What are everyone's thoughts on the newly released Dragon Ball Blu-rays?

[huzaifa_ahmed]

I just heard of this recently & it seems weird that there isnt more hype about it. The video quality is phenomenal from the intro clips I've seen. Are there any reviews of them (hopefully in English) and so on.

[Matches Malone]

I don't think we're going to hear much about them from the English speaking side of the fandom due to them being a Spanish release. I do like what I've seen and am hopeful that Funimation will eventually release them in English.

[mute_proxy]

If you mean the Spanish one, there's a topic for that: viewtopic.php?f=7&t=43050

The quality is far from phenomenal, it's just an upscale of the DVDs, and the remastering is pretty average. People here are mainly displeased with it's quality

[Matches Malone]

If you mean the Spanish one, there's a topic for that: viewtopic.php?f=7&t=43050

The quality is far from phenomenal, it's just an upscale of the DVDs, and the remastering is pretty average. People here are mainly displeased with it's quality

It's probably better than some (how it was meant to be seen) remaster we'd get from Funimation.

[mute_proxy]

It's probably better than some (how it was meant to be seen) remaster we'd get from Funimation.

I'd say it's on the same level. At least Funimation doesn't do upscales, they just filter the shit out of their scanned footage

[Dragon Ball Ireland]

Not ideal but still better than the saga sets and blue bricks from what I've seen.

If Manga UK license them (and if Funimation do it first for obvious reasons) I'll buy them in a heartbeat to support this neglected, yet wonderful part of the series.

[KBABZ]

The typical watercolour DNR smudging is still there, so the only abject improvement over the Blue Bricks is that it uses the more appealing Dragon Box colour grade rather than the darkened greens of the Blue Bricks.

I will say though that the Tankobon-style box art is STUNNING.

[Robo4900]

They're inferior to the untouched Dragon Box DVDs, so they're pretty much just crap.

Any company that could import these masters would do better to just get the Dragon Box masters off Toei and press them to DVD.

[HakkaiBills93]

I just heard of this recently & it seems weird that there isnt more hype about it. The video quality is phenomenal from the intro clips I've seen. Are there any reviews of them (hopefully in English) and so on.

how to not feel depressed after reading that...

it's only like that

[funrush]

From what I've seen it's probably the best quality the show's ever been in, although it is just an upscale of the DVDs so it's not amazing or anything.

[Arteaga4K]

The video quality isn't that great from what I've seen but the fact that Dragon ball got an HD release at all gives me hope maybe Funimation will do one themselves. I trust them to treat dragon ball well, it seems they only like to screw around with Z. Then again, you never know

[Matches Malone]

The video quality isn't that great from what I've seen but the fact that Dragon ball got an HD release at all gives me hope maybe Funimation will do one themselves.

If I remember correctly, Select Vision said during their announcement that they were the "first" to be allowed to release DB on Blu-ray, meaning others will follow them. Funimation could either do their own remaster or license SV's.

[Robo4900]

From what I've seen it's probably the best quality the show's ever been in, although it is just an upscale of the DVDs so it's not amazing or anything.

No, it is worse than the standard DBox; it's just the DBox footage but with a smudging filter over it to reduce the grain. Screws up the detail in the image, and gives it a crappy Funimation-esque look.

The video quality isn't that great from what I've seen but the fact that Dragon ball got an HD release at all gives me hope maybe Funimation will do one themselves. I trust them to treat dragon ball well, it seems they only like to screw around with Z. Then again, you never know

1. It's not HD, it's just an upscale.
2. If Funimation did a "HD" release of OG DB, it'd either be an upscale of their crappy Blue Brick masters, or it'd be cropped to widescreen, or both. In other words: They'd treat it with exactly the level of disrespect they've shown Z.
3. Funimation do not give a single shit about the non-Z stuff that isn't currently running.

If I remember correctly, Select Vision said during their announcement that they were the "first" to be allowed to release DB on Blu-ray, meaning others will follow them. Funimation could either do their own remaster or license SV's.

It doesn't mean anything. You can be the first person to decide to live on a diet comprising of entirely meatballs and glass, but you'll probably be the last too.

[SuperSaiyaManZ94]

From what I've seen it's probably the best quality the show's ever been in, although it is just an upscale of the DVDs so it's not amazing or anything.

No, it is worse than the standard DBox; it's just the DBox footage but with a smudging filter over it to reduce the grain. Screws up the detail in the image, and gives it a crappy Funimation-esque look.

The video quality isn't that great from what I've seen but the fact that Dragon ball got an HD release at all gives me hope maybe Funimation will do one themselves. I trust them to treat dragon ball well, it seems they only like to screw around with Z. Then again, you never know

1. It's not HD, it's just an upscale.
2. If Funimation did a "HD" release of OG DB, it'd either be an upscale of their crappy Blue Brick masters, or it'd be cropped to widescreen, or both. In other words: They'd treat it with exactly the level of disrespect they've shown Z.
3. Funimation do not give a single shit about the non-Z stuff that isn't currently running.

If I remember correctly, Select Vision said during their announcement that they were the "first" to be allowed to release DB on Blu-ray, meaning others will follow them. Funimation could either do their own remaster or license SV's.

It doesn't mean anything. You can be the first person to decide to live on a diet comprising of entirely meatballs and glass, but you'll probably be the last too.

That's the unfortunate and rather sad reality of how FUNimation has regarded the original series for so long in the grand scheme of their 25+ year license to the franchise, as a second rate show that is deemed inferior to Z and thus why it's been much less marketed with only two DVD releases here between the Saga sets and Blue Bricks over the past decade plus with both having their own sets of flaws, and neither of which including the elements that only the Dragon Box contain (Second opening, first, third and fourth closings, next episode previews.) already making them incomplete in that respect. As mentioned before this all started with their decision to skip ahead to DBZ in 1996 after halting DB's dub with the end of the Pilaf arc's syndication run the previous year for reasons they've never divulged to this day leaving only speculation, and since then the show has basically gotten the bare minimum of treatment by them.

It's sad that they do this, because it is essentially favoring one portion of a series at the expense of the other when both are really the same story.

[Robo4900]

As mentioned before this all started with their decision to skip ahead to DBZ in 1996 after halting DB's dub with the end of the Pilaf arc's syndication run the previous year for reasons they've never divulged to this day leaving only speculation, and since then the show has basically gotten the bare minimum of treatment by them.

Gen Fukunaga stated in an inteview in the Season BD extras (used to be on YouTube; video has been taken down or deleted) that, in no uncertain terms, they never really wanted to do OG DB in the first place, and that from the very beginning, they were trying to get Toei to let them skip to Z.
And their syndication deal with OG DB was very poorly-done (I've heard their small-time syndication partner, Seagull, got them 5am airings in most places it aired, but didn't really distribute it super-wide), especially given how they would work with Saban basically immediately after DB concluded (DB concluded airing in December '95, Z begun airing in September '96), which was a hit, and got them huge coverage of the USA. Though even at that, I've heard accounts that Z initially had a slightly rough start, and was airing very early morning; Fox Kids Rochester was airing it at 7:30am. I recall some people on this forum telling me that Z's initial airings generally were only slightly later than OG DB's airings tended to be in similar areas, but that it slowly shifted later as the run went on. So to my observations, Z had only a slightly better start than DB initially did, but that Funi were much more triggerhappy at canning DB, whereas they were more eager to hold on with Z and keep it going.

So... I think the official reason is that ratings weren't what they wanted, but that the ratings weren't good because they got an iffy syndication deal, and they got an iffy syndication deal because they didn't actually believe in OG DB.
That seems to have been what happened.

[MasenkoHA]

It’s pretty apparent how little Funimation disregards the original Dragon Ball. The season sets were released after Z (and yes you can make the argument they had to wait for Trimark to lose the home video rights to the first 13 episodes but the counterargument is they still should have released all of Dragon Ball before releasing Z ) the cast consistently refers to the franchise as a whole as Dragon Ball Z instead of Dragon Ball (I get the impression Schemmel doesn’t give a shit about Dragon Ball because he’s only Goku for the final 23 episodes and Sabat doesn’t care because Vegeta isn’t in it), they’ll bother to have random characters like two of the Spice Boys and Maron redubbed but won’t fix the contradictions with the original Dragon Ball in their release of the Android saga. They redubbed their movies with Pioneer and Ocean for vocal consistency and redub portions of Z but movie 2 of Dragon Ball can continue to sound awkward and unprofessional.


It would be nice if Funimation redubbed all of Dragon Ball and the movies and give it a nice new release. Winning the lottery would also be nice.

[SuperSaiyaManZ94]

As mentioned before this all started with their decision to skip ahead to DBZ in 1996 after halting DB's dub with the end of the Pilaf arc's syndication run the previous year for reasons they've never divulged to this day leaving only speculation, and since then the show has basically gotten the bare minimum of treatment by them.

Gen Fukunaga stated in an inteview in the Season BD extras (used to be on YouTube; video has been taken down or deleted) that, in no uncertain terms, they never really wanted to do OG DB in the first place, and that from the very beginning, they were trying to get Toei to let them skip to Z.
And their syndication deal with OG DB was very poorly-done (I've heard their small-time syndication partner, Seagull, got them 5am airings in most places it aired, but didn't really distribute it super-wide), especially given how they would work with Saban basically immediately after DB concluded (DB concluded airing in December '95, Z begun airing in September '96), which was a hit, and got them huge coverage of the USA. Though even at that, I've heard accounts that Z initially had a slightly rough start, and was airing very early morning; Fox Kids Rochester was airing it at 7:30am. I recall some people on this forum telling me that Z's initial airings generally were only slightly later than OG DB's airings tended to be in similar areas, but that it slowly shifted later as the run went on. So to my observations, Z had only a slightly better start than DB initially did, but that Funi were much more triggerhappy at canning DB, whereas they were more eager to hold on with Z and keep it going.

So... I think the official reason is that ratings weren't what they wanted, but that the ratings weren't good because they got an iffy syndication deal, and they got an iffy syndication deal because they didn't actually believe in OG DB.
That seems to have been what happened.

Oh, for some reason i had thought it wasn't stated exactly why they skipped ahead. Interesting bit of info there because i'd figured it wasn't due to ratings or timeslots that the 1995 dub was scrapped after just the first thirteen episodes had been done out of the planned 26, so maybe the deal they had with BLT/Seagull indeed wasn't good after all which is why they later went with Saban for Z's dub the following year.

[Matches Malone]

It would be nice if Funimation redubbed all of Dragon Ball and the movies and give it a nice new release. Winning the lottery would also be nice.

I think there's a higher chance of you winning the lottery twice in a row, in the same week, than Funimation re-dubbing DB. The only chance that would've happened is if Toei started Kai with the original DB, and even then, they may have just put their original dub on it like what they looked into doing when Kai started.

[SuperSaiyaManZ94]

It’s pretty apparent how little Funimation disregards the original Dragon Ball. The season sets were released after Z (and yes you can make the argument they had to wait for Trimark to lose the home video rights to the first 13 episodes but the counterargument is they still should have released all of Dragon Ball before releasing Z ) the cast consistently refers to the franchise as a whole as Dragon Ball Z instead of Dragon Ball (I get the impression Schemmel doesn’t give a shit about Dragon Ball because he’s only Goku for the final 23 episodes and Sabat doesn’t care because Vegeta isn’t in it), they’ll bother to have random characters like two of the Spice Boys and Maron redubbed but won’t fix the contradictions with the original Dragon Ball in their release of the Android saga. They redubbed their movies with Pioneer and Ocean for vocal consistency and redub portions of Z but movie 2 of Dragon Ball can continue to sound awkward and unprofessional.


It would be nice if Funimation redubbed all of Dragon Ball and the movies and give it a nice new release. Winning the lottery would also be nice.

Sadly yes, the original series is considered second rate in their eyes and their treatment of it is very telling. Z is the one they prioritize in all aspects.

[MasenkoHA]

It would be nice if Funimation redubbed all of Dragon Ball and the movies and give it a nice new release. Winning the lottery would also be nice.

I think there's a higher chance of you winning the lottery twice in a row, in the same week, than Funimation re-dubbing DB. The only chance that would've happened is if Toei started Kai with the original DB, and even then, they may have just put their original dub on it like what they looked into doing when Kai started.

Meh if Toei started with pre-Raditz Dragon Ball for Kai Funimation would have either

1. Redubbed it with their current cast (Colleen Clinkenbeard, Monica Rial, and Bryan Massey) but used the same scripts from 1995/2000s with little to no changes

2. Skipped to Raditz anyways.