Post
by Robo4900 » Sat Jan 21, 2017 2:04 pm
The Dragon Ball manga is not available uncensored in English. It just isn't. As far as I know, the least censored are the original comic releases(American-style comic books, each containing 2 or 3 chapters), with the Full Colour volumes being a close second.
Here's a quick rundown of the English releases, as I know them. Someone will probably come along and correct me on several points, but this should give you a good idea of what you're getting into...
American-style comics - The least censored*, but aren't complete, and are really expensive.
Individual volumes - Depending on the specific printing, these are often fairly light on censorship, but several volumes -- particularly towards the end -- have it unavoidably. It's usually not too bad, though.
VizBigs - Somewhere in the middle, in terms of censorship. Not the worst, but not the best. It's generally never intrusive when it is present, though. The only English release to contain colour pages.
3-in-1s - Less censored than the VizBigs, but more censored than the comics and the early printings of the volumes. Also, the paper quality is terrible.
Full colour - Currently only covers the Saiyan and Freeza arcs, but the only visual censorship is racially insensitive characters like Popo and Commander Black having their lips shrunk. The dialogue is censored, though.
*Allegedly, they began censoring things at some point during the run. At the very least, the first printings of the first several DB and Z comics were -- both in visuals, and in dialogue -- uncensored.
Of all of these, the volumes and full colours are the most widely available, with both being available digitally, although the Full Colours seem to be more widely available in print form. The cheapest overall is the VizBigs, and they're the release I recommend until the Full Colours cover the whole series. The 3-in-1s are completely pointless, and the comics are only good for collectors at this point.
As for the Z anime releases, just go for Kai. It's uncensored, and the original 98-episode run is uncropped(Final Chapters isn't, but 98 out of 167 episodes uncropped isn't too bad. Better than Funimation, at least). It's only not good if you're really attached to Faulconer's music in the dub, or all the filler from Z.
If you really want original Z, you have the singles, which only cover episodes 68 onwards uncut, the Dragon Boxes, which aren't really an option due to pricing(They're out of print, and were super-limited), the season DVDs and Blu-Rays are disastrous(Cropped, crushed colours, blurry image, and the Blu-Rays only qualify as HD in the loosest possible definition), and then there's the Level Blu-Rays, which only cover the first 34 episodes, but were basically perfect otherwise.
My suggestion if it has to be OG Z is to get the DVD singles, and fill in the 67-episode gap with the Season Blu-Rays. They aren't good, but they're serviceable. If Blu-Rays aren't an option, the season DVDs are... Tolerable. I guess. But just barely.
If cropping is your main issue, but you're okay with Kai otherwise, get Kai, but instead of Final Chapters, get the DVD singles or Dragon Boxes for the Boo arc.
The point of Dragon Ball is to enjoy it. Never lose sight of that.
