FUNimation and the mainstream public. In other words, Dragon Ball Z was bubble-proof. So, when the UUEs were cancelled, it hit the fanbase like a ton of bricks and forced them to second-guess the industry and themselves regarding support for the industry. Gen Fukunaga may had looked at the cancellation as an effective business strategy, but it wasn't without sacrifice and a total 180 of himself and his company's policy.

All other releases of DBZ since then were the textbook equivalent of "Malibu Stacey" tactics: re-release the same product only with a new gimmick to entice people to dip again with the notion that this new release is the "best ever". The franchise is a mess now and it's next to impossible to clean it up.

This is one that i immediately thought of in regard to some of the deceptive BS they were spouting.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=miXN6645TfM&t=86s

Oh god....that was painful to watch!

[SuperSaiyaManZ94]

There's no doubt that they've had a bad track record of canceling releases for one reason or another, and IMO the death of the Ultimate Uncut Editions were a bigger tragedy because of the completely under the radar way in which FUNi axed the releases just as they had started on the next set of discs. Thereby leaving a set that could never be completed, and not to mention the rest of the Saiyan and early Namek arcs unavailable uncut. I feel that had they just tossed the video/audio tracks of the singles on the seasons albeit encoded better instead of their god awful attempt at "remastering" it would have been a better situation than what eventually came to pass in 2007, it would have definitely saved a bunch of fans a lot of pain. And by pain, i mean such things as the trailers that promoted the OB's which were full of obvious misinformation and outright false claims.

What still gets me about the cancellation of the UUEs to this day is that FUNimation set up the fanbase to believe that anime releases like Dragon Ball Z can only continue to be released in singles format despite the glaring evidence that the anime bubble in America had long burst and people wanted to see anime released in boxsets on DVD similar to how their local TV shows were being released. Furthermore, the old generation (20th century patrons) still chose to purchase the discs for no other reason than:

A. It was the first season of Dragon Ball Z legally released in America, uncut, for the first time
B. Unconditional support for the industry
C. Unconditional support for FUNimation
D. General love for anime

They also had no reason to believe that an "A" list title like Dragon Ball Z would be subject to premature cancellation because it was a top-seller in the eyes of FUNimation and the mainstream public. In other words, Dragon Ball Z was bubble-proof. So, when the UUEs were cancelled, it hit the fanbase like a ton of bricks and forced them to second-guess the industry and themselves regarding support for the industry. Gen Fukunaga may had looked at the cancellation as an effective business strategy, but it wasn't without sacrifice and a total 180 of himself and his company's policy.

All other releases of DBZ since then were the textbook equivalent of "Malibu Stacey" tactics: re-release the same product only with a new gimmick to entice people to dip again with the notion that this new release is the "best ever". The franchise is a mess now and it's next to impossible to clean it up.

This is one that i immediately thought of in regard to some of the deceptive BS they were spouting.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=miXN6645TfM&t=86s

Oh god....that was painful to watch!

Yeah, that fiasco definitely left a lot of fans horrifically jipped and especially the ones who had been collecting the bilingual singles for around five or so years at that point. Now they were left with a big gap after that Ultimate Uncut volume 9 of about the last quarter of the Saiyan aka Vegeta arc and the first half of the Namek arc that could never be completed, and from all accounts they were selling fairly decent but then FUNi just up and killed the releases out of nowhere and was dead silent for several months after on the matter. It may have appeared to be a practical decision in their eyes back in '06, but to me the canceling of the Ultimate Uncuts left a terrible after effect that started with their transition to the Orange Bricks and is still felt by quite a few people to this day.

I remember when i first saw that trailer years ago on one of FUNi's other releases, and thinking "WTF!!!!!" because i could tell quite a few of the things they claimed such as "These releases represent the ultimate and definitive editions of Dragon Ball Z" and "The way it was meant to be seen" were some of the biggest loads of malarkey i had ever heard. The way they went on about the supposedly unaltered colors and faux widescreen nonsense just made me want to puke, and the worst part IMO was when they claimed it was in high definition but that was so obviously not true because the releases are standard definition encodes on DVD that were at 480p resolution. Simply put, the Orange Bricks are pure garbage as a DBZ release and their marketing for them was and still remains some of the worst displays of deception and fabrication that i have ever seen.

Thankfully i stuck to my guns and bought the Dragon Boxes, the way they are truly meant to be seen and one of the few times i believe FUNi has actually done right by the series after the Z Kai dub.

[Bruma rabu]

That video was about the movies not the tv show though. Idk about the color claims but they weren't lying about the 16:9 aspect ratio, that was how it was ment to be seen.

[SuperSaiyaManZ94]

That video was about the movies not the tv show though. Idk about the color claims but they weren't lying about the 16:9 aspect ratio, that was how it was ment to be seen.

I thought that what they were claiming there in the trailer with the process basically details the series release as well, as they did indeed show clips from the show in addition to all of the footage from DBZ movie 8. In all seriousness though, i really don't have a problem with the movies being in widescreen as that is indeed how they were shown in theaters in Japan even though the releases here prior to 2008 were in open matte fullscreen. Now with the show on the other hand, that is an issue because it was specifically framed and mastered in 4:3 in the late '80s/early '90s long before widescreen TV's were a thing. There's no denying that DBZ the series was never meant to be seen with 20% to 25% of the vertical image being chopped off then combine that with the terrible automated DNR smear fest and we got the Orange Bricks.

I don't think that trailer was exclusively geared toward advertising the movies, as what all they say there pretty much accurately describes the process that went into the making of the Orange Bricks.

[ZodaEX]

I thought GT did get a proper Taiwan release. What was wrong with it?

[TenshinFan]

Hang on, help me out a sec here.

For DB, you want Season 1 blue box, and Saga Sets for Red Ribbon up.

For GT, you want the singles, preferably the slipcases but the Lost Episodes box is hard to find.

Got all that. So.

For Z, if you can't afford the Dragon Box. Are the Orange Bricks the next best thing? Or is there a better release. No way am I shelling out half a grand for DVDs. I hear terrible things about the orange boxes. But honestly the blue and green boxes aren't that bad.

And for the movies. I always thought the steelbooks were pretty decent. Is there a better format? I wish there were a box set. Path to Power always seems to be forgotten.