Funimation's 30th anniversary collectible home video release

[TheGreatness25]

Like for example, saying that it's "packed full of everything [we] could wish for... and more!" -- what's that mean? It doesn't have a single new special feature. This set comes with the series (kind of expected) and features from the previous Blu-ray release (not expected because that's way below standard). So what is in this set that is "everything I could've wished for?" Definitely couldn't have wished for that packaging.

I forgot that it comes with a giant Goku figure and an art book. Wait a minute... I might stand corrected. Appantly those two items -- which have been untouched since the day I stuffed them into their respective places -- are more than I could've wished for.

You know who this set is for? Someone who never bought any other DB release and liked the series enough to spend money on it, but didn't like it enough to care about how it looks (like every other one of their releases except the Dragon Box).

Saddest part is that I wanted to give it a shot and like it. And I think it looks good, but not correctly. If I didn't know everything I know about it, I'd say it looks fine. But because I know about this thing, I'm of the mindset of if you're going to do it, why can't you just do it right?

[ArmenianPepsi]

"An iconic set worthy of a legendary series! Packed full of everything you could wish for… and more."



I have to give them this: they really stick with their position and power through despite anyone with access to the internet vetting able to see a sea of complaints that severely outweigh the positives. Why not just stick to the selling points? "Here's your chance to own the series in its intended 4:3 aspect ratio for the first time -- and possibly the last time -- on Blu-ray!" No need to overhype it as the greatest thing since Akira Toriyama sat down to draw this thing.

Yeah you're right, but what what product ever 100% truthfully marketed itself? There is always some sort of lie in there.

Well, yeah, but lies in most marketing campaigns are often small & can be overlooked. FUNi's marketing campaigns have so many lies, including contradictory ones from their earlier campaigns, when it comes to DBZ that it's genuinely frustrating. I've never seen a company continually cynically mismanage home video releases of 1 TV show before. DBZ should've been faithfully remastered back in 2011/12 in its entirety like they were planning & those should be the masters continually put into new reprints, not slightly better rereleases. 6 mainline releases in 20 years & only 1 is of any actual quality. It's sad.

I can't belleve that such a legendary series like DBZ is being thrown by the wayside like this. When other top-tier anime can get a proper respectful HD release, DBZ just gets the shaft, and all fans can do is just watch the massacre in the editing room. The only other franchise I can think of off the top of my head that has such a troubled home media history is Star Wars.

[SuperSaiyaManZ94]

Yeah you're right, but what what product ever 100% truthfully marketed itself? There is always some sort of lie in there.

Well, yeah, but lies in most marketing campaigns are often small & can be overlooked. FUNi's marketing campaigns have so many lies, including contradictory ones from their earlier campaigns, when it comes to DBZ that it's genuinely frustrating. I've never seen a company continually cynically mismanage home video releases of 1 TV show before. DBZ should've been faithfully remastered back in 2011/12 in its entirety like they were planning & those should be the masters continually put into new reprints, not slightly better rereleases. 6 mainline releases in 20 years & only 1 is of any actual quality. It's sad.

I can't belleve that such a legendary series like DBZ is being thrown by the wayside like this. When other top-tier anime can get a proper respectful HD release, DBZ just gets the shaft, and all fans can do is just watch the massacre in the editing room. The only other franchise I can think of off the top of my head that has such a troubled home media history is Star Wars.

That's the most unfortunate thing about all of this, and the Dragon Boxes to me are similar to the 2006 Limited Edition sets of the original Star Wars trilogy with the unaltered versions of each film on the bonus discs (sourced from the THX masters released in 1993 and 1995's Laserdisc sets) as in that release which is good enough for me personally with the lack of something better although i do wish a higher quality version was available. Sadly, however i am not holding my breath that FUNi's home video people are going to come to their senses and put out a release of DBZ that does it justice and isn't cropped down to a fake widescreen aspect ratio or DNR'ed to oblivion. This 30th anniversary BD set is yet another example for the pile, it's just such a shame things turned for the worse back in 2007 and they've only continued on with this frankly appalling treatment of the series.

[Scsigs]

I can't belleve that such a legendary series like DBZ is being thrown by the wayside like this. When other top-tier anime can get a proper respectful HD release, DBZ just gets the shaft, and all fans can do is just watch the massacre in the editing room. The only other franchise I can think of off the top of my head that has such a troubled home media history is Star Wars.

When it comes to the original theatrical cuts of the original Star Wars trilogy, those still exist, or can be re-put together by Lucasfilm & Disney when such a time comes that we finally have people who, after George Lucas dies & Kathleen Kennedy stops being CEO of the company, will put a project like that together. They have all of the original film stock from the shoots in a vault somewhere. If Paramount has. all of the original film stock of Star Trek TOS, TNG, DS9, & Voyager sitting in cold storage somewhere in California, Lucasfilm has access to the original film elements of the original Star Wars trilogy. So, even if George Lucas' claim of not having an original film print of the OT is true, they can still put it back together with the original film elements.
Dragon Ball, they still have master film to. Even FUNi's 3rd gen duplicate prints they got from Toei over a decade ago would suffice, as they have very good color accuracy. They'd just need to keep a good leash on whoever sets the black levels, as the Levels had a little too much blacks put into them so finer details were lost with black objects or hair on black backgrounds. Toei's original 1st gen prints would be even better & we know they have access tot hem & they look pretty good considering they broke them out for Kai's remastering & recutting, even though that was largely rotoscoped to color correct closer to t the manga's colors & censor things like nudity & flipping of the bird, though I'm certain TFC didn't require tracing, just grain removal & color correction. However, even farming the work out to a smaller company that specializes in remasters of film stock would be substantial & expensive for a 291 episode TV show. Not impossible, but could be out of Toei's price range. Though we don't know if they still have the film scans from when they gave Q-Tec & their own team the files for which to remaster & recut the show into Kai. I would wager they do, since, why let those go to waste, but, would they break them out for a proper remastering? Hard to say. This is why when FUNi's 30th anniversary set was rumored, then announced, over a year ago, people were speculating that FUNi & Toei might be splitting the bill to get the series properly remastered through Toei's film stock. However, in retrospect, that was intensely wishful thinking, considering that, if Toei didn't announce they were remastering the series for Japan first, there was no chance of it. Shit sucks. All we want is a clean remaster for the future preservation of the series. That's not too much to ask. And, now that the broadcast audio for DB & DBZ are available for them to use, there's no better time to do it.

That's the most unfortunate thing about all of this, and the Dragon Boxes to me are similar to the 2006 Limited Edition sets of the original Star Wars trilogy with the unaltered versions of each film on the bonus discs (sourced from the THX masters released in 1993 and 1995's Laserdisc sets) as in that release which is good enough for me personally with the lack of something better although i do wish a higher quality version was available. Sadly, however i am not holding my breath that FUNi's home video people are going to come to their senses and put out a release of DBZ that does it justice and isn't cropped down to a fake widescreen aspect ratio or DNR'ed to oblivion. This 30th anniversary BD set is yet another example for the pile, it's just such a shame things turned for the worse back in 2007 and they've only continued on with this frankly appalling treatment of the series.

The only hope is Toei, but, fat chance unless they get backing from somewhere to cover a lot of the costs to do it.

[ArmenianPepsi]

Well, yeah, but lies in most marketing campaigns are often small & can be overlooked. FUNi's marketing campaigns have so many lies, including contradictory ones from their earlier campaigns, when it comes to DBZ that it's genuinely frustrating. I've never seen a company continually cynically mismanage home video releases of 1 TV show before. DBZ should've been faithfully remastered back in 2011/12 in its entirety like they were planning & those should be the masters continually put into new reprints, not slightly better rereleases. 6 mainline releases in 20 years & only 1 is of any actual quality. It's sad.

I can't belleve that such a legendary series like DBZ is being thrown by the wayside like this. When other top-tier anime can get a proper respectful HD release, DBZ just gets the shaft, and all fans can do is just watch the massacre in the editing room. The only other franchise I can think of off the top of my head that has such a troubled home media history is Star Wars.

That's the most unfortunate thing about all of this, and the Dragon Boxes to me are similar to the 2006 Limited Edition sets of the original Star Wars trilogy with the unaltered versions of each film on the bonus discs (sourced from the THX masters released in 1993 and 1995's Laserdisc sets) as in that release which is good enough for me personally with the lack of something better although i do wish a higher quality version was available. Sadly, however i am not holding my breath that FUNi's home video people are going to come to their senses and put out a release of DBZ that does it justice and isn't cropped down to a fake widescreen aspect ratio or DNR'ed to oblivion. This 30th anniversary BD set is yet another example for the pile, it's just such a shame things turned for the worse back in 2007 and they've only continued on with this frankly appalling treatment of the series.

Hit the nail right on the head. Tbh reading through all the pages and responses to this thread when just lurking is what inspired me to make an account here. Such genuine passion and caring for a beloved franchise bleeding all the way through. Loved looking at all the comparisons people made when the sets finally got into people's hands

[KPike87]

Not gonna lie, I'm a bit worried now that physical media is dying in the states. While we could still get an excellent remaster of the show, it could be at a point where it's too late to be financially viable to release it on Blu Ray; they'd probably just dump it on their streaming service, whether it be Toei or Funi that does it. I just really want to own the series in a great fashion before Blu Ray kicks the bucket. There is 4K Blu Ray, but I don't see them doing all 291 episodes, that would be too much work compared to a 1080p Blu Ray.

[Danfun64]

Physical media is probably going to be the Laserdisc to streaming video's VHS. For the average viewer streaming is good enough, but the niche for physical media won't die out until you can get 100GB flash drives super cheap and the slowest internet speed available Nationwide, if not globally, is 50 Mbps... assuming no data limit for a while.

[Scsigs]

Not gonna lie, I'm a bit worried now that physical media is dying in the states. While we could still get an excellent remaster of the show, it could be at a point where it's too late to be financially viable to release it on Blu Ray; they'd probably just dump it on their streaming service, whether it be Toei or Funi that does it. I just really want to own the series in a great fashion before Blu Ray kicks the bucket. There is 4K Blu Ray, but I don't see them doing all 291 episodes, that would be too much work compared to a 1080p Blu Ray.

That also depends on how well a 16mm film stock (and, yes, some episodes were shot on 32mm, but not a lot of them) would fair in 4K. While it's certainly possible, they just might stick with 1080p since cartoons produced for TV before the HD days aren't gonna look that much better in 4K. I'm fine with 1080p, honestly, at the end of the day, I just want less oversaturated colors & DVNR next. Honestly, they put in WAY more work into the new remasters than they need to anyways & they way underestimate what people can reasonably take for a remaster of something. Honestly, DBZ is still a niche show, even though it's one of the most popular anime shows of all time. They should be judging it by niche standards rather than mainstream standards. They've already made back a LOT on their original investment by now, so they really should just give us what we actually want instead of what they think we want. If not, then there's no point in any future releases, especially since everyone who wants DBZ & doesn't give one single flying fuck about the video quality or aspect ratio already has a release they're fine with. It's time for the BR equivalent of the Dragon Boxes, just with better masters not from 2003 with terrible colors.

[Matches Malone]

Not gonna lie, I'm a bit worried now that physical media is dying in the states.

I've been hearing this for almost 10 years, and I'm still waiting for DVDs to die, much less Blu-Ray and 4K.

[SuperSaiyaManZ94]

Not gonna lie, I'm a bit worried now that physical media is dying in the states.

I've been hearing this for almost 10 years, and I'm still waiting for DVDs to die, much less Blu-Ray and 4K.

I don't think we're going to see DVD go in quite the same way that VHS and Laserdisc did in the early 2000's once it really took off, because even after the HD formats came around it's still kicking despite being over 20+ years old. Somehow, the format is still proving to be a decent seller for a lot of people as not everyone has transferred to Blu-Ray and 4K and selling moreso than the latter two.

[Matches Malone]

I don't think we're going to see DVD go in quite the same way that VHS and Laserdisc did in the early 2000's once it really took off, because even after the HD formats came around it's still kicking despite being over 20+ years old.

I think what's helped DVD stay around for so long is how cheap it is to produce and how convenient it is to use.

[SuperSaiyaManZ94]

I don't think we're going to see DVD go in quite the same way that VHS and Laserdisc did in the early 2000's once it really took off, because even after the HD formats came around it's still kicking despite being over 20+ years old.

I think what's helped DVD stay around for so long is how cheap it is to produce and how convenient it is to use.

Yeah that's true, although it did take DVD a while to catch on in the beginning after it's introduction in 1997 back when VHS was still the primary dominant format most people used around the time though once things really started rolling it's managed to hold it's own especially in the above mentioned ways there.

[Dragon Ball Ireland]

Not gonna lie, I'm a bit worried now that physical media is dying in the states.

I've been hearing this for almost 10 years, and I'm still waiting for DVDs to die, much less Blu-Ray and 4K.

I used to be in the "physical media is dying" camp too. Now, I'm kind of in the same boat that I've heard it being speculated for so long I have my doubts. So many distributors, including Manga UK even in 2020 have so many new titles announced it's hard to keep track. I hope at the very least we won't end up in a situation like Japan where Blu-Rays are so niche that you have to pay over $100 for a single volume of a new Dragon Ball series for the distributors to turn a profit.

[KBABZ]

Not gonna lie, I'm a bit worried now that physical media is dying in the states.

I've been hearing this for almost 10 years, and I'm still waiting for DVDs to die, much less Blu-Ray and 4K.

I used to be in the "physical media is dying" camp too. Now, I'm kind of in the same boat that I've heard it being speculated for so long I have my doubts. So many distributors, including Manga UK even in 2020 have so many new titles announced it's hard to keep track. I hope at the very least we won't end up in a situation like Japan where Blu-Rays are so niche that you have to pay over $100 for a single volume of a new Dragon Ball series for the distributors to turn a profit.

To me physical media will always be around in some fashion, in particular because there's still a huge chunk of the world who find it more convenient to copy a game off the disc in 45 minutes than it is to download a 120GB game over the course of five or six hours. Disc drives are dead on PC, but I see consoles sticking with them for another decade.

[Matches Malone]

I hope at the very least we won't end up in a situation like Japan where Blu-Rays are so niche that you have to pay over $100 for a single volume of a new Dragon Ball series for the distributors to turn a profit.

I think that's more due to a different mindset in Japan in regards to physical media rather than it going away, as that's been the case for the longest time now, even before talks about it going away started.

[Planetnamek]

I've been hearing this for almost 10 years, and I'm still waiting for DVDs to die, much less Blu-Ray and 4K.

I used to be in the "physical media is dying" camp too. Now, I'm kind of in the same boat that I've heard it being speculated for so long I have my doubts. So many distributors, including Manga UK even in 2020 have so many new titles announced it's hard to keep track. I hope at the very least we won't end up in a situation like Japan where Blu-Rays are so niche that you have to pay over $100 for a single volume of a new Dragon Ball series for the distributors to turn a profit.

To me physical media will always be around in some fashion, in particular because there's still a huge chunk of the world who find it more convenient to copy a game off the disc in 45 minutes than it is to download a 120GB game over the course of five or six hours. Disc drives are dead on PC, but I see consoles sticking with them for another decade.

Yeah i'm one of those people that prefers buying physical copies of games because it downloads faster then a digital one, plus if a game turns out to be bad, I can return it to Gamestop for a full refund, good luck doing that with a digital copy(even Steam has that bullshit two-hour time limit). Being able to trade in older games towards newer ones for store credit is also pretty cool.

It is a real shame that DBZ continues to get mistreated for home video releases though. The only well-known property more abused and mistreated in terms of video releases at this point would be Looney Tunes, as there's still a good chunk of those shorts that have never gotten a physical release of any kind(or some that only got one overseas, or only ever got released on VHS/Laserdisc) or haven't been properly remastered, or got fucked up with DNR and fake-widescreen, or had audio problems, etc. Almost every problem you could think of has befallen Looney Tunes at some point(like with DBZ there's a cost issue as to why so many still haven't been released/remastered, apparently it's something like $12,000 to remaster just one cartoon and there's something like over 100 still left to do and WB likely feels sales aren't good enough to justify that kind of cost, so a bunch of the recent DVD releases are of shorts that have already been previously released)

[SpiritBombTriumphant]

And I think it looks good, but not correctly. If I didn't know everything I know about it, I'd say it looks fine. But because I know about this thing, I'm of the mindset of if you're going to do it, why can't you just do it right?

Exactly my feelings on the 30th Ann. release. I don't think it's good in any way, any shape, nor any form, but it's automated. It was done as cheaply as possible with the intention that making it slightly better in a future release would again get people to pay for the same show. However, I don't actually mind all of the atrocities committed to the video for the 30th Ann. It's 4:3, it's HD, and it's without the green tint Toei is known for. I also think Funimation's DNR massacre is better than Toei's--at least what Toei did to Boo Kai--as I don't want to stab my eyes out looking at it. I know I'm in the minority, and I wish we could get the level sets continued and completed, but I doubt it will happen. Since every bit of the remaster Funimation does is automated, it's practically free to do sans the manufacturing of discs and packing, shipping, etc.

It would've been a viable alternative (for me at least) if Toei had done Kai properly and not create a new score and finish the Boo arc with QTEC's remastering as opposed to their bullshit in-house remastering that ruined the video worse than Funimation does.

[ArmenianPepsi]

And I think it looks good, but not correctly. If I didn't know everything I know about it, I'd say it looks fine. But because I know about this thing, I'm of the mindset of if you're going to do it, why can't you just do it right?

Exactly my feelings on the 30th Ann. release. I don't think it's good in any way, any shape, nor any form, but it's automated. It was done as cheaply as possible with the intention that making it slightly better in a future release would again get people to pay for the same show. However, I don't actually mind all of the atrocities committed to the video for the 30th Ann. It's 4:3, it's HD, and it's without the green tint Toei is known for. I also think Funimation's DNR massacre is better than Toei's--at least what Toei did to Boo Kai--as I don't want to stab my eyes out looking at it. I know I'm in the minority, and I wish we could get the level sets continued and completed, but I doubt it will happen. Since every bit of the remaster Funimation does is automated, it's practically free to do sans the manufacturing of discs and packing, shipping, etc.

It would've been a viable alternative (for me at least) if Toei had done Kai properly and not create a new score and finish the Boo arc with QTEC's remastering as opposed to their bullshit in-house remastering that ruined the video worse than Funimation does.

So tragic that the Level Sets were doomed to fail just because of it's terrible release time. Simple market oversaturation at it's finest. Not even a year after the final Dragon Boxes came to North America, which left most fans who had them satisfied, and when Kai was still the hottest newest thing that got all the attention and was also getting their first home releases. On top of that you still had the Orange Bricks still easily available for your Average Joe.

[10gigtriforce]

I can't belleve that such a legendary series like DBZ is being thrown by the wayside like this. When other top-tier anime can get a proper respectful HD release, DBZ just gets the shaft, and all fans can do is just watch the massacre in the editing room. The only other franchise I can think of off the top of my head that has such a troubled home media history is Star Wars.

its probably because its so 'legendary' that they can do this.Late stage weebs are the most consoomer fan base there is. if they like it they'll buy buy buy. "quality be damned i need my merch!"- late stage weeb consoomers

and with dbz having so many of those fans its easy for them to put out trash. whereas more niche stuff was to work to make money from its smaller fans and potential new ones

[Metalwario64]

I don't think we're going to see DVD go in quite the same way that VHS and Laserdisc did in the early 2000's once it really took off, because even after the HD formats came around it's still kicking despite being over 20+ years old.

I think what's helped DVD stay around for so long is how cheap it is to produce and how convenient it is to use.

I like DVDs because they're super easy to play on my PC.

I know the resolution's much lower than Blu-ray, but I just don't care. I like the convenience of being able to just watch the discs in whatever player at whoever's house.

In a slightly less, but still related note, it makes me very annoyed that Rightstuf silently discontinued most of their Gundam DVDs, so they're effectively Blu-ray only now...