Dragon Ball Z "Seasons" On Blu-ray: News & Discussion

[qjz123]

When Funimation released the orange bricks they didn't have money to invest in a proper remastering of the series they thought they were doing the right thing for fans when they were cropping Dbz to 16:9 back then, but now Funimation knows what they're doing is wrong but they're still releasing a bad product solely in the interest of making money

[Gaffer Tape]

@KingOfWisdom

Of course they want money. They wouldn't be able to survive without money. This is nothing new. FUNimation didn't release the Dragon Boxes out of some altruistic feelings of guilt. They did it because they believed it would be profitable to do so. Otherwise they would never have been able to justify doing so. That's what businesses do. That's not a negative thing.

@qjz123

Yes, I get that impression too, that there may be some internal "reform" in FUNimation, similar to how changes in Viz's management made the DB manga worse as it went along, but the way he worded it is still... just odd. He hinted at Santorum's political background and specifically referred to the company as a "Christian" business. Again, what are we supposed to be taking from that in a practical sense? Is he implying that Christian businesses just want to make money, whereas others... don't? Is he saying the Republican party has some agenda to crop DBZ into 16:9? I mean, FUNimation was trying to make money (again, the whole point of a business) and present DBZ with the worst possible picture quality long before now. I'm just not seeing the specific connection, that's all.

EDIT: Oh, as for your most recent post (I was referring to the one you quoted me in), I refuse to believe FUNimation thought they were doing the right thing with the orange bricks. If that was the case, they wouldn't have flat-out lied about the results and processes in their ad campaign. They knew they were screwing us over. They were just hoping beyond hope they could make it so people didn't notice. Sadly, their hopes came true.

[KingofWisdom]

If they didn't feel sorry about the Orange Brick outrage, would they have given us the Dragon Boxes? Or would they have given us an incrementally better remaster to flip us the bird?

[Gaffer Tape]

Um, why would they want to do something for the sole purpose of "flipping us the bird"? That's not exactly a sound business strategy. What sounds more plausible to you if you're a business trying to sell a product? That you sit in your dank lair trying to think of ways to piss people off? Or seeing that you HAVE pissed off a certain section of your consumer base, realize they haven't bought your product, know they would really like to purchase these "Dragon Boxes," and decide to license them so people will buy them? Businesses don't release products out of pity. They release them because they believe people will buy them. They knew we would buy Dragon Boxes, so they released them.

[qjz123]

@qjz123

Yes, I get that impression too, that there may be some internal "reform" in FUNimation, similar to how changes in Viz's management made the DB manga worse as it went along, but the way he worded it is still... just odd. He hinted at Santorum's political background and specifically referred to the company as a "Christian" business. Again, what are we supposed to be taking from that in a practical sense? Is he implying that Christian businesses just want to make money, whereas others... don't? Is he saying the Republican party has some agenda to crop DBZ into 16:9? I mean, FUNimation was trying to make money (again, the whole point of a business) and present DBZ with the worst possible picture quality long before now. I'm just not seeing the specific connection, that's all.

When he called Funimation a "Christian" business I think he was just referring to how Rick Santorums involvement with Funimation has changed the company. His main gripe was with Rick Santorum calling it a Christian company probably had something to do with this http://www.dallasnews.com/news/communit ... d-area.ece

[KingofWisdom]

Because the mass market would have eaten it up regardless, and some of us would have bought it in hopes of it funding the next better release. To keep getting out money. The Dragon Boxes were for a niche audience. They didn't have to give it to us.

[TheOverlyMadHatter]

Yes, I get that impression too, that there may be some internal "reform" in FUNimation, similar to how changes in Viz's management made the DB manga worse as it went along, but the way he worded it is still... just odd. He hinted at Santorum's political background and specifically referred to the company as a "Christian" business. Again, what are we supposed to be taking from that in a practical sense? Is he implying that Christian businesses just want to make money, whereas others... don't? Is he saying the Republican party has some agenda to crop DBZ into 16:9? I mean, FUNimation was trying to make money (again, the whole point of a business) and present DBZ with the worst possible picture quality long before now. I'm just not seeing the specific connection, that's all.

EDIT: Oh, as for your most recent post (I was referring to the one you quoted me in), I refuse to believe FUNimation thought they were doing the right thing with the orange bricks. If that was the case, they wouldn't have flat-out lied about the results and processes in their ad campaign. They knew they were screwing us over. They were just hoping beyond hope they could make it so people didn't notice. Sadly, their hopes came true.

Looking back on some older quotes from reply e-mails from Franko, his overall attitude was pretty juvenile, such as attempting to justify the poor remastering process of the orange bricks with the fact that it wasn't a project on the same scales as classics like The Wizard of Oz or Disney Movies, in addition to nonsensical shorter responses. If anything, I think it's just a poor attempt shift the blame. "They only care about money" is such an easy thing to say. I could easily be wrong, though. It's just that I find it hard to take anything he says seriously, at this point.

[Gaffer Tape]

Because the mass market would have eaten it up regardless

Just like they ate up the Level sets?

The Dragon Boxes were for a niche audience. They didn't have to give it to us.

And they wouldn't have if they didn't think that niche audience was large enough to turn a profit. The fact that it generated goodwill with a section of the audience they'd alienated certainly helped too. Again, I'm not ragging on FUNimation here. This is what they're supposed to be doing. But these are economic realities. The Dragon Boxes weren't released out of guilt. They were released because they decided it was the best business decision. Just like they've decided these new stupid Blu-rays are the best business decision.

[KingofWisdom]

Don't compare the Level sets to the Orange Bricks.

[qjz123]

Looking back on some older quotes from reply e-mails from Franko, his overall attitude was pretty juvenile, such as attempting to justify the poor remastering process of the orange bricks with the fact that it wasn't a project on the same scales as classics like The Wizard of Oz or Disney Movies, in addition to nonsensical shorter responses. If anything, I think it's just a poor attempt shift the blame. "They only care about money" is such an easy thing to say. I could easily be wrong, though. It's just that I find it hard to take anything he says seriously, at this point.

I don't think he needs to shift the blame he has shown with the level sets that he is capable of creating a beautiful color corrected film scan if anything Funimation has thrown him under the bus in the past.

[Black_Anime_Fan]

Looking back on some older quotes from reply e-mails from Franko, his overall attitude was pretty juvenile, such as attempting to justify the poor remastering process of the orange bricks because it wasn't a project on the same scales as classics like The Wizard of Oz or Disney Movies, in addition to nonsensical shorter responses. If anything, I think it's just a poor attempt shift the blame. "They only care about money" is such an easy thing to say. I could easily be wrong, though.

Well, FUNimation did try to shift the reasoning behind the Orange Brick process on Steve Franko when he had nothing to do with the decisions made. He was simply doing what FUNimation told him to do (with the remastering). I think he was just in a bad mood or something after all the unneeded flack he got.

[Gaffer Tape]

Don't compare the Level sets to the Orange Bricks.

Um, huh? When did I do that? You said the mass market would have eaten up the next mainstream release regardless. The next mainstream release was the Level sets. They weren't eaten up.

[KingofWisdom]

It was intended to be a mainstream release. But the casual fans wouldn't have paid that much per episode. What I'm saying is, FUNimation could have skipped from the Orange Bricks directly to these remastered Blu-Ray seasons, and they would have made more money doing that.

[qjz123]

the Dragon Boxes weren't released out of guilt. They were released because they decided it was the best business decision. Just like they've decided these new stupid Blu-rays are the best business decision.

In the past Funimation choose to release products that were good for the fans when they could have chosen to make more money doing it another way. For example when Kai was coming out they had a choice between a complete redub or just chopping up the old Dbz dub. They made that decision based on what was good for the fans instead of what would make them the most money. They gave us the dragon boxes and they gave us the levels sets even though a release that was cheaper to make like these blu rays would have made more money. The orange bricks were awful but at the time Funimation didn't have the money to invest in a proper remastering of the series they thought they were doing the right thing for fans when they were cropping Dbz to 16:9 back then, but now Funimation knows what they're doing is wrong but they're still releasing a bad product solely in the interest of making money

[Gaffer Tape]

@KingofWisdom

Um, I'm sorry, but what is your point? You're losing me. I feel we're getting off track here. Anyway, FUNimation is and always has been a business. A business cannot exist without profit. Therefore its decisions are made in whatever way they believe is the best way to make profit. That's why every release they've ever made has been released, including the Dragon Boxes.

In the past Funimation choose to release products that were good for the fans when they could have chosen to make more money doing it another way. For example when Kai was coming out they had a choice between a complete redub or just chopping up the old Dbz dub. They made that decision based on what was good for the fans instead of what would make them the most money. They gave us the dragon boxes and they gave us the levels sets even though a release that was cheaper to make like these blu rays would have made more money. The orange bricks were awful but at the time Funimation didn't have the money to invest in a proper remastering of the series they thought they were doing the right thing for fans when they were cropping Dbz to 16:9 back then, but now Funimation knows what they're doing is wrong but they're still releasing a bad product solely in the interest of making money

Apparently you missed my last response to you, so I'll say it again. If FUNimation thought they were doing "the right thing for fans" when they released the orange bricks, they wouldn't have gone to so much trouble to lie about what they were doing in their ad campaigns. They were hoping people would buy into their bull, and, sadly, they were right. Has FUNimation done right by the fans on certain occasions? Of course they have! But that's because the right thing for the fans and the right thing to make a profit overlapped. But no business decision is ever made solely because, "Oh, gosh, gee, golly. It's just the nice thing to do." Did FUNimation put out bilingual DVDs because they just felt awful about how their dub was tearing the fanbase apart? Of course not. They did it because they knew there was a large market that wanted to watch the show subtitled, and they were losing that market share to fansubbers. Same thing with the Dragon Boxes. Here was a product people were bending over backwards to get. FUNimation didn't have to do any work. They could just slap it on a disc, people would buy it, and the folks who were livid over the quality of the orange bricks would suddenly love them and want to buy their products again. How is this so hard to understand? Again, THIS IS NOT A BAD THING! This is not me trying to expose FUNimation as money-grubbing puppy-kickers. This is just how businesses work. If they didn't work like that, they would go out of business. Businesses can't afford to just up and do things because folks on a message board want it. There HAS to be something in it for their bottom line, or they'll be out of a job.

[KingofWisdom]

But surely if they made money off the Dragon Boxes then we would have gotten more than just the Z TV series.

[Gaffer Tape]

Not necessarily. Like you said, it's a niche audience, but with Z, they had just come off of a very successful yet polarizing release in the orange bricks. There was definitely a market to swoop in and capture those who realized the orange bricks were crap. I personally have not bought the blue or green bricks because I'm waiting and hoping for Dragon Boxes. But just a glance around these forums show people going, "Ehh, they're good enough. I'll go ahead and pick them up." The other two series didn't have a section of the fanbase reacting as negatively as with Z. Almost everyone is mostly satisfied with what's already out there. And the non-Z series don't bring in as much money anyway. Therefore, FUNimation probably doesn't think there's enough economic incentive to release the others. Sad, but logical.

[Black_Anime_Fan]

Okay, I've been reading up a lot of what you guys have been saying on this thread, and I'm totally gonna guess (and pray to god) that we're getting something similar to, or exactly like the DBoxes/Levels come up again.

[qjz123]

Not necessarily. Like you said, it's a niche audience, but with Z, they had just come off of a very successful yet polarizing release in the orange bricks. There was definitely a market to swoop in and capture those who realized the orange bricks were crap. I personally have not bought the blue or green bricks because I'm waiting and hoping for Dragon Boxes. But just a glance around these forums show people going, "Ehh, they're good enough. I'll go ahead and pick them up." The other two series didn't have a section of the fanbase reacting as negatively as with Z. Almost everyone is mostly satisfied with what's already out there. And the non-Z series don't bring in as much money anyway. Therefore, FUNimation probably doesn't think there's enough economic incentive to release the others. Sad, but logical.

But Funimation had already paid for the rights to the Dragon box movies they had them as well as the Dragon ball z Dragon boxes yet they choose to not release the Dragon box movies. If they had made money on the Dragon ball z Dragon boxes why didn't they release the movies even though they had already paid for the rights to release them.

[MarcFBR]

It's worth mentioning that Funimation and Echolight aren't the same company and as far as I know (fully willing to admit I could be wrong on this one) aren't even under the same corporate umbrella (much like Bill Gates ran Microsoft personally for years, but was a rather large investor in Apple) and one doesn't necessarily have much, if anything, to do with the other (I THINK Funi distributes DVD/BD for Echolight... think I saw it in a solicitation catalog somewhere, but not sure.)

I mean, it's easy to point at Fukunaga's involvement in a Christian film company as some evidence of some crazy content conspiracy, but then the fact Giant Ape is funding a Danny Trejo 'kill em all' action flick sort of disagrees with that.

And as for Franko... he complained about what Funimation did half a decade ago... didn't stop him from cashing their checks and working with them again... so the whole 'they care about money' argument doesn't really wash... (as established... they're a business.)