Dragon Ball GT DVD singles vs The Complete Series?

[Bridgeman]

So, I've set myself upon the arduous journey of collecting the original DBZ DVD singles. Now I wanna include GT, because as many gripes as I have with it, I did watch it as a kid and it is part of the series.

I have two options here, the original DVD singles released by Madman (Pioneer in the US I think, maybe), or "The Complete Series" which is pretty much one DVD case with several discs in it, it's got a green cover, so I'm assuming it's a condensed version of the green bricks. What are the differences between the two? Did the green bricks have the awful 16:9 cropping and colorization like the orange bricks?

One thing to keep in mind is I grew up with the Blue Water dub, which was never released on home media (as far as I know), but it did use the japanese music, so the green bricks are probably the closest to that, cuz I think it has an audio track with english voices + japanese music. The DVD singles on the other hand probably only have one audio track, with the icky Linkin Park esque BGMs.

Anyone who can help me out with this?

[SuperSaiyaManZ94]

The Green Bricks (and the "Blue Brick" season sets of OG Dragon Ball for that matter) were not put through nearly the same heavy handed digital noise reduction as DBZ nor being cropped to fake widescreen with the Orange Bricks so they're both in 4:3. There was some blurring though, so it has an out of focus look at times but not nearly like the early Z season sets.

If you want the best presentation (outside the Dragon Box) of the Japanese version, the singles or box sets of them are definitely the way to go because they have the full JPN openings/closings, opening and end credits, title cards and even the next episode previews which the seasons/complete series lacks. OTOH you don't get the dub with original score track there but still it's good even then. So no, the singles are not dub only like you seem to think.

[MasenkoHA]

From what I recall the green bricks suffered the least as far as series sets goes for the original Dragon Ball anime trilogy. No 16:9 cropping, it is in the 4:3 aspect ratio.


Assuming you’re watching the English dub I would get the complete series for the Tokunaga score. Especially since it sounds like you, rightfully, hate the Menza score. But if you’re only getting the series for the Japanese dub I don’t think it matters.

ETA: Based on SuperSaiyamanZ ‘s post it sounds like the singles are the route to go if you plan on watching the series in Japanese

Also just to be nitpicky (sorry) Funimation distributed GT themselves in the US. Pioneer only distributed the original English dub of the 3 Z movies and the original English dub of Z season 1 and 2

[Bridgeman]

I do plan on watching the english dub, but with the original japanese music. However, it sounds like with the complete series I'll miss out on the next episode previews, which the singles do have apparently. But I guess that's worth it if I don't have to suffer the american made soundtrack.

Does The Complete Series not have a japanese dub track btw?

[SuperSaiyaManZ94]

I do plan on watching the english dub, but with the original japanese music. However, it sounds like with the complete series I'll miss out on the next episode previews, which the singles do have apparently. But I guess that's worth it if I don't have to suffer the american made soundtrack.

Does The Complete Series not have a japanese dub track btw?

It does have the Japanese audio as expected, though even with that it still has the English GT logo over the original and dub title cards regardless of whichever one you watch since FUNi had done away with alternate angles/branching video tracks by that point. I think it's kind of a shame especially if watching with the JPN track but you're mileage may vary on that.

[Bridgeman]

I've read some comments that say the Madman singles of DBGT may be better image quality than the Funimation ones released in the US. I wonder what else is different. Are there more details known about this? I'd like to know exactly what video / audio tracks they have. I might just buy a few to find out.

[SuperSaiyaManZ94]

Unless i'm mistaken, aside from the image quality differences the Madman singles are largely the same in terms of audio and the video tracks as FUNi's.

[LostTimeLord]

I would expect the Madman versions to be worse than Funi's if they're from the same source, as until the late '00s they often used interlaced standards conversions. Assuming Manga used Madmans "Remastered" GT sets, they're progressive-scan with PAL speedup and dodgey pitch correction (https://www.myreviewer.com/DVD/161103/D ... ndar-Canth).

[Bridgeman]

Bought a few of them, the GT singles are pretty cheap in my area. Guess I'll see how good / bad they are when they arrive.

[SuperSaiyaManZ94]

Bought a few of them, the GT singles are pretty cheap in my area. Guess I'll see how good / bad they are when they arrive.

They are effectively sourced from the intermediate masters that Toei and Pony Canyon eventually transferred for the GT Dragon Box but prior to the cleanup process. If you compare the two the colors and overall detail are the same though FUNi's has more compression and artifacting given their encoding of the time was not so good.

As i said above, they are the best release as far as watching the Japanese version goes.

[UpFromTheSkies]

I have "copies" of every official release from every region and to my eyes the Japanese Dragon Box release is the best, followed by the US Dragon Box...as for the two you've mentioned, I like the singles better