Kai Blu-Ray Release

Wasted Wisher · Post by **Wasted Wisher** » Tue Jun 16, 2009 11:51 am

Exactly how many half-hour episodes can you stick/compress/whatever on a Blu-Ray before picture quality suffers? Because only 3 episodes on one disc sounds like a total gyp.

Mystery Person X · Post by **Mystery Person X** » Tue Jun 16, 2009 12:14 pm

The price point is determined by market forces, not by how many episodes will fit on the disc. The same has always been true for DVD, which is why so many anime DVDs released in Japan only have 2 episodes on them.

Bear in mind also that (as shown by the comparison on the Daizex main page) the DVD release of Dragon Ball Kai actually costs exactly the same per episode as the Dragon Box singles. Surely that's the more important detail than how many episodes are on each disc? (Naturally, the Blu-ray release is more expensive because it's Blu-ray.)

Deep Thought · Post by **Deep Thought** » Tue Jun 16, 2009 12:52 pm

MajinVejitaXV wrote:I take it you've never imported before. It's never been cheap exactly (besides, this is an HD release, the DVD release is about in line with FUNi's pre-Season Set prices).

I went onto Amazon Japan to see if this was true or not.

EDIT: By the way, these animes are completely random, I honestly wasn't looking for the cheapest Blu-Ray DVDs, so don't rip me a new asshole or anything.

Evanlegion (Blu-Ray) ￥ 4,464

Fullmetal Alchemist Vol 1. (Blu-Ray) ￥ 3,617

Death Note Live Action (Blu-Ray) ￥ 3,992

I added all that together and converted it to U.S dollar, and that's 124$, only 4 dollars more. Keep in mind that I'm comparing this to the Amazon pre-order price, not the actual price of 173 dollars.

Post by **VegettoEX** » Tue Jun 16, 2009 12:57 pm

Mystery Person X wrote:The price point is determined by market forces, not by how many episodes will fit on the disc. The same has always been true for DVD, which is why so many anime DVDs released in Japan only have 2 episodes on them.

Bear in mind also that (as shown by the comparison on the Daizex main page) the DVD release of Dragon Ball Kai actually costs exactly the same per episode as the Dragon Box singles. Surely that's the more important detail than how many episodes are on each disc? (Naturally, the Blu-ray release is more expensive because it's Blu-ray.)

Yeah, I think a lot of people unfortunately looked over the details we provided there. Here are a couple other comparison details:

Hajime no Ippo: New Challenger is a recent show also aired in HD. Four volumes have been released/announced on standard DVD in Japan (no upcoming Blu-ray release that I'm aware of). They each are listed at 70 minutes, so let's assume that's 3 episodes per disc. Standard DVD price is...? You guessed it. ¥3990 (~$40), the same as the DB/DBZ/DBGT R2 singles with six episodes each.

How about new Blu-ray stuff, then? Let's check in on Helling Ultimate: Volume 6. It's a special edition, so that comes with a bonus CD and a booklet. How much is it going for? One episode of an OVA? Yep, it's ¥8925 (~$90).

OK, what about a standard TV series Blu-ray release? I see this Tears to Tiara listed on CDJapan with a bunch of individual releases. Episodes? Three per disc. Price? ¥8190 (~$82).

How about one that more American fans would be familiar with? OK, let's look at the new/second Fullmetal Alchemist series. First Blu-ray with 50 minutes (so, what?... two episodes?) is listed at ¥4935 (~$50).

This is why those of us actually familiar with Japanese pricing structures and media consumption history are calling "Kai" a relative "steal". In your own local country with its own properties and pricing structures, does that correlate to what you're used to? Probably not. Does it speak volumes about DB's treatment and release style? Sure does.

It's totally fine if you don't want to support it with a purchase. Seriously. It's cool. At least have some sort of context for crazy pulling-outta-the-air statements you're gonna make, though...!

Mystery Person X · Post by **Mystery Person X** » Tue Jun 16, 2009 1:00 pm

Deep Thought wrote:Evanlegion (Blu-Ray) ￥ 4,464

Fullmetal Alchemist Vol 1. (Blu-Ray) ￥ 3,617

Death Note Live Action (Blu-Ray) ￥ 3,992

Note that the first Fullmetal Alchemist Blu-ray only has 2 episodes.

So for the same price as 12 episodes of Dragon Ball Kai, you could get two movies and two episodes of an anime. In terms of pure runtime it's pretty much the same value for money. A far cry from the big pile of box sets you could get in the US for a similar price.

sangofe · Post by **sangofe** » Tue Jun 16, 2009 4:21 pm

MajinVejitaXV wrote:Interestingly enough, this might account for the blurriness of the Kai episodes. If the remastering was, in fact, done in 4:3 and then simply cropped/zoomed for broadcast, it would certainly explain the softness of the image.

And while the first boxset starting at episode 4 is dumb on some level, it kind of makes sense in the respect that you don't have to necessarily buy a huge chunk at once just to find out you hate it (buy disc one, if you like it then buy the boxes, otherwise you're only out the price of one disc). I'll give it a shot, I'm curious to see what the end product is...

-Corey

An interesting point which hasn't been brought up yet, is wheter these episodes will have any redrawn scenes at all, or any censoring? It'd make sense not to have any redrawn scenes and censoring. Thinking about that makes me kinda happy.

MajinVejitaXV · Post by **MajinVejitaXV** » Tue Jun 16, 2009 11:12 pm

JAPPO wrote:Your elitism and constant condescending tone is sickening. What do you mean by "wait and see," I've already seen what they're selling, and I don't think it's worth buying for much, especially not at the outrageous price they're asking.

See, here's the problem. Many of us had almost the same exact thing to say to you about DragonBall Evolution. We saw the Asian cut of the film, reaffirmed our dislike and unwillingness to spend money on it. You fired back with pure (later proven false) speculation that the Asian countries got a 'censored' cut of the film, and said to (paraphrasing) wait and see the North American version. Which was exactly the same. Later you used the same logic to infer that a Director's Cut DVD might happen, which again was proven wrong.

At least in this case, we know of one major change: The aspect ratio. It's not speculation, it's confirmed. And honestly, your tone makes it sound like you're holding a copy of the disc in your hand. You've seen H.264 encodes of the televised broadcasts, just like the rest of us, at best. Maybe the MPEG-2 dumps if you're downloading ~3GB per episode. It's still not necessarily representative of the masters' quality or the quality that will be on the Blu-rays.

And last but not least the price thing has already been explained. Not to mention, many movies here (meaning the United States) on Blu-ray have an MSRP of $29.95. Movies which vary from 75 minutes-120 minutes or more. So even taking the "LAWL SILLY JAPANESE" thing out of the mix, it's not a crazy price for a Blu-ray in general. Plus, as noted, the DVD versions are less than FUNimation charged when they started releasing DragonBall Z. That's without even going into the way pricing in Japan works in general.

As for replying more than once in this thread, that's because new information on the release was posted that further added to the list of negatives, so I gave my updated thoughts, which happened to still be negative. If the news had been good, I would have replied more positively. But I fail to see how any of this is your concern. If you don't value my opinion, then kindly shut the fuck up and ignore it.

Personally, I don't care if your opinion doesn't mesh with mine. It's when you contribute nothing with substance. Repeating ad nauseum "Wow, what a rip off," and variants thereof without any sort of reasoning as to why is kind of asinine. If, on the other hand you actually posted with a, "This is a rip off. Kai is just a poorly repackaged version of Z with minimal editing, poorly drawn new animation and what I honestly think is worse pacing/acting/etc" then I could respect and possibly even agree with you.

You're an asshole. I don't live in Japan or buy imported Japanese products, so I don't know what their equivalent of season box sets are. But really, is it that big of a deal? You knew what I meant, box sets that are similar in content and price to season box sets here in America. I assume they have those, and if not then I was wrong. But you don't have to be such a douche about it.

I just hate ignorance, moreover I hate people who talk out of their asses. I don't expect you or anyone else to always be right, hell I'm wrong a decent portion of the time, but the difference is admitting when you're wrong. You pulled something out of your ass as some sort of condescending counterpoint, and when people explained that such a thing didn't exist your reply wasn't, "Oh, oops. I thought they had those there since they're in other countries. Oh well, it's still not worth that price in my opinion." It was basically, "...well, I don't live in Japan. Is it that big a deal? Jeez." It's like a 12 year old's reply when proven wrong.

It's clear that you have issues with me, but please leave me alone. I'm tired of members like you jumping down my throat whenever I share my opinion, and even use Dragonball Evolution against me in a completely unrelated topic.

My problem isn't with you in general, it's with the way you approach things. The method of your posts seems to indicate that you crave attention, since you feel the need to repeat the same thing over and over without actually expounding upon why you feel that way.

So, here is your attention: Why specifically, now knowing the explanation for the pricing and all, are the Kai Blu-rays a rip-off in your opinion?

As for the Evolution bit, live with it. Much like my presence here is related to the DragonBoxes and an anti-Season Set/FUNimation mentality, yours will probably always be linked to your support of DragonBall Evolution. Besides, I was simply pointing out what I perceive as a measure of hypocrisy if you compare the two similar situations.

-Corey

YouTube · Post by **Hujio** » Wed Jun 17, 2009 12:28 am

Corey, I swear you just read my mind. I was coming here to post almost the exact same thing, so I'll just touch on a couple points. I haven't really been too vocal about it, but I'm getting tired of the posting of blatant unwarranted attacks on Kai, and other things in general. I don't care if you don't like DragonBall Kai, but just because you don't doesn't mean others have to as well. I don't have a problem with someone saying they don't like Kai in a thread, but to make the exact same statement over and over in the same thread gets old really fast. Especially when you're not bringing anything to the discussion.

It seems like "some" people just show up so they can rip on something and then don't understand why people don't agree with them. They even go so far as to call people "fucking assholes" or "elitists" and then tell them to "shut the fuck up". If you're going to state your own opinion, be prepared to hear someone else's opinion in return. Being a hypocrite is way overrated.

JAPPO wrote:No one wants Kai that fucking much. It's a bad product at an even worse price.

How do you know any of that? I mean, that's a pretty bold statement to make. I for one actually would like to buy these, but I guess I'm no one.

I also don't understand where people are coming from when they say that Kai is a flop or that no one likes it. It's one of the top ten rated animated shows in Japan right now. It outranks One Piece every once in a while and has beaten out both Bleach and Naruto: Shippuden every week since it began airing. I understand if that's your opinion, but don't generalize it with everyone else's opinions. You don't speak for everyone. State and support your opinion with facts, and leave it at that.

Other than that, just re-read Corey's post. He basically said everything else I wanted too. Though he probably said it a lot better than I would have.

Super Ghost Kamikaze · Post by **Super Ghost Kamikaze** » Wed Jun 17, 2009 1:25 am

It's nice to see a 4:3 of Kai being released, it's something I honestly did not expect. I still wouldn't replace the original series with it, as I overall prefer the original execution, but dropping what was one of my bigger issues with the series is nice.

The price is out of my range at the moment, I have a good few recent purchases not related to Dragon Ball. More than that, if I was going to spend the money on Dragon Ball I'd probably spend it rounding off my DVDs of the original execution of the series first. I'm probably going to wait for a US distribution of these....I don't care enough for Kai to spend Japan's prices plus Japan-to-US shipping.

Still, as a release, this looks great for the domestic Japanese fans.

MajinVejitaXV · Post by **MajinVejitaXV** » Wed Jun 17, 2009 1:39 am

Hujio wrote:
JAPPO wrote:No one wants Kai that fucking much. It's a bad product at an even worse price.
How do you know any of that? I mean, that's a pretty bold statement to make. I for one actually would like to buy these, but I guess I'm no one.

That's the other thing. It's pretty insulting to tell people what they do or don't want. While I'll certainly say if I'm not impressed by something (DBE, Raging Blast, etc.), I won't be so arrogant as to say that no one else wants it. Personally, I'm cautiously optimistic about these releases and see it from more of a completest angle. I'll be tossing in my pre-orders for volume 1 and box 1 next month from Amazon of Japan (if I'm terribly unimpressed with the first disc, I can always cancel the latter).

Oh, and thanks. At the risk of sounding like I was trying to initiate some gang action against JAPPO, it's always nice to have someone I respect complement a post I make.

Super Ghost Kamikaze wrote:It's nice to see a 4:3 of Kai being released, it's something I honestly did not expect. I still wouldn't replace the original series with it, as I overall prefer the original execution, but dropping what was one of my bigger issues with the series is nice.

I'm very happy that the original aspect ratio is being maintained (further killing FUNimation's false mentality that HD must equal Widescreen). On the other hand, I'm pretty sure it means we'll never see the unadulterated DragonBox footage on Blu-ray (since you'd then have two 4:3 incarnations) and that FUNi will never license the show (as I honestly think they've dug a hole where they couldn't market it to the masses). Still, we'll see.

In any case, I look forward to it. I'll certainly be sharing my thoughts when the disc hits my doorstep.

-Coey

Innagadadavida · Post by **Innagadadavida** » Wed Jun 17, 2009 2:25 am

Don't you think it's possible though that FUNimation could market Kai to the anime fans and not the masses? Y'know treat it like they do their other franchises like School Rumble or Desert Punk.

I mean, if they were to do it at all, as far as I can see, that is what makes the most sense. They could use it as a chance to redeem themselves with an accurate dub, as well as provide a more concise and filler-less version to quell at least one complaint from the haters.

I'm not saying it's likely (it's very much not), I was simply referring to the "hole" that MajinVejitaVX mentioned.

YouTube · Post by **Hujio** » Wed Jun 17, 2009 3:02 am

MajinVejitaXV wrote:Personally, I'm cautiously optimistic about these releases and see it from more of a completest angle. I'll be tossing in my pre-orders for volume 1 and box 1 next month from Amazon of Japan (if I'm terribly unimpressed with the first disc, I can always cancel the latter).

I'm totally with you! Mine is also from a completest angle, but if I really hate it, I definitely won't be picking up the whole series on Blu-ray. Though, first I need to actually get a Blu-ray player.

Kendamu · Post by **Kendamu** » Wed Jun 17, 2009 3:26 am

I'll have to wait a couple weeks to have the money for the preorder but I already have the first Blu-Ray disc and the first three boxes in my Amazon Japan cart. This is my favorite incarnation outside of the manga so I am fully supporting it. Putting it in 4:3 is a major plus, too.

JAPPO · Post by **JAPPO** » Wed Jun 17, 2009 3:55 am

First of all, thank you MajinVejitaXV for not replying with a long, snotty and sarcastic post.

MajinVejitaXV wrote:At least in this case, we know of one major change: The aspect ratio. It's not speculation, it's confirmed. And honestly, your tone makes it sound like you're holding a copy of the disc in your hand. You've seen H.264 encodes of the televised broadcasts, just like the rest of us, at best. Maybe the MPEG-2 dumps if you're downloading ~3GB per episode. It's still not necessarily representative of the masters' quality or the quality that will be on the Blu-rays.

I know I'm in the minority, but I don't mind watching FUNimation's widescreen sets (on an HDTV). So while 4:3 is nice, it isn't a major selling point to me. The quality of the image itself could be better, but again that's not a major selling point to me. If this was Dragonball Z I would be more interested in the picture.

Personally, I don't care if your opinion doesn't mesh with mine. It's when you contribute nothing with substance. Repeating ad nauseum "Wow, what a rip off," and variants thereof without any sort of reasoning as to why is kind of asinine. If, on the other hand you actually posted with a, "This is a rip off. Kai is just a poorly repackaged version of Z with minimal editing, poorly drawn new animation and what I honestly think is worse pacing/acting/etc" then I could respect and possibly even agree with you.

I agree. I should have elaborated.

I just hate ignorance, moreover I hate people who talk out of their asses. I don't expect you or anyone else to always be right, hell I'm wrong a decent portion of the time, but the difference is admitting when you're wrong. You pulled something out of your ass as some sort of condescending counterpoint, and when people explained that such a thing didn't exist your reply wasn't, "Oh, oops. I thought they had those there since they're in other countries. Oh well, it's still not worth that price in my opinion." It was basically, "...well, I don't live in Japan. Is it that big a deal? Jeez." It's like a 12 year old's reply when proven wrong.

I should have researched Japanese prices beforehand, because I was kind of shocked that DVDs (and Blu-Rays) cost that much there. But if no one cares in Japan (which everyone has made perfectly clear here), then never mind.

My problem isn't with you in general, it's with the way you approach things. The method of your posts seems to indicate that you crave attention, since you feel the need to repeat the same thing over and over without actually expounding upon why you feel that way.

So, here is your attention: Why specifically, now knowing the explanation for the pricing and all, are the Kai Blu-rays a rip-off in your opinion?

Like I said above, I agree I should have elaborated. I just felt your tone (not specific to this thread) was hateful towards me. But maybe not.

To answer your question; aside from disliking Kai, I'm personally not willing to pay that much for a few episodes of it. However, if this is actually considered a good price in Japan, then technically it's not a rip-off.

Hujio wrote:How do you know any of that? I mean, that's a pretty bold statement to make. I for one actually would like to buy these, but I guess I'm no one.

This was before I knew the pricing situation. I apologize.

I'm sorry if I missed anything that needed an answer, I just woke up. In retrospect, I shouldn't have replied more than once, seeing how this release doesn't affect me personally. No hard feelings.

Chuquita · Post by **Chuquita** » Wed Jun 17, 2009 4:11 am

The DVD cover at Kanzentai; it's so beautiful and screaming "This is what the saiyajin arc would look like completely reanimated!" at me that I feel a weird mix of delight (at new artwork) and disappointment (that there's no animation to accompany it). @_@

Why can't we get new animated specials every couple years like Lupin III does? TT_TT

I hope we get full-sized scans of the new dvd art in the future.

Vino · Post by **Vino** » Wed Jun 17, 2009 9:23 am

I was wondering, why Nappa didn't react to the tail grabbing?

Post by **Herms** » Wed Jun 17, 2009 9:28 am

Vino wrote:I was wondering, why Nappa didn't react to the tail grabbing?

He and Vegeta had already trained their tails to overcome that weakness, just like Goku did during his training for the 22nd Tenkaichi Budoukai.

Shouldn't this be in the episode 11 discussion thread?

SSJToreto · Post by **SSJToreto** » Wed Jun 17, 2009 10:58 am

Chuquita wrote:The DVD cover at Kanzentai; it's so beautiful and screaming "This is what the saiyajin arc would look like completely reanimated!" at me that I feel a weird mix of delight (at new artwork) and disappointment (that there's no animation to accompany it). @_@

Why can't we get new animated specials every couple years like Lupin III does? TT_TT

I hope we get full-sized scans of the new dvd art in the future.

Here's a high res picture: http://img413.imageshack.us/img413/3746/49761991.png

BTW already placed a pre-order on amazon

sangofe · Post by **sangofe** » Wed Jun 17, 2009 11:36 am

sangofe wrote:
MajinVejitaXV wrote:Interestingly enough, this might account for the blurriness of the Kai episodes. If the remastering was, in fact, done in 4:3 and then simply cropped/zoomed for broadcast, it would certainly explain the softness of the image.

And while the first boxset starting at episode 4 is dumb on some level, it kind of makes sense in the respect that you don't have to necessarily buy a huge chunk at once just to find out you hate it (buy disc one, if you like it then buy the boxes, otherwise you're only out the price of one disc). I'll give it a shot, I'm curious to see what the end product is...

-Corey
An interesting point which hasn't been brought up yet, is wheter these episodes will have any redrawn scenes at all, or any censoring? It'd make sense not to have any redrawn scenes and censoring. Thinking about that makes me kinda happy.

Seems like my post somehow got overlooked inbetween all the other posts? Or does nobody really have any thoughts on this?

sangofe · Post by **sangofe** » Wed Jun 17, 2009 11:41 am

SSJToreto wrote: Here's a high res picture: http://img413.imageshack.us/img413/3746/49761991.png

This cover looks as it'd fit on a boxset, not the first volume of the series...