Why Funimation's modern releases of OG DB, DBZ, and DBGT always cut out NEPs?

[TechExpert2021]

If I were to get a Dragon Ball home video release, I would get one that has NEPs for each episode. But I don't understand why Funimation's modern releases of OG DB, DBZ, and DBGT always cut out the NEPs. Heck, even the DBZ Levels Blu-rays don't have NEPs.

Is there an official explanation for why they're always cut out in these releases?

[VegettoEX]

FUNimation's masters of DBZ either didn't come with all NEPs at all, or didn't come with audio for them. This is why you had certain home video releases, like the individual DVDs, that had a single NEP at the end... but only in English. Steve Simmons explained it to me a while back, but I'm blanking on the extreme-specifics there.

Part of the reason for this is that there were different sets of NEPs even within the same episode. For the original broadcast, sometimes it would be a half-length, because the other half of the allotted NEP space was given to promoting a new theatrical film. Lots of fansubs have these, because they're from the original broadcast. Full NEPs were still made, and assigned to later rebroadcasts.

You could then ask "well why don't they just take the Dragon Box audio and assign it to other master / home video versions?" but then you get into weird specifics within contracts that we just don't know about and can only theorize on.

[MasenkoHA]

Original Dragon Ball's NA release never had the NEP. They weren't part of the Cartoon Network broadcast or the Saga sets either. Funimation either never got them or they only had an audio less version and since they were leaving the music alone it probably would have been awkward to have Armstrong or Nadolny do a "Next Time on Dragon Ball' with no music playing (and for the Japanese audio to just be awkward silence while footage for the next episode plays)

Dragon Ball Z did include NEP on all the tv broadcast until the UUE dub. I believe they did get audio less versions of the NEP but since they were using their own score that really didn't matter as far as their dub was concerned. The Orange Bricks probably left them out because the dvds were supposed to be 1:1 with the Japanese version and also now that the dub used the Kikuchi score as a default it would just be dialog over no music. The Dragon Boxes used the Japanese NEP, regardless of audio options because that's how Funimation got them and they just swapped out the Japanese audio for the English audio for the actual episode.

GT is the weird one because they had the NEP for both the Japanese and English audio on the original DVD release. I think fans chalked it up to consistency with the Orange Bricks

[Dragon Ball Ireland]

GT is the weird one because they had the NEP for both the Japanese and English audio on the original DVD release. I think fans chalked it up to consistency with the Orange Bricks

The GT DVD singles are also unique as unlike the saga sets or Z singles they used the Dragon Box masters. As for why the green bricks lacked the NEPs.... I guess I see where your coming from about Funimation thinking they were being consistent, but the bricks as a whole are still inconsistent with original Dragon Ball being the only series with 2 audio tracks instead of 3 and Z being the only one that is cropped to 16:9. That's without even going into how much of an inconsistent mess the remastered Z dub is.