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

[B]

I wonder what would be the outrage if Toei Animation remastered DBZ in HD and 16x9 AR.

The exact same as this times nine-thousand-and-one. However, that will never happen. Japan, culturally, has too much pride in their own creations to shit on them like that.

[Black_Anime_Fan]

I wonder what would be the outrage if Toei Animation remastered DBZ in HD and 16x9 AR.

Japan, culturally, has too much pride in their own creations to shit on them like that.

And Toei's original audio masters?

[B]

Do I actually have to explain why that's not the same thing?

[Black_Anime_Fan]

Please do, I'm a little confused. You said Japan has too much pride in their own creation to shit on them like doing something like cropping them to 16:9, and then I mentioned the original audio masters. Is there something I'm not getting? Not being rude or anything, just curious.

[Storm]

I'm not going to presume to speak for B, but the loss of the master audio was the result of being a cartoon from the 80s where the idea of a home video release that could feasibly contain all 508 Dragon Ball/Dragon Ball Z/Dragon Ball GT was unthinkable, and as such, it wasn't perceived as being worthwhile at the time to keep all of those audio tapes when they could just use the audio track on film. They would stand to gain nothing nowadays to crop the visuals for widescreen.

[MarcFBR]

I wonder what would be the outrage if Toei Animation remastered DBZ in HD and 16x9 AR.

The exact same as this times nine-thousand-and-one. However, that will never happen. Japan, culturally, has too much pride in their own creations to shit on them like that.

Hahahahaha!

Oh man... that's funny. Japan has to much pride to do something like this.

Gundam Seed Destiny is LITERALLY this. Cropped, filtered, thrown on Blu-ray, with some random bits of new animation (panty shot!)

Do You Remember Love got an edited only Blu-ray in Japan because it was used as marketing material for a game, and doing it uncut would have kicked up the games ratings.

There are TONS of examples of nearly the same stuff happening in Japan. Not to mention the fact that nearly every 'edited' anime is done with permission from the Japanese companies involved (with many times those same companies in Japan actually DEMANDING the changes in the hopes it'll be more marketable in the USA.)

Don't get me wrong, as a fan, I don't like what Funimation is doing. But let's not pretend that Japanese businesses enjoy money any less than American ones.

[theoriginalbilis]

Japan's not above altering footage and audio for their TV shows/movies either...

The movies for Mobile Suit Gundam and Patlabor have been re-released with completely new audio tracks and voiceovers for DVD/Blu-Ray, leaving the original tracks either on previous VHS/theater releases or in the vaults.

A beloved series over there, Galaxy Express 999, got its first two movies cropped and DNR-ed for their Blu-Ray release. And those ended up being the versions we got released here on DVD.

So yeah, lots of weirdness going over on the other side of the ocean as well.

[bkev]

A beloved series over there, Galaxy Express 999, got its first two movies cropped and DNR-ed for their Blu-Ray release. And those ended up being the versions we got released here on DVD.

You'll get no arguments from me that the DNR is rather excessive, but the cropping is probably - much like the Z movies - reminiscent of its original theatrical presentation. Just in case anyone was wondering.

[Kojiro Sasaki]

Don't get me wrong, as a fan, I don't like what Funimation is doing.

I think that hardcore fanbase can do a little bit more than just "don't like" it. Guessing by what people are writing here, I do not believe that somebody bothered to write a nice eye catching letter about what we expect. What I do believe is that if we would put some effort and passion into this, there is a chance that we would get an answer. I asked Nippon Columbia about why mono masters were used on soundtrack releases in lame English via Japanese contact page - untypical technical question about releases from 20 years ago - and three days after it I've got quite detailed answer. Judging by this, I'm hoping that they will not just ignore my letter. Here is what I wrote so far:

http://imageshack.us/a/img543/1852/47rl.png

I wrote another letter, similar to this one, to TAVAC. As for now, I have 16 pages (most of them are "music documentation" for the movies and selected episodes). I asked about existence of voice-only tapes, original audio masters, stereo masters for the music, M-numbers etc. I need to finish my documentation, draw some backgrounds (handmade on paper) and I will also add some old sketches from 1999-2001 (I was ~10 at the time ). They are way more damaged than FUNimation masters - it's a kind of epic

I think that informing Toei Animation about our point of view before they will start working on blu-ray release is worth getting a shot. Our influence depends on our effort.

The "intended framing" of each shot is set by the key animator. The bigger square in the first image shows what must be shot on film, and the smaller one with rounded edges shows what will be shown on CRT TVs. Everything important must be placed inside the smaller one.

Just to be sure: Was the second selection always at the center of the frame?

[PhoenixEX]

Only 2 more weeks to go for Season 1 to release! Gonna be starting off the new year with a marathon of Season 1!

[Baggie_Saiyan]

Only 2 more weeks to go for Season 1 to release! Gonna be starting off the new year with a marathon of Season 1!

Me and my mates also plan to Marathon Season 1 too! Hopefully shipping doesn't take more then 2 weeks.
Been ages since I've seen anything Dragon Ball related.

[over9000]

I know right! I've been counting down lol and now It's almost here, I hope Season 3 Isn't too far off either !

[JEFFMAN219]

Lool have you guys seen this


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=78MiISpLq_8

[Ajay]

Lool have you guys seen this


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=78MiISpLq_8

International mirror would be appreciated. Otherwise, I'll get on that proxy grind and bust one out myself.

[VegettoEX]

Lool have you guys seen this


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=78MiISpLq_8

From a marketing and branding perspective, I love absolutely everything about this.

But the product is what it is, and I'm crying on the inside. Dragon Boxes get dubbed Vegeta yelling at me, and this gets this. Red means go, green means stop. Up is down, and right is left.

[kei17]

The problem is that it's not really an upgrade.

International mirror would be appreciated. Otherwise, I'll get on that proxy grind and bust one out myself.

Use this site: http://file2hd.com/

[Gaffer Tape]

Really cool commercial idea. Whatever "music" they were using, though, made my ears bleed, and the footage seems to look worse every time I see it. So my ears bleed, my eyes bleed, and my soul bleeds. At least my wallet won't be bleeding.

[Gyt Kaliba]

Huh...that's a new way to do an ad, I don't think FUNimation has ever done one quite like that. Everything else about this aside, that was pretty neat to see.

[sumpter360]

That was a fun commercial... But the footage they chose. Seriously some of the worst they could've chosen. There was one shot in particular (at the 50 sec mark), it was a group shot from the Ending theme. It looks terrible! There's no definition in the faces, which also seem to bleed into other characters' shirts. I am scared to see what the footage looks like in motion, outside of the trailers.

[dbboxkaifan]

For international users: http://youtu.be/MNPsZ2_zvpk

What a weird ass trailer that was, the guy even spilt liquid on the DBZ Blu-ray case and the other was holding the disc improperly.. *sigh* it's just people I know.