Did the Dragon Boxes ever release in Europe?

[DragonDuck]

... and if not, are there any other good options of owning Dragon Ball Z in the correct aspect ratio?

Thanks in advance.

[SupremeSSJ]

... and if not, are there any other good options of owning Dragon Ball Z in the correct aspect ratio?

Thanks in advance.

No not to my knowing, other than that the singles are the only other release to keep original aspect ratio.

[TheBlackPaladin]

The only 16:9 releases of the TV series are courtesy of FUNimation. All non-English European home video releases have the proper aspect ratio of 4:3. I don't know if the visual materials are based on the Dragon Boxes, though...to my knowledge, I don't believe they are.

[UltimateHammerBro]

As far as I know, the footage isn't from the Dragon Boxes, or the conversion to PAL has changed it too much.
Other than that, all European releases I have seen (Spanish, French, Italian and Greek) were 4:3.

[TheBlackPaladin]

The German DVDs are in 4:3 as well.

With that said, they're most definitely not based on the Dragon Boxes...an item of controversy surrounding those DVDs is that they are edited, dub-only DVDs that use the footage originally provided to them by the AB Groupe (which was nearly 20 years old at the time Germany released their DVDs).

[DragonDuck]

The German DVDs are in 4:3 as well.

With that said, they're most definitely not based on the Dragon Boxes...an item of controversy surrounding those DVDs is that they are edited, dub-only DVDs that use the footage originally provided to them by the AB Groupe (which was nearly 20 years old at the time Germany released their DVDs).

Darn, that's the only language I speak fluently besides English and Danish. But, is the dub any good? And how much censorship is there?

[TheBlackPaladin]

The German DVDs are in 4:3 as well.

With that said, they're most definitely not based on the Dragon Boxes...an item of controversy surrounding those DVDs is that they are edited, dub-only DVDs that use the footage originally provided to them by the AB Groupe (which was nearly 20 years old at the time Germany released their DVDs).

Darn, that's the only language I speak fluently besides English and Danish. But, is the dub any good? And how much censorship is there?

As someone who doesn't speak German super-fluently, I couldn't tell you if it's good or bad. I've heard some people say it's "pretty good," and I've heard other people say it's "f***ing terrible." That's anime for you...there will always be a dub/sub divide. However, for what it's worth, the company responsible for the German dub of Kai was not able to afford about 98% of the original German DBZ dub cast, and German fans are pissed about that. So, I can't say whether the dub is good or not, but I can say that German fans are very, very fond of their original cast.

Couple other things that I thought were cool:
-They cast real kids to play the kid roles, which was kinda neat.
-Even fans who hate the German dub admit that they did a great job dubbing the Japanese songs. The German dub of "Chala Head Chala" is pretty awesome.
-The scripts, while not perfect, were a step up from the French dub's scripts. The German dub scripts reportedly borrowed a lot of dialogue from the German manga translation.

As for censorship...Germany inherited the pre-edited French dub's footage for dubbing purposes. The biggest reason their DVDs were edited and dub-only was because, in order to get their hands on the uncut footage, the company releasing the DVDs would have had to go through either the AB Groupe or directly to Toei in order to do so...at which point, they would then have to go through the annoying process of re-syncing the German dub audio to the uncut footage. They also said that that getting the uncut footage (and the original Japanese audio) would have cost a lot of money, and they would have had to make up for it by slapping a very, very high price on the DVDs in order to make the money back.

As for how bad the censorship is, well...like I said, they used pre-edited footage that the AB Groupe used for the French dub in order to make the German dub. So, whenever the French dub was censored, so was the German dub. Since digital painting and editing technology was not particularly common in the late 80's and early 90's when the French dub was made, they couldn't paint out blood or overly violent visuals. So, whenever a scene came up that the AB Groupe found objectionable, they just skipped over it. No painting out the blood, they just skipped the scene entirely, regardless of what continuity issues this caused. A good amount of episodes had no editing whatsoever, and others had only a brief clip or two censored. When it was bad, though, it was bad...I heard there was one episode where they cut almost ten minutes worth of material.

Here's an example of the German dub. Unfortunately, I can't find a video on YouTube that perfectly illustrates the censorship done in this scene, nor the visual quality of the German dub's footage. This video, as you will no doubt notice, is the German DBZ dub audio synced to Kai footage. The French dub censored the moment where Kuririn calls out for help and then explodes, and so, that's what Germany got as well. The reason you suddenly hear Mayumi Tanaka's voice shouting "Goku!" in this clip is because the person who uploaded this video to YouTube needed audio to match the Kai footage. That's not how it sounded in the actual German dub.

Having said all that, here's what I gather about the censorship: it doesn't happen that often, but when it does, it's noticeable and annoying as hell. Hope this helps!

[DragonBoxZTheMovies]

I believe these contained the Dragon Box footage. In fact, the name of the set is probably the best indication. I didn't bother linking them all individually, but the other listings are accessible from the page below.
http://www.zonadvd.com/modules.php?name ... &sid=17305

[MCDaveG]

I was watching German dub on TV when it was airing more than decade ago and I remember Krillin's death scene.
He was blown off-screen, how he inflated before that wasn't seen if I remember, only the bottom part of the explosion cloud.

[UltimateHammerBro]

I believe these contained the Dragon Box footage. In fact, the name of the set is probably the best indication. I didn't bother linking them all individually, but the other listings are accessible from the page below.
http://www.zonadvd.com/modules.php?name ... &sid=17305

I actually own that set, and I was referring to it when I said "the conversion to PAL has changed it too much"
The quality is acceptable IMO, but I know people who didn't like it at all.
However, the same company re-released the series in DVD last year with better video quality, so if anyone's interested, the new DVDs are easier to find, and I suppose that they'll be cheaper too.

[DragonDuck]

As someone who doesn't speak German super-fluently, I couldn't tell you if it's good or bad. I've heard some people say it's "pretty good," and I've heard other people say it's "f***ing terrible." That's anime for you...there will always be a dub/sub divide. However, for what it's worth, the company responsible for the German dub of Kai was not able to afford about 98% of the original German DBZ dub cast, and German fans are pissed about that. So, I can't say whether the dub is good or not, but I can say that German fans are very, very fond of their original cast.

Couple other things that I thought were cool:
-They cast real kids to play the kid roles, which was kinda neat.
-Even fans who hate the German dub admit that they did a great job dubbing the Japanese songs. The German dub of "Chala Head Chala" is pretty awesome.
-The scripts, while not perfect, were a step up from the French dub's scripts. The German dub scripts reportedly borrowed a lot of dialogue from the German manga translation.

As for censorship...Germany inherited the pre-edited French dub's footage for dubbing purposes. The biggest reason their DVDs were edited and dub-only was because, in order to get their hands on the uncut footage, the company releasing the DVDs would have had to go through either the AB Groupe or directly to Toei in order to do so...at which point, they would then have to go through the annoying process of re-syncing the German dub audio to the uncut footage. They also said that that getting the uncut footage (and the original Japanese audio) would have cost a lot of money, and they would have had to make up for it by slapping a very, very high price on the DVDs in order to make the money back.

As for how bad the censorship is, well...like I said, they used pre-edited footage that the AB Groupe used for the French dub in order to make the German dub. So, whenever the French dub was censored, so was the German dub. Since digital painting and editing technology was not particularly common in the late 80's and early 90's when the French dub was made, they couldn't paint out blood or overly violent visuals. So, whenever a scene came up that the AB Groupe found objectionable, they just skipped over it. No painting out the blood, they just skipped the scene entirely, regardless of what continuity issues this caused. A good amount of episodes had no editing whatsoever, and others had only a brief clip or two censored. When it was bad, though, it was bad...I heard there was one episode where they cut almost ten minutes worth of material.

Here's an example of the German dub. Unfortunately, I can't find a video on YouTube that perfectly illustrates the censorship done in this scene, nor the visual quality of the German dub's footage. This video, as you will no doubt notice, is the German DBZ dub audio synced to Kai footage. The French dub censored the moment where Kuririn calls out for help and then explodes, and so, that's what Germany got as well. The reason you suddenly hear Mayumi Tanaka's voice shouting "Goku!" in this clip is because the person who uploaded this video to YouTube needed audio to match the Kai footage. That's not how it sounded in the actual German dub.

Having said all that, here's what I gather about the censorship: it doesn't happen that often, but when it does, it's noticeable and annoying as hell. Hope this helps!

Thanks, that definitely did help! The dub itself ... doesn't seem too bad. German Goku sounds pretty badass, even if his voice is a little bit too deep, and the dialogue seems fine as well. (Although Goku's line about Kuririn "still being nearly a child" kinda confuses me). The German Cha-La Head-Cha-La is pretty great, as well. Ten minutes of lost footage, however, sounds pretty bad. What were some episodes that were that badly censored?

By the way, were the singles ever released in Europe?

[TheBlackPaladin]

Thanks, that definitely did help! The dub itself ... doesn't seem too bad. German Goku sounds pretty badass, even if his voice is a little bit too deep, and the dialogue seems fine as well. (Although Goku's line about Kuririn "still being nearly a child" kinda confuses me). The German Cha-La Head-Cha-La is pretty great, as well. Ten minutes of lost footage, however, sounds pretty bad. What were some episodes that were that badly censored?

Somebody more familiar with either the French or German dubs would have to answer that. I'm not too sure. However, I gather that that instance where ten minutes was censored was the worst it ever got for the DBZ dub (the German dub of GT is a whole 'nother--much worse--story), and that it was only that bad for one episode.

The German voice of Goku is a guy by the name of Tommy Morgenstern, and I agree, I always thought his voice was pretty badass, especially his screams and his kamehamehas. He also sang the German dub of the ending song for Movie 13 and the German dub of "Dan Dan" (the GT theme), and they--in my opinion--sound awesome.

As for the singles, do you mean the Dragon Box singles or the FUNimation singles?

[DragonDuck]

Somebody more familiar with either the French or German dubs would have to answer that. I'm not too sure. However, I gather that that instance where ten minutes was censored was the worst it ever got for the DBZ dub (the German dub of GT is a whole 'nother--much worse--story), and that it was only that bad for one episode.

The German voice of Goku is a guy by the name of Tommy Morgenstern, and I agree, I always thought his voice was pretty badass, especially his screams and his kamehamehas. He also sang the German dub of the ending song for Movie 13 and the German dub of "Dan Dan" (the GT theme), and they--in my opinion--sound awesome.

As for the singles, do you mean the Dragon Box singles or the FUNimation singles?

Whoa, Tommy Morgenstern, though. Awesome name, awesome voice, awesome guy. From what you've shown me, he seems to make that dub.

I meant the Funi singles Weren't the Dragonbox singles exclusive to Japan?

[TheBlackPaladin]

Somebody more familiar with either the French or German dubs would have to answer that. I'm not too sure. However, I gather that that instance where ten minutes was censored was the worst it ever got for the DBZ dub (the German dub of GT is a whole 'nother--much worse--story), and that it was only that bad for one episode.

The German voice of Goku is a guy by the name of Tommy Morgenstern, and I agree, I always thought his voice was pretty badass, especially his screams and his kamehamehas. He also sang the German dub of the ending song for Movie 13 and the German dub of "Dan Dan" (the GT theme), and they--in my opinion--sound awesome.

As for the singles, do you mean the Dragon Box singles or the FUNimation singles?

Whoa, Tommy Morgenstern, though. Awesome name, awesome voice, awesome guy. From what you've shown me, he seems to make that dub.

I meant the Funi singles Weren't the Dragonbox singles exclusive to Japan?

German fans are definitely very fond of their original cast, and Morgenstern in particular. As I briefly mentioned earlier, the German dub of Kai, handled by a company called Kaze, was not able to afford 98% of the original cast, and they looked even worse than they normally might because literally a week or two before they made that announcement, another company called Universum Anime, which did the German dub for Battle of Gods (Kampf der Götter), announced that they got 98% of the original German dub cast back, Morgenstern included. You can imagine how happy German fans are with Universum Anime, and how angry they are with Kaze! For what it's worth, here are two behind-the-scenes interviews with Morgenstern. Here and here.

And yes, the FUNimation singles were indeed released in Region 2 (European) format. It'd likely be quite the long--and expensive--battle to track them down since they're all out of print (and a batch of episodes from the Namek arc have never been released in uncut, bilingual, 4:3 format outside of the Dragon Boxes), but everything from Japanese episode 68 and onward were indeed released in Europe as uncut, 4:3, bilingual singles. The episodes prior to that were released as singles in 4:3 singles well, but only with the edited Ocean dub.

[DragonDuck]

German fans are definitely very fond of their original cast, and Morgenstern in particular. As I briefly mentioned earlier, the German dub of Kai, handled by a company called Kaze, was not able to afford 98% of the original cast, and they looked even worse than they normally might because literally a week or two before they made that announcement, another company called Universum Anime, which did the German dub for Battle of Gods (Kampf der Götter), announced that they got 98% of the original German dub cast back, Morgenstern included. You can imagine how happy German fans are with Universum Anime, and how angry they are with Kaze! For what it's worth, here are two behind-the-scenes interviews with Morgenstern. Here and here.

And yes, the FUNimation singles were indeed released in Region 2 (European) format. It'd likely be quite the long--and expensive--battle to track them down since they're all out of print (and a batch of episodes from the Namek arc have never been released in uncut, bilingual, 4:3 format outside of the Dragon Boxes), but everything from Japanese episode 68 and onward were indeed released in Europe as uncut, 4:3, bilingual singles. The episodes prior to that were released as singles in 4:3 singles well, but only with the edited Ocean dub.

Ah, thank you for the info! Just out of curiousity, was the German dub of Kai good, even with the changed cast? Also, I read somewhere that the uncut Funi singles were hybrid Region 1, 2 and 4 releases, meaning that even an import from the US would work on a European DVD player. Is that true?

[thomas1up]

German fans are definitely very fond of their original cast, and Morgenstern in particular. As I briefly mentioned earlier, the German dub of Kai, handled by a company called Kaze, was not able to afford 98% of the original cast, and they looked even worse than they normally might because literally a week or two before they made that announcement, another company called Universum Anime, which did the German dub for Battle of Gods (Kampf der Götter), announced that they got 98% of the original German dub cast back, Morgenstern included. You can imagine how happy German fans are with Universum Anime, and how angry they are with Kaze! For what it's worth, here are two behind-the-scenes interviews with Morgenstern. Here and here.

And yes, the FUNimation singles were indeed released in Region 2 (European) format. It'd likely be quite the long--and expensive--battle to track them down since they're all out of print (and a batch of episodes from the Namek arc have never been released in uncut, bilingual, 4:3 format outside of the Dragon Boxes), but everything from Japanese episode 68 and onward were indeed released in Europe as uncut, 4:3, bilingual singles. The episodes prior to that were released as singles in 4:3 singles well, but only with the edited Ocean dub.

Ah, thank you for the info! Just out of curiousity, was the German dub of Kai good, even with the changed cast? Also, I read somewhere that the uncut Funi singles were hybrid Region 1, 2 and 4 releases, meaning that even an import from the US would work on a European DVD player. Is that true?

Yes it does work as I live in the UK and own one of the singles ('Freeza - Death of a Prince' to be precise) and it works on my DVD Player just fine.

[TheBlackPaladin]

German fans are definitely very fond of their original cast, and Morgenstern in particular. As I briefly mentioned earlier, the German dub of Kai, handled by a company called Kaze, was not able to afford 98% of the original cast, and they looked even worse than they normally might because literally a week or two before they made that announcement, another company called Universum Anime, which did the German dub for Battle of Gods (Kampf der Götter), announced that they got 98% of the original German dub cast back, Morgenstern included. You can imagine how happy German fans are with Universum Anime, and how angry they are with Kaze! For what it's worth, here are two behind-the-scenes interviews with Morgenstern. Here and here.

And yes, the FUNimation singles were indeed released in Region 2 (European) format. It'd likely be quite the long--and expensive--battle to track them down since they're all out of print (and a batch of episodes from the Namek arc have never been released in uncut, bilingual, 4:3 format outside of the Dragon Boxes), but everything from Japanese episode 68 and onward were indeed released in Europe as uncut, 4:3, bilingual singles. The episodes prior to that were released as singles in 4:3 singles well, but only with the edited Ocean dub.

Ah, thank you for the info! Just out of curiousity, was the German dub of Kai good, even with the changed cast?

I'm afraid I'm not too sure, because I haven't seen that much of it. Here are the only facts I know about it:

-It's uncut. Which would technically be an upgrade from the German DBZ dub.

-It's based on the original Japanese version, as opposed to the German DBZ dub, which is based on the French DBZ dub. That's a good thing as well. Whereas the DBZ dub used the French dub scripts as their basis but changed a lot of it according to the German manga translations, this time around, the guy doing the translations is the exact same guy who wrote the German translation of the manga. So the dubbing script is likely a step up from the DBZ dub in terms of faithfulness to the original Japanese dialogue.

-Unlike the DBZ dub, this dub has gone straight to home video.

-Unlike the DBZ dub, which cast real kids to play the kid roles, Gohan is played by an adult female actress this time around.

-The only voice actors to return were the voice actors for Roshi and the narrator.

-Apparently, every single member of the original cast was contacted, and negotiations were attempted, but to no avail. DBZ was quite kind to the voice acting careers of the original cast, as they're all now very popular, in-demand voice actors who now command above-average dubbing rates in the German dubbing industry. Taking into account both their rates and the time commitments needed for dubbing, bringing the original cast back for a 90-minute movie is more doable than bringing them back for a TV series consisting of over 100 episodes.

-The voice actor for Goku, while not Tommy Morgenstern, is an interesting choice. Like I said earlier, the German DBZ dub cast actual kids to play the kid parts. With that in mind, the guy who plays Goku in the German dub of Kai, Amadeus Strobl, technically played Goku before...when Strobl was a kid, he played kid Goku in the German dub of GT. So, I don't know if his acting is any good, but given Strobl's history with the role, that's kinda neat.

-Here's the cast announcement video and a trailer. Like I said, I don't speak enough German to know if the acting is good or not, but check out those like-to-dislike ratios. Yikes. Fans aren't happy.

[Timo]

The German Kai dub is a disaster. Trust me, it's not the fact that most of the old VAs didn't return, but the new ones aren't very good in their roles either, the script is REALLY bad (with errors in terms of the context, grammar, things the characters won't say, style and often it doesn't fit the mouthflaps and so on ...) and even the mixing isn't good. Actually, I'm not in the mood to post some stuff about the dub in the thread, sorry. Maybe later.

That said, the "old" German DBZ dub is a disaster in it's own right. I did make a big thread about it back in the day. Long story short: If you grew up with it and you had never the interest "to go deeper" in the franchise (in other words: to check out the Japanese original) you'll be fine with it, I think. I knew DBZ before the German dub came along and nowadays I'm into the dubbing business myself, and I can't stand it at all (I used to say "I hate it", but "hate" is such a strong word).

Of course, it has it's strong points. The dubbed songs were awesome (well most of them) and some of the actors were pretty good. And even the actors which were miscast back in the day (in my opinion), are pretty big in business today. Like Tommy Morgenstern (which is a stage name, by the way) who is now the "standard voice" for Chris Hemsworth (yes ... Thor, the guy with a motherf'in deep voice, is Goku ...) Benedict Cumberbtach (at least in "Sherlock" and some other movies, but not all of them) and Ben McKenzie (you know, Gordon in this Gotham TV-series).

[DragonDuck]

Thank you for the info, guys! You were extremely helpful!
So, my plan is to get the Funi singles from the "Freeza" sets onward (I don't count the "Ginyu" sets as uncut because of the subtitle censorship), and then perhaps the German DVD's for the first odd-70 episodes of the series.

Thanks again