Dragon Ball Rewatch, Week 18 - DB movie 2

[Robo4900]

Hello all, and welcome to week 18 of the first Dragon Ball rewatch of the decade.
We're doing five episodes a week, and we're watching every single episode of Dragon Ball, Dragon Ball Z, and Dragon Ball GT, as well as all the movies and specials.
I encourage you all to watch in Japanese with subtitles, especially if you have never done so before, but watch along in whichever way brings you the most joy.

This week, the second movie!
Watch it however you like, but don't watch the Funimation "Remastered" version; they screwed it up royally. Best versions out there are the 2005 uncut DVD, and the Toei HD master.

Previous thread: Week 17 (DB 76-80)
Next thread: Week 19 (DB 81-85)

Anyway, without further ado...

Dragon Ball
"The Sleeping Princess Of Devil Castle"
Dub title: Sleeping Princess In Devil's Castle
Originally released 18th of July 1987
Director: Daisuke Nishio
Animation supervisor: Minoru Maeda
Written by: Keiji Terui

After his first search for the Dragon Balls with his friends, Goku heads to Kame House to train with Kame-Sen’nin, but a boy named Kuririn arrives on the island and also requests that Kame-Sen’nin take him on as a student. After some bribing, Kame-Sen’nin says he will accept one of them as a student, but only whichever one returns with the “Sleeping Princess”.

The boys set off toward Devil Castle, where the “Sleeping Princess” is said to be. Meanwhile, Bulma and the others tail Goku, but as they approach Devil Castle, they are attacked! Bulma is kidnapped, and a leisurely visit to friends becomes a rescue mission, involving a bandit, a group of friends, and some hideous creatures of the night who seek to plunge the world into eternal darkness!

Interesting trivia:

• The movie premiered in July 1987 as part of the Toei Cartoon Festival, alongside movies for Saint Seiya, Hikari Sentai Maskman, and Chōjinki Metalder. The Toei Cartoon Festival had been running since 1969 as a way to promote their children's series in theatres during the school holidays. This is likely why these movies tend to only run around 45 minutes.
• The 2005 Funimation DVD single of this movie has black bars appear during the original anime intro. This is because the master tape is set up for 1.85:1 widescreen presentation, so specific shots have been moved up or down by Toei to make the framing work when matted down.
• As with the last film, this movie was most definitely framed for both full-frame 4:3 and matted widescreen 1.85:1 viewing. It's likely that many cinemas would have shown this film in 4:3, and the home video at the time at the time (which, until 2003, was the only form of home media of Dragon Ball in Japan), and Toei would have known this going in. So, as noted previously, the rule of thumb that both 4:3 and 1.85:1 are valid viewing options stands.
• While Daizenshuu 6 specifically noted the previous movie as taking place in an alternate timeline from the manga and TV anime, it simply notes that the events in this movie conflict with the events in the original story.
• Krillin's approach to Roshi's island is the first time Kikuchi devised new music for a movie version of a manga scene already covered accurately in the anime.
• As with the last film, Kikuchi composed a suite of new music for this film. However, some went unused. These are: M402-1 (Alternate title card), M406-1 (Alternate version of Kuririn arriving by boat), M441-1 (Alternate version of the theme when Lucifer dies; later released on CD), M442-1 (Alternate version of "Peace!", from the end of the film, just before we cut to Roshi's island), versions of M424 (The Sleeping Princess Chorus Of Doom), M425 (Bulma getting tied up), and M434 without the choir, M433 (Kenisu calls it "Lunch's Getaway Goes Awry"; later used in the TV series), possibly a large chunk of M428, and a few seconds of M407 (Kuririn's theme), M418 (the theme that plays when Bulma awakens and sees the monster movie on TV), and M438 ("Oozaru Goku's Rampage"). This trivia entry courtesy of Kenisu.
• Music from this movie would first be used in the series in episode 81, the very next one we'll be watching, next week. This trivia entry is also courtesy of Kenisu.
• Roshi's line "If I leave it up to you, there's no telling what girl you'll choose" is a veiled reference to Goku's original attempts to bring Roshi a girl in the manga and TV anime.
• Roshi telling Goku not to use Kinto'un for this task is very similar to his Worldly Training, where he was given the same restrictions.
• Kuririn going faster than Goku due to the shark is based on two moments from the manga and TV anime: First, the shark is from the lake portion of Roshi's training. Second, Kuririn being faster due to danger is taken from Krillin improving his sprint time thanks to Yellow Lunch.
• While Kuririn is riding american buffalo after escaping Goku, the background is the African savannah with Kilimanjaro in the background.
• The plane that Bulma, Yamucha, Oolong and Pu'er arrive in on Roshi's Island is the same one from the end of the Pilaf Arc. It didn't appear at the end of movie 1.
• While the opening of the movie is based on the start of the 21st TB arc, how it connects with the previous film -- assuming it does -- is ambiguous. Roshi's house is back to normal and Bulma implies that it's been a while since she last saw Roshi and Goku, while the opening implies that this film takes place immediately afterwards.
• This movie was the first piece of Dragon Ball media Funimation ever dubbed in-house. It suffers from a variety of production issues, including overall abysmal sound quality, and only being mixed in mono (the 5.1 mix on the DVDs are just the mono mix in the centre channel with the corner channels taking reverb'd duplicates, and the subwoofer taking the low frequencies). A large portion of the cast would not return after this dub (Chris Sabat was replaced by Dale Kelly, Brice Armstrong, Kyle Hebert, and eventually Doc Morgan as the narrator, Ceyli Delgadillo was replaced by Stephanie Nadolny, and eventually Colleen Clinkenbeard as kid Goku, Leslie Alexander was replaced by Tiffany Vollmer, and later Monica Rial, as Bulma, Christine Marten and Monika Antonelli were replaced by Meredith McCoy, and later Leah Clark and Colleen Clinkenbeard as Lunch, Brad Jackson would initially be replaced by Mark Britten as Oolong, but would return to the role, aside from a few appearances filled in by Bryan Massey). How Funimation thought this movie dub was "good enough" that they could go on to dub the series in-house in a similar manner is anyone's guess, as is why Funimation didn't think to redub this when they redubbed the first movie in 2009, given the almost all the cast were almost immediately replaced after this one, and their redubbing is generally justified under a vague banner of "Consistency"...
• Speaking of Funimation's dub, they made at least one major dialogue change -- Yamucha and Pu'er were changed to already be aware of Goku's transformation into an Oozaru, despite the fact everyone was surprised by it in the original Japanese.
• Another change made to Funimation's dub is the opening and ending. Despite the fact they dubbed the movie uncut, the OP and ED were replaced by the 1995 BLT dub opening and ending, even on the 2005 uncut DVD (released a couple of years after Funi's dub of the DB series had concluded). Like the rest of the sound in the movie, the opening and ending are intensely muffled, and mixed down to mono. The OP and ED were then replaced with the standard Funi-dubbed DB series OP and ED for the "Remastered" DVD, though some kind of screwup at the mastering stage led their "Remastered" version of this movie to run at half the framerate it should; every second frame of animation is simply missing. This error also extends to the HD versions of this master, available on FunimationNow, and on the Zima Blu-ray disc in Latin America.
• The Big Green dub of this movie was previously a piece of lost media due to it (as well as DB movies 1 and 3, and the GT special) only airing on TV in the UK, and not being made available on DVD; only a few minutes of it surfaced online. The entire thing was found a little over a year ago, and was finally shared recently. Unsurprisingly, its acting and sound quality is significantly better than Funimation's dub, and it's filled with all the hilarious nonsense one would expect from a Big Green dub.
• The hunchback caretaker's design is a reference to Igor from the original Frankenstein film. Though he isn't an original invention for this movie; Minoru Maeda explained in Daizenshuu 6, "The truth is, I took a character who appeared in Dr. Slump — Arale-chan and used him as-is for this butler."
• It's actually quite clever to call the head demon in this movie "Lucifer", as the name means "Light bringer", which runs counter to Lucifer's plan to destroy the sun.
• Ghastel's name comes from the Japanese colloquialism "Gas table", semi-borrowed from English (as in, it's a phrase that uses English words, but it's only used in Japan; this is known as a wasei-eigo); it refers to what is essentially a stove built into a kitchen table. Apparently they're quite common in older Japanese houses. The name Ghastel was derived from this by simply removing the "B" from the word; ガステーブル / Ga su te-e bu ru > ガステル / Ga su te ru.
• Several clips from this film were used in the Harmony Gold dub; one of the eyecatches uses the wide shot of the Five Fingers, while the intro uses the statue eyes and the cloth-whip demon.
• Kuririn fighting the army of demons is one of the few times we see a character engage a literal army of foes.
• Goku is able to block the cloth-demon's club with his Nyoi-bo, implying that the staff is much stronger than regular wooden staffs.
• The scene where Bulma first sees the balconies of demons is the first time chorals are heard in Dragon Ball music.
• The monster that falls off the cliff after Goku jumps onto Kinto'un runs straight through the cloth-demon.
• The Big Green title for this movie is "Sleeping Beauty In Devil Castle"

Movie summary, release date, and other details courtesy of Kanzenshuu's movie guide. Dragon Ball logo provided, and trivia co-written, by KBABZ. A lot of music information comes courtesy of Kenisu.

[SuperSaiyaManZ94]

Overall, this is my favorite of the DB related films after Path to Power. It took the story of Goku and Krillin's training prior to the 21st Tenkaichi Budokai and made an alternate interpretation that's generally it's own thing separate from the manga and series as all the others are. It's also pretty cool that they decided to show off Goku's Oozaru/Great Ape form here (and in a rather dramatic way i might add) since there was really no place for them to have it in COTBR/Legend of Shen Long that would make any sense given the film's plot with the lack of the Pilaf gang and thus Pilaf's castle by extension. The bits with the demonic/Satanic creatures that Goku battles is another thing i like, especially Lucifer as homages to the old school horror genre. It's definitely a fun movie that plays around with the storyline of the two's training with Roshi, and makes use of the alternate thing fairly well.

Other notes

- If you're going to get the movie on DVD, buy the 2005 movie box set or if you have the 2011 four movie pack release then pick up the individual version. That is because the one included on the latter has a horrible issue where the fps of the entire film appear to have been cut in half every other frame and everything especially any fast moving or panning shots look absolutely horrible, especially with Goku and Krillin's race where they appear to float in the scene because the running movement was shifted two frames at a time.

-Also related to the latter, on the 2005 DVD for whatever reason they left the "Gotta Find That Dragon Ball" opening and the ending instrumental from the BLT dub as it appeared on the previous uncut and edited VHS versions of the film. This despite that by the time it came out in said box set their series dub was already since completed and the dubbed covers of "Mystical/Makafushigi Adventure" and "I'll Give You Romance/Romantic Ageru Yo" readily available to include which actually happened later when they did the aforementioned messed up version of Movie 2 on the four pack.

-As mentioned by Robo4900 above, this was the first thing FUNi did in house following their parting from Saban and shortly after the end of Z's syndicated run. The cast had some significant differences especially in regard to Kid Goku and Bulma as Ceyli Delgadillo (the initial voice of Dende in the Z dub before being replaced later with Laura Bailey) played Goku here which was later recast to Stephanie Nadolny by the time the series dub started in 2001 and Bulma with Leslie Alexander and subsequently replaced with Tiffany Vollmer even with Movie 3's dub which was done about a year or so later.

[Robo4900]

Overall, this is my favorite of the DB related films after Path to Power. It took the story of Goku and Krillin's training prior to the 21st Tenkaichi Budokai and made an alternate interpretation that's generally it's own thing separate from the manga and series as all the others are. It's also pretty cool that they decided to show off Goku's Oozaru/Great Ape form here (and in a rather dramatic way i might add) since there was really no place for them to have it in COTBR/Legend of Shen Long that would make any sense given the film's plot with the lack of the Pilaf gang and thus Pilaf's castle by extension. The bits with the demonic/Satanic creatures that Goku battles is another thing i like, especially Lucifer as homages to the old school horror genre. It's definitely a fun movie that plays around with the storyline of the two's training with Roshi, and makes use of the alternate thing fairly well.

Agreed.

Honestly, until Super Broly, this was my favourite of all the Dragon Ball movies. And even now, it's a narrow competition.

- If you're going to get the movie on DVD, buy the 2005 movie box set or if you have the 2011 four movie pack release then pick up the individual version. That is because the one included on the latter has a horrible issue where the fps of the entire film appear to have been cut in half every other frame and everything especially any fast moving or panning shots look absolutely horrible, especially with Goku and Krillin's race where they appear to float in the scene because the running movement was shifted two frames at a time.

-Also related to the latter, on the 2005 DVD for whatever reason they left the "Gotta Find That Dragon Ball" opening and the ending instrumental from the BLT dub as it appeared on the previous uncut and edited VHS versions of the film. This despite that by the time it came out in said box set their series dub was already since completed and the dubbed covers of "Mystical/Makafushigi Adventure" and "I'll Give You Romance/Romantic Ageru Yo" readily available to include which actually happened later when they did the aforementioned messed up version of Movie 2 on the four pack.

Yeah. I did note this in the trivia. Though it's quite a long trivia section; I don't blame you for missing that. I may have gone a little overboard.

Anyway, yeah, the later "remastered" release of DB movie 2 is awful, and should be avoided. The 2005 DVD does keep the original Japanese "Makafushigi Adventure"/"Romantic Ageru Yo" OP/ED if you watch the Japanese subbed track, but watching in English, yeah, it changes the OP/ED out. It also uses a kinda shitty remade English title card.

-As mentioned by Robo4900 above, this was the first thing FUNi did in house following their parting from Saban and shortly after the end of Z's syndicated run. The cast had some significant differences especially in regard to Kid Goku and Bulma as Ceyli Delgadillo (the initial voice of Dende in the Z dub before being replaced later with Laura Bailey) played Goku here which was later recast to Stephanie Nadolny by the time the series dub started in 2001 and Bulma with Leslie Alexander and subsequently replaced with Tiffany Vollmer even with Movie 3's dub which was done about a year or so later.

Indeed.
And... This dub SUCKS, to be honest.

Like... Okay, rant time...
Season 3 of DBZ is a pretty sucky dub, and I still don't understand why so many fans stick by it, but at least I could kinda see the "I can't help but love this goofy thing where they're trying so hard" argument...
This movie's dub is just unforgivable. The sound is shit, all the delivery is completely flat, the lines are badly-written, bland crap... It's shockingly terrible, this pile of shit.
I've seen it said that this movie is boring (how the hell could the sunglasses vampire destroying the sun with a fucking diamond laser beam be boring?), and I never understood that point of view... Until I realised "OH! The people who hate this movie are probably dub-viewers." Because damn if Funi's dub doesn't make everything about thie movie become slow, plodding, and... Bland... At least Funi's other early in-house dubs could be argued to have a certain weird, ridiculous charm to them. This movie's dub feels so aggressively boring and slow, IMO... It's like the first few episodes of Yu-Gi-Oh The Abridged Series except with worse writing, and with almost no jokes. And the awful sound quality makes the music sound terrible.

My standard "Give the Japanese version a go" advice goes double, triple, a thousandfold, something like that for this movie. The Funi version of this movie is just so bad, even by Funi's in-house 1999 standards.

And for those of you who either know what I'm talking about, or are about to, when you delve into this atrocity of a dub, remember this: This movie dub was released in 1998, coming right off the heels of the Pioneer dubs of DBZ movies 1-3. Let that sink in. The best dubbing Dragon Ball has ever received in English was immediately followed by the absolute worst, all because Barry Watson, Chris Sabat, and Gen Fukunaga wanted to save a few bucks. -_-

[/rant]

[SuperSaiyaManZ94]

Spoiler:

Overall, this is my favorite of the DB related films after Path to Power. It took the story of Goku and Krillin's training prior to the 21st Tenkaichi Budokai and made an alternate interpretation that's generally it's own thing separate from the manga and series as all the others are. It's also pretty cool that they decided to show off Goku's Oozaru/Great Ape form here (and in a rather dramatic way i might add) since there was really no place for them to have it in COTBR/Legend of Shen Long that would make any sense given the film's plot with the lack of the Pilaf gang and thus Pilaf's castle by extension. The bits with the demonic/Satanic creatures that Goku battles is another thing i like, especially Lucifer as homages to the old school horror genre. It's definitely a fun movie that plays around with the storyline of the two's training with Roshi, and makes use of the alternate thing fairly well.

Agreed.

Honestly, until Super Broly, this was my favourite of all the Dragon Ball movies. And even now, it's a narrow competition.

- If you're going to get the movie on DVD, buy the 2005 movie box set or if you have the 2011 four movie pack release then pick up the individual version. That is because the one included on the latter has a horrible issue where the fps of the entire film appear to have been cut in half every other frame and everything especially any fast moving or panning shots look absolutely horrible, especially with Goku and Krillin's race where they appear to float in the scene because the running movement was shifted two frames at a time.

-Also related to the latter, on the 2005 DVD for whatever reason they left the "Gotta Find That Dragon Ball" opening and the ending instrumental from the BLT dub as it appeared on the previous uncut and edited VHS versions of the film. This despite that by the time it came out in said box set their series dub was already since completed and the dubbed covers of "Mystical/Makafushigi Adventure" and "I'll Give You Romance/Romantic Ageru Yo" readily available to include which actually happened later when they did the aforementioned messed up version of Movie 2 on the four pack.

Yeah. I did note this in the trivia. Though it's quite a long trivia section; I don't blame you for missing that. I may have gone a little overboard.

Anyway, yeah, the later "remastered" release of DB movie 2 is awful, and should be avoided. The 2005 DVD does keep the original Japanese "Makafushigi Adventure"/"Romantic Ageru Yo" OP/ED if you watch the Japanese subbed track, but watching in English, yeah, it changes the OP/ED out. It also uses a kinda shitty remade English title card.

-As mentioned by Robo4900 above, this was the first thing FUNi did in house following their parting from Saban and shortly after the end of Z's syndicated run. The cast had some significant differences especially in regard to Kid Goku and Bulma as Ceyli Delgadillo (the initial voice of Dende in the Z dub before being replaced later with Laura Bailey) played Goku here which was later recast to Stephanie Nadolny by the time the series dub started in 2001 and Bulma with Leslie Alexander and subsequently replaced with Tiffany Vollmer even with Movie 3's dub which was done about a year or so later.

Indeed.
And... This dub SUCKS, to be honest.

Like... Okay, rant time...
Season 3 of DBZ is a pretty sucky dub, and I still don't understand why so many fans stick by it, but at least I could kinda see the "I can't help but love this goofy thing where they're trying so hard" argument...
This movie's dub is just unforgivable. The sound is shit, all the delivery is completely flat, the lines are badly-written, bland crap... It's shockingly terrible, this pile of shit.
I've seen it said that this movie is boring (how the hell could the sunglasses vampire destroying the sun with a fucking diamond laser beam be boring?), and I never understood that point of view... Until I realised "OH! The people who hate this movie are probably dub-viewers." Because damn if Funi's dub doesn't make everything about thie movie become slow, plodding, and... Bland... At least Funi's other early in-house dubs could be argued to have a certain weird, ridiculous charm to them. This movie's dub feels so aggressively boring and slow, IMO... It's like the first few episodes of Yu-Gi-Oh The Abridged Series except with worse writing, and with almost no jokes. And the awful sound quality makes the music sound terrible.

My standard "Give the Japanese version a go" advice goes double, triple, a thousandfold, something like that for this movie. The Funi version of this movie is just so bad, even by Funi's in-house 1999 standards.

And for those of you who either know what I'm talking about, or are about to, when you delve into this atrocity of a dub, remember this: This movie dub was released in 1998, coming right off the heels of the Pioneer dubs of DBZ movies 1-3. Let that sink in. The best dubbing Dragon Ball has ever received in English was immediately followed by the absolute worst, all because Barry Watson, Chris Sabat, and Gen Fukunaga wanted to save a few bucks. -_-

[/rant]

Indeed, those two are my favorites out of the DB films even though Path to Power can't really be connected with the first three due to the animation since it came out shortly after GT premiered on TV and thus shares the similar animation style and music score.

Yeah, i went with buying the 2005 DVD separately from the movie box itself after already getting the four pack because the frame thing was such a huge and noticeable flaw that i simply wasn't going to suffer through it. Seriously, they really dropped the ball here even when the other three were overall pretty good in their presentations. The 4 pack version should be avoided at all costs, it's just such a horrid issue which ruins the film from a visual standpoint.

No doubt there, this test dub was but a preview of the bastardization and butchering they would soon go on to commit with the show itself in Season 3 about a year later. Their "reversioning" treatment of the series all started here and just got worse after that point which only continued to affect the franchise here for the longest time until things improved to degree with Kai and the recent movies, even if they still aren't perfect then. It blows my mind that they did something so great with the Z movies 1-3 dubs in conjunction with Pioneer then immediately turned around to in house dubbing themselves and completely dropping the ball in every way conceivable.

[Robo4900]

Indeed, those two are my favorites out of the DB films even though Path to Power can't really be connected with the first three due to the animation since it came out shortly after GT premiered on TV and thus shares the similar animation style and music score.

TBH, I don't think calling it an OG DB movie makes much sense; it's a GT movie. Though really, I've always seen the splitting up of the movies in general to be pointless anyway. They're all Dragon Ball movies, and there's 17 of them. 20 if you include the ones after the original run.

Yeah, i went with buying the 2005 DVD separately from the movie box itself after already getting the four pack because the frame thing was such a huge and noticeable flaw that i simply wasn't going to suffer through it. Seriously, they really dropped the ball here even when the other three were overall pretty good in their presentations. The 4 pack version should be avoided at all costs, it's just such a horrid issue which ruins the film from a visual standpoint.

Yeah.
And it's especially a shame since they did this remaster in HD. If it wasn't for them screwing up the framerate on 2, we'd have great 4:3 HD versions of all three movies in the OG DB trilogy. (In addition to one of the 10th anniversary movie)

No doubt there, this test dub was but a preview of the bastardization and butchering they would soon go on to commit with the show itself in Season 3 about a year later. Their "reversioning" treatment of the series all started here and just got worse after that point which only continued to affect the franchise here for the longest time until things improved to degree with Kai and the recent movies, even if they still aren't perfect then. It blows my mind that they did something so great with the Z movies 1-3 dubs in conjunction with Pioneer then immediately turned around to in house dubbing themselves and completely dropping the ball in every way conceivable.

Agreed.
Though I still maintain that this is far worse than anything else they would ever do, just because of how poor their casting and direction was. It's just so BORING. Utterly ruins all the charm and fun of the movie. At least their later dubs, shitty as they were, had some level of charm and distinction to them, even if it ran counter to the original intentions of the show, and created a pretty shitty product... This is just their absolute worst piece of shit they've ever shoved in the faces of us fans of Dragon Ball, and I'm shocked that the entire staff of Funimation's offices didn't immediately quit their jobs and become hermits living in the woods for the rest of their lives out of sheer shame for producing something this bad, just a few months after the pretty-much-perfect Pioneer dubs were released without their direct involvement.

[KBABZ]

Live notes I made as I watched:

- "Give up." WOW Roshi, kinda harsh isn't it??
- This is my first time hearing Krillin's Japanese voice! I like it a lot!
- "They say those who have seen her are dazzled by her beauty". Well it must not have anything to do with her face because the book only lets us see her chest and hips!
- Why didn't Krillin just use his boat for the first leg of the journey?
- Isn't it kinda odd that Bulma feels the need to return to the island of a pervert despite only having briefly met him once in this continuity?
- Man Goku and Krillin just walked into a COMPLETELY different movie, didn't they?
- Demons with guns, what will they think of next???
- Does it feel like part of the movie was cut out? We jump to Yamcha and co, then Krillin is taken away by an off-screen pterosaur monster??
- I love Krillin's introduction to Kinto'un here much more than in the anime, it has a bit more of a gradual ramp-in.
- I feel like there were many aspects of this movie that were cut out. Several important reaction shots are missing, and Launch disappears from the story completely after an early cameo.
- Goku's tail weakness is introduced here with no fanfare at all! As is the Oozaru form!
- I do like how Krillin's turn to liking Goku is displayed a little more forwardly than in the anime and manga. It's not like an earth-shattering revelation, but we do see his mental reaction and change in attitude towards Goku during the movie.
- Oh now we're going to end-of-the-world stuff? What??
- I think that giant cannon is the most not-Dragon Ball design in the entire movie!
- I like Bulma prioritizing her worry over swimming at the beach!
- And the delayed reveal of Oolong having given Goku his pants!

Overall I liked the first movie over this one. Ultimately I feel DB-M2 is much more slap-dash when it comes to its structure and it suffers for it: it feels all to eager to rush along and hit the story beats and ideas it wants with little regard for pacing, which is similar to the first movie but I feel even more prevalent here. Elements are introduced and then disappear, or just show up without any prior introduction that then completely redirect the course of the story. Unfortunately this movie still doesn't feel like a piece written to be a gripping story (like Episode of Bardock and History of Trunks), and instead is meant to be a fun, consequence-free way to take up 45 minutes at a festival. Maybe I need to lower my standards for the third movie, haha.

1. Curse of the Blood Rubies
2. Sleeping Princess in Devil's Castle

[SuperSaiyaManZ94]

Spoiler:

Indeed, those two are my favorites out of the DB films even though Path to Power can't really be connected with the first three due to the animation since it came out shortly after GT premiered on TV and thus shares the similar animation style and music score.

TBH, I don't think calling it an OG DB movie makes much sense; it's a GT movie. Though really, I've always seen the splitting up of the movies in general to be pointless anyway. They're all Dragon Ball movies, and there's 17 of them. 20 if you include the ones after the original run.

Yeah, i went with buying the 2005 DVD separately from the movie box itself after already getting the four pack because the frame thing was such a huge and noticeable flaw that i simply wasn't going to suffer through it. Seriously, they really dropped the ball here even when the other three were overall pretty good in their presentations. The 4 pack version should be avoided at all costs, it's just such a horrid issue which ruins the film from a visual standpoint.

Yeah.
And it's especially a shame since they did this remaster in HD. If it wasn't for them screwing up the framerate on 2, we'd have great 4:3 HD versions of all three movies in the OG DB trilogy. (In addition to one of the 10th anniversary movie)

No doubt there, this test dub was but a preview of the bastardization and butchering they would soon go on to commit with the show itself in Season 3 about a year later. Their "reversioning" treatment of the series all started here and just got worse after that point which only continued to affect the franchise here for the longest time until things improved to degree with Kai and the recent movies, even if they still aren't perfect then. It blows my mind that they did something so great with the Z movies 1-3 dubs in conjunction with Pioneer then immediately turned around to in house dubbing themselves and completely dropping the ball in every way conceivable.

Agreed.
Though I still maintain that this is far worse than anything else they would ever do, just because of how poor their casting and direction was. It's just so BORING. Utterly ruins all the charm and fun of the movie. At least their later dubs, shitty as they were, had some level of charm and distinction to them, even if it ran counter to the original intentions of the show, and created a pretty shitty product... This is just their absolute worst piece of shit they've ever shoved in the faces of us fans of Dragon Ball, and I'm shocked that the entire staff of Funimation's offices didn't immediately quit their jobs and become hermits living in the woods for the rest of their lives out of sheer shame for producing something this bad, just a few months after the pretty-much-perfect Pioneer dubs were released without their direct involvement.

Yes, calling it a GT movie does makes sense in that respect to some degree. Especially since they included things such as Goku going from his classic gi to the blue/yellow one with pink wristbands he wears in said show partway through the film, and of course they had the same team of animators and production staff plus composer Akhito Tokunaga doing the score so all of those make it a Dragon Ball based movie with some GT elements into it. Also true, the splitting of all the films up into separate chunks is kind of arbitrary.

So true, it's really unfortunate something like that happened during the mastering process and they didn't catch it at some point and didn't correct the problem before release. Shame that the release is so compromised due to the fps issue and yet it's the HD version which they don't bother taking the time to go back and fix.

Indeed, the original pre Orange Brick Season 3 dub of the Freeza episodes may be bad but they do have at least some sort of nostalgic charm to them to classic Toonami fans while Sleeping Princess stands as their very first in house production and such a lousy combination of amature voice direction and everything else by extension. That FUNi followed up such a good set of movie dubs which they didn't do themselves with this immediately afterwards is so jarring and reflects that they didn't know what they were getting themselves into back in 1998.

[MasenkoHA]

Of the three OG Dragon Ball movies this is easily my favorite. Too much of Legend of Shenlong was retreading some stuff from the first 13 episodes. Movie 3 loses me after Goku gets dodonpa’s to Karin Tower. This movie kept a nice simple adventure that was fun from start to finish and felt wholly unique with only the beginning and ending and a little bit of Goku going ape being a retread of what we’ve seem before.


Enough had been rightfully said about how horrible and amateur the Funi dub of movie 2 is so I won’t repeat it but I think it speaks to how little Funimation regards pre-Z Dragon Ball they never bothered to redub it and thought it was acceptable to release in their 4 movie pack in 2011 and have it available to view on their streaming services.

[Robo4900]

Enough had been rightfully said about how horrible and amateur the Funi dub of movie 2 is so I won’t repeat it but I think it speaks to how little Funimation regards pre-Z Dragon Ball they never bothered to redub it and thought it was acceptable to release in their 4 movie pack in 2011 and have it available to view on their streaming services.

Honestly, if there was a half-decent M&E track available for it, I'd try to organise a fandub. I love this movie, and it's so disappointing how abysmal Funi's dub is. Even a half-decent fandub would probably sound and feel more professional than what we have now. But because Funi fucked up the sound so badly, it's impossible to cleanly get the music and/or SFX out; as I noted, they did a shitty-sounding mono mix, and all re-releases have either dual-trakced it to stereo or reverb'd it to surround tracks.

Of the three OG Dragon Ball movies this is easily my favorite. Too much of Legend of Shenlong was retreading some stuff from the first 13 episodes. Movie 3 loses me after Goku gets dodonpa’s to Karin Tower. This movie kept a nice simple adventure that was fun from start to finish and felt wholly unique with only the beginning and ending and a little bit of Goku going ape being a retread of what we’ve seem before.

Agreed.
This is a really fun, standalone adventure, unlike the other two, which are kinda weird half-measures that often end up feeling a bit slapdash and odd.

TBH, KBABZ notes on the pacing are valid, but I enjoy how unique this movie is, and how fun it is... It's just a great 45 minutes of Dragon Ball.

- This is my first time hearing Krillin's Japanese voice! I like it a lot!

She's pretty great.
Honestly, the Japanese cast in general were always an easy transition for me, coming off the English dubs I used to watch as a kid (and that is dubs plaurel; I watched a good chunk of pretty much every serious dub there is of Dragon Ball before I finally transitioned to primarily Japanese viewing). It's a testament to the Japanese casting of this show that you can go from the English dubs to the Japanese, and -- for me at least -- everyone immediately fits like a glove.

- "They say those who have seen her are dazzled by her beauty". Well it must not have anything to do with her face because the book only lets us see her chest and hips!

lol.
TBH, when I saw it as a kid, I assumed her head being missing was a kind of deliberate "Everyone is dazzled by her beauty, so you don't get to see her face, 'cause you'd probably never close the book again." type thing.
'Course, it's ultimately all just a misdirect, but... Fun line of thought none the less.

- Man Goku and Krillin just walked into a COMPLETELY different movie, didn't they?
- Demons with guns, what will they think of next???

lol yep.
It's so off-the-wall. I love it.

- Does it feel like part of the movie was cut out? We jump to Yamcha and co, then Krillin is taken away by an off-screen pterosaur monster??
- I feel like there were many aspects of this movie that were cut out. Several important reaction shots are missing, and Launch disappears from the story completely after an early cameo.

It's entirely possible the original script ran a little long so they had to cut out some scenes. They had to squeeze it all into 45 minutes.

- Goku's tail weakness is introduced here with no fanfare at all! As is the Oozaru form!

Fair point, though at this time, the assumption is that the audience is well aware of all this, since it was released roughly where we're watching, during the Baba arc.

- Oh now we're going to end-of-the-world stuff? What??
- I think that giant cannon is the most not-Dragon Ball design in the entire movie!

Overall I liked the first movie over this one. Ultimately I feel DB-M2 is much more slap-dash when it comes to its structure and it suffers for it: it feels all to eager to rush along and hit the story beats and ideas it wants with little regard for pacing, which is similar to the first movie but I feel even more prevalent here. Elements are introduced and then disappear, or just show up without any prior introduction that then completely redirect the course of the story. Unfortunately this movie still doesn't feel like a piece written to be a gripping story (like Episode of Bardock and History of Trunks), and instead is meant to be a fun, consequence-free way to take up 45 minutes at a festival. Maybe I need to lower my standards for the third movie, haha.

1. Curse of the Blood Rubies
2. Sleeping Princess in Devil's Castle

Fair.
I personally really dig them playing fully into the weird horror influence from the Baba arc, and I like that it's quite brisk. It's a very "Anything goes" in a classically Dragon Ball way imo. And for a variety of reasons, I find it far more interesting than the first film.

But, hey, to each their own.

[MasenkoHA]

No doubt the movie has some pacing issues but it’s a fun like stand alone adventure. Dragon Ball does horror.

[MyVisionity]

This might be my least favorite of the three DB movies. I appreciate that it tried to tell an original story instead of another retelling, and there are things I like about it, but overall it doesn't quite work for me.

As with the previous film, I enjoy the pre-credits sequence with the narration. The design is dope and sets a cool tone for the rest of the movie.

The idea of a bunch of perverted demons holding a princess in a castle is a concept that works well for this series. I like how they integrate Lunch into the plot. The "Sleeping Princess" turning out to be a jewel is nice.

I like the comedy bits with Bulma being used as a sacrifice and the giant needle. The piece of choir music is well done.

I'm not a fan of Ghastel and his army. Those scenes just don't work for me. I still like Goku and Kuririn fighting together though.

I enjoyed the scene where Goku gets gang-stomped after handing over the jewel to Lucifer. Those guys didn't hold back!

This movie has a weird style of editing with odd reaction shots. It's like they were trying to do some kind of surrealistic experimental horror-comedy at times. I don't particularly mind, but it's a unique choice.

The final battle is the best part for me. Seeing the gang in action together is great. I like Lucifer's fight with Goku, and how he does it all while in sunglasses !! I thought that the way he died was pretty funny too.

I couldn't help but notice the design of that beam cannon. Is that thing supposed to be the Devil's Dick??

I appreciate the fact that Roshi was drooling from both the mouth *and* the nose at the end with Lunch.

I like the gang taking the group picture in the end, but what's up with the Funi dub inserting a mystery photographer into the scene??

Speaking of the dub side of things:

I enjoy hearing Chris Sabat's old-school narrations. That might be the one role of his that I can actually stand.

I've always liked Ceyli Delgadillo as Goku. Even though the performance is lacking and a bit ill-fitting, I prefer her voice to Stephanie Nadolny's.

I wonder if the reason Funimation never redubbed this movie is because it was their first in-house project. Like, maybe it holds a special place in their hearts or something.

[KBABZ]

I personally really dig them playing fully into the weird horror influence from the Baba arc, and I like that it's quite brisk. It's a very "Anything goes" in a classically Dragon Ball way imo. And for a variety of reasons, I find it far more interesting than the first film.

But, hey, to each their own.

It's definitely the more interesting story of the two, however I feel like Blood Rubies felt more like a story that was written to be told in 45 minutes (or at least to a greater degree than Sleeping Princess). I think once we get past Mystical Adventure and start getting into the Z films which don't re-tread any of the manga/anime story beats then the storytelling will improve.

So far these first two films seem to introduce elements from the source material not because it improves the story but because they felt obliged to, and I think Launch/Bulma was a perfect example of that. It would have been more efficient to have Launch take Bulma's place in the story, because Yamcha and co. really serve no purpose in it.

[Robo4900]

I think once we get past Mystical Adventure and start getting into the Z films which don't re-tread any of the manga/anime story beats then the storytelling will improve.

Ehhh. Prepare to be disappointed.

A large portion of the Z movies do the exact kind of retreading you're not such a fan of, just in slightly more subtle ways. The Slugg movie is basically a movie version of the Piccolo arc, Coola 1 is basically a mixture of that and the Freeza arc, the Cyborgs one is basically a retread of the mid-Cyborgs arc, the Bojack one becomes a retread of the Cell Games somewhere in act 2, the Fusion movie is basically a retread of the Boo arc...

The movies never really stop retreading, they just get better at disguising it.

So far these first two films seem to introduce elements from the source material not because it improves the story but because they felt obliged to, and I think Launch/Bulma was a perfect example of that. It would have been more efficient to have Launch take Bulma's place in the story, because Yamcha and co. really serve no purpose in it.

Yeah, that's fair. Probably Lunch should've sneezed at some point and been captured. Though then she doesn't get to burst in suddenly and try to steal the gem.

Still, a lot of the movies tend to suffer from this problem. IMO the most egregious is the very last Z movie, which is a great movie except for the ending, which they kinda messed up by suddenly deciding "oh, and goku has to fight the big bad and take the win, of course." despite the rest of the movie really not being that kind of film.

[Robo4900]

Finally caught up and watched this movie.

Must say... I've really been looking forward to it. I fucking LOVE this film. And it holds up beautifully on a rewatch.

Art and designs are bonkers, plot is nuts, music is excellent, the Japanese cast are effortlessly great, the gags are funny...

This movie has it all. It even has a vampire in sunglasses. I love this movie so much.

I'll reiterate what I said earlier, though -- I've seen some people call the movie dull before... I didn't understand it until I rewatched bits of the Funi dub, and... Y'know what, somehow they managed it. The early Funi cast managed to make this movie dull. This isn't typical season 3 badness where it's all cheesy and goofy, this is a bunch of inexperienced nobodies reading dialogue they don't care about, under a director who just wants them to read their lines and get out so they don't have to pay for more studio time than they need to, reading a script that's not particularly accurate but is generally written quite dryly...
Really awful dubbing.

If you absolutely must watch dubbed, if you literally CANNOT watch subbed... Honestly, watch the Big Green dub. It's stupid and ridiculous, but at least it's enjoyable!!... And I can attest to that, it is very enjoyable. Big Green is the one and only perfect dub of Dragon Ball, because it turns unwatchable crap like Z movie 4 and large chunks of Z movie 3 into consistently-hilarious rides of pure insanity.
It'd be a shame if someone had to watch this movie via Big Green instead of the original Japanese, but if you have to watch dubbed or not watch at all... Well, it's certainly better than nothing!

1. Sleeping Princess Of Devil Castle
2. The Legend Of Shen Long

[SuperSaiyaManZ94]

Spoiler:

Finally caught up and watched this movie.

Must say... I've really been looking forward to it. I fucking LOVE this film. And it holds up beautifully on a rewatch.

Art and designs are bonkers, plot is nuts, music is excellent, the Japanese cast are effortlessly great, the gags are funny...

This movie has it all. It even has a vampire in sunglasses. I love this movie so much.

I'll reiterate what I said earlier, though -- I've seen some people call the movie dull before... I didn't understand it until I rewatched bits of the Funi dub, and... Y'know what, somehow they managed it. The early Funi cast managed to make this movie dull. This isn't typical season 3 badness where it's all cheesy and goofy, this is a bunch of inexperienced nobodies reading dialogue they don't care about, under a director who just wants them to read their lines and get out so they don't have to pay for more studio time than they need to, reading a script that's not particularly accurate but is generally written quite dryly...
Really awful dubbing.

If you absolutely must watch dubbed, if you literally CANNOT watch subbed... Honestly, watch the Big Green dub. It's stupid and ridiculous, but at least it's enjoyable!!... And I can attest to that, it is very enjoyable. Big Green is the one and only perfect dub of Dragon Ball, because it turns unwatchable crap like Z movie 4 and large chunks of Z movie 3 into consistently-hilarious rides of pure insanity.
It'd be a shame if someone had to watch this movie via Big Green instead of the original Japanese, but if you have to watch dubbed or not watch at all... Well, it's certainly better than nothing!

1. Sleeping Princess Of Devil Castle
2. The Legend Of Shen Long

Yeah, the Big Green DB movie 2 dub is meme worthy and cheesy as hell just like the Z movies are but given how 31 flavors of awful the FUNi version is it's really the only option for dubbed viewing even with the obvious rushed direction and awkward at times translations. Though i am for the most part a sub only watcher with these as with most everything else in terms of the anime barring Kai and the recent movies. Big Green in of itself is a so bad it's good kind of dub, something along the lines of the infamous Omni Productions/StarTV English dub of the Transformers Headmasters series that had laughable levels of acting from a handful of voice actors and a bunch of bizarro name translations like "Hot Roadimus/ Roadimus Prime", "Billy" and "Power Pack" which show just how poorly the episodes were adapted from the Japanese version.

Seriously, this badness speaks for itself and it honestly reminds me of Big Green at times.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=TjhCNGCK00M&t=91s

[BlazingFiddlesticks]

Oh good timing, I finally got around to this and Path to Power last week. Goku and Krillin were great start to finish, the movie communicates a lot with a little and all the jokes at Krillin's expense in particular land squarely. You think the cut to Krillin on the buffalo is going to be a reprieve from the chase, and then Goku just shows up again as if he were only getting his second wind in a race! And it is a far better intro to blonde Lunch, if only for a moment. The rest of the crew didn't really need to be there, but Bulma in peril puts a more immediate ticking clock on the whole thing and works better than had they relied on the actual sunrise for the effect. And in true Dragon Ball genre mixing you never stop to ask why or how the demon king in a remote mountain range in an enormous high castle arms his minions with miniguns and built a giant laser cannon at the top. The few energy attacks at the end had some surprisingly minute detail on them, I noticed, very appropriate for when energy blasts are not a casual thing.

Roshi having no idea that any of it happened and just wanting to be left alone is a great punch-line. Oolong thinks he's trying off them!

This movie has a weird style of editing with odd reaction shots. It's like they were trying to do some kind of surrealistic experimental horror-comedy at times. I don't particularly mind, but it's a unique choice.

It really played up when Bulma realized she was actually in danger to a point I wasn't really expecting. With the hindsight of seeing the choir piece late used for deliberately darker scenes like Krillin's getting impaled by Freeza it feels a little bit much.

The final battle is the best part for me. Seeing the gang in action together is great. I like Lucifer's fight with Goku, and how he does it all while in sunglasses !! I thought that the way he died was pretty funny too.

This movie has it all. It even has a vampire in sunglasses. I love this movie so much.

One of the Toei staffers, I don't know if was Koyama, I need to read that interview again, commented that he didn't know how Toriyama pulled off his quick, to-the-point jokes so well. Well that's how; you know its funny, just do it. It speaks for itself.

[8000 Saiyan]

Nachi Nozawa was a lot of fun as Lucifer. Fun fact, the man was the official Japanese voice over actor for Al Pacino and Bruce Willis.

Also, the funniest thing about the Big Green dub of this movie is that a woman voiced Yamcha.

[rajan_hoxha]

Excellent timing, because I just watched the movie 2 days ago. I love how it kind of retold the story in its own special way. (I watched the sub btw)

[Dragon Ball Ireland]

Finally catching up on the movies.

Movie 2 - Sleeping Princess In Devil's Castle

A more original movie than the rest of the Dragon Ball movies, which in a sense is more refreshing.

This movie offers some great artistic choices such as the creature designs, the ominous horror feel in the opening, and the landscape where the Devil's castle is found. Lucifer had a very unique design as a Dracula-type initially masquerading as a hotel waiter that deviates both from the gag villainy of Pilaf and the militaristic Red Ribbon army.

The different usage of Roshi is also a welcome breath of fresh air. Instead of Roshi creeping on girls and being punished his desire to meet a girl is made the catalyst to set Goku and Kuririn off on their quest. Roshi's decision not to train Goku also allows the movie to deviate from the series rather than retreading it.

The development of Goku and Kuririn's relationship was also enjoyable, especially the redemption of Kuririn being a selfish pupil as Goku shows him mercy. The juxtaposition between Goku's skill and speed with Kuririn wits also makes them an interesting duo to follow. Kuririn being used as a hostage by Lucifer was a good moment to show Goku's respect for his friend.

Throughout the movie there are a few good twists and turns. Roshi makes Bulma and gang think Goku and Kuririn went to an amusement park only for them to be attacked by a demon. Bulma, initially attracted to Lucifer becomes suspicious and realizes he is the villain. Moreover while everyone admires the moon, Goku ends up becoming an Oozaru and posing a significant threat until Puar turns himself into a scissors to cut his tail off.

There are also good of action sequences to enjoy such as when Goku and Kuririn fight a gang of demons, Lunch shoots some demons down and Yamcha having his moment beating the Butler. Lucifer demonstrates good combat skills, but is ultimately is no match for Goku.

Overall a solid movie, probably the best of all the original Dragon Ball movies, and a great side adventure to watch alongside the main series in its own right.