Post
by Preeve » Mon Nov 15, 2021 7:09 am
How about being a UK fan of Dragon Ball...
Until the early 2010’s (maybe 2013?) thanks to Manga UK, we didn’t have any (good or substantial) home video releases of any major Dragon Ball content.
When I was about 10/11 years old (in 2011), my family and I were travelling in the US and we stopped by a Best Buy. Upon looking in the DVD section, I end up walking into a treasure trove of Dragon Ball DVDs. The Orange Bricks, Dragon Boxes, Kai, OG Dragon Ball, GT, the movie steelbooks, you name it. The thing is, because I was from the UK, I had to bear several things in mind: I didn’t know what the fuck half these releases even were, and I had to make sure these DVDs would play on Region 2 DVD/Blu-Ray players.
It was overwhelming. While I was mildly aware of some releases thanks to the internet, I didn’t know what a Dragon Box was or what made it different and that much more expensive than the Orange Bricks. On top of that, they weren’t Region 2, and I also had no idea about any issues the Orange Bricks had. I had only barely heard about Kai, and I wasn’t sure what differentiated that from Z too. I had heard from an Amazon review that those movie releases had “issues” with region coding, so I didn’t bother with those (it probably would have worked, but eh), and OG DB and it’s movies were also not Region 2.
Can you imagine having to make a decision on which of these releases to buy when you had to take so many things into account? In the end, I ended up coming home with The OG DB Movie Pack (despite the issues with it not being Region 2. Don’t ask) and Seasons 1 and 3 of the Orange Bricks. Over the next few years, I would end up collecting the rest of the Orange Bricks, including some of those Manga UK Orange Bricks when those were eventually out, as well as getting that first Z Movie 5 Pack at some point.
When Manga brought over OG DB with the Saga Set video, I got those too (and I’m still wondering why they never brought the movies over...), and I later got the Complete GT set in America a few years ago upon another visit. Only somewhat recently have I sold off those crap Orange Bricks (except for ones too scratched to sell due to their flimsy ass packaging), and gotten the UK 30th Anniversary Blu-Rays, not because they’re good, but because I can’t see them getting any better in the future.
Kinda sucks to look back a realise that I had a golden opportunity to pick up a Dragon Box or two when they were still new, but I blame Funimation for having such an absurd amount of Dragon Ball releases available at one time, with highly inconsistent region coding on top of that. I can’t how any non-American/Canadian could walk into a Best Buy and not be baffled by the wide, and often overlapping, selection. In that moment, I knew how it felt to be a grandma buying video games for her grandkids.