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

[MagicBox]

There might be some copyright issues going on there, actually. I'm not sure how that works.

I suppose I could understand that if it were true. The only reason I'm so skeptical is because FUNi actually used "Head-Cha-La" as the opening for every dubbed episode on their Dragon Boxes (except for 200-291, of course). I think they used it for about half of their movie double features as well. Those examples make it hard for me to give FUNi the benefit of the doubt here.

[The Time Traveller]

Are the Japanese credits and title cards included? It's one thing being forced to watch it cropped and given the ol' YouTube remastering treatment, but it'd suck even more having to see the English credits and titles every episode, unless you marathon mode that shit.

[dbboxkaifan]

The screens look better than I expected but still, having the muffled Japanese audio instead of the broadcast audio is a bit disappointing.

Are the Japanese credits and title cards included? It's one thing being forced to watch it cropped and given the ol' YouTube remastering treatment, but it'd suck even more having to see the English credits and titles every episode, unless you marathon mode that shit.

IIRC the only FUNimation DBZ release with Japanese credits is the US Dragonbox Z.

[Baggie_Saiyan]

Noice!!!!
These look really great! Better then I expected tbh.

[Daimo-Rukiri]

These are better than what I expected, I can see and get why the backgrounds are slightly blurred as they were trying to put focus on the character still wish they left it as is. Lines from the level sets and the new blues look about the same but it certainly looking better than what the trailers showed.

[Gaffer Tape]

Eh, from these images, it looks about as bad as I feared and expected. The title shot from the opening looks great. I'm not going to lie. But, like the Level sets, it's most likely coming from a 35 mm source and already had an edge. There's also not much detail or texture to ruin. But I disagree that the characters look good. From what I can see, the brightness is still a huge problem, and elements like Gohan's face are totally bleached and blinding.

[Ajay]

I can get over the grain removal, I can almost bear the cropping but like many have mentioned, those bleached skin tones are just awful. I can't look past that at all. Without grain, they just look their cels prior to photographing but when you're compromising even the original look of the cel...then you done fucked up.

[dbboxkaifan]

To those who already own it does the "Sneak Peak" show how the process behind this remasterisation is being done?

[Big Momma]

The title shot from the opening looks great. I'm not going to lie.

I thought the same. That title shot was the first one I saw, and tbh it looks amazing. The rest though....eh....better than I thought it would. Save for that shot of the farmer.

[Gyt Kaliba]

The characters, at least Piccolo, are still a little too bright, yeah...but it's bearable IMO. But again, I'm the guy who does still have the Season Sets and has no interest in these Blurays, so...my opinion counts for very little.

Those backgrounds are just horrendous regardless though, it's terrifying.

[KingofWisdom]

Are there any anime series that have had worse non-Japanese remasters than Dragon Ball Z?

[Big Momma]

Are there any anime series that have had worse non-Japanese remasters than Dragon Ball Z?

I've heard things about Ranma.

[Black_Anime_Fan]

My god these sets look atrocious. I can understand if you're buying these to review them, or just curious on how they look and everything. But it baffles me that there are actually people (especially around here) that think these look good. Seems like I have to keep my Orange Bricks...unfortunately.

[Valentine]

Anyone uploaded any actual footage yet as of yet? I really wan't to see this in motion

[Daimo-Rukiri]

My god these sets look atrocious. I can understand if you're buying these to review them, or just curious on how they look and everything. But it baffles me that there are actually people (especially around here) that think these look good. Seems like I have to keep my Orange Bricks...unfortunately.

These are above the orange bricks in pq, still prefer the dboxes though.

[samuraix123]

To those who already own it does the "Sneak Peak" show how the process behind this remasterisation is being done?

From what little information I gathered about it, Funimation used this machine to do the remastering process.

Took em a while to get her started...but once they gave her a kick or two she fired right up!

Edit - Honestly...I wouldn't be too interested in hearing them talk pretty about how they remastered it. I know their going to praise it. I'd much rather see the reviews here. people go over everything under the sun around here.

[Black_Anime_Fan]

These are above the orange bricks in pq, still prefer the dboxes though.

I can see that, but in my opinion you're really just getting the same thing (in HD of course, minus the missing lines). At least I still have my old FUNi/Pioneer single DVDs, but those haven't aged well.

P.S: What was up with that sickface emote? Lol

[dbboxkaifan]

Anyone uploaded any actual footage yet as of yet? I really wan't to see this in motion

Hope you don't mean uploading it to YouTube.

[supersaiyan3]

Is the "English with Japanese Music" track still the default audio option, like it was on the DVD season sets?

Yup, that's still the default.

Are the Japanese credits and title cards included?

No. Every opening is textless, the title cards are in English, and the closing credits are English as well. They also decided to to go with a new font for the titles, credits, and subtitles:

Spoiler:

To those who already own it does the "Sneak Peak" show how the process behind this remasterisation is being done?

The special feature was a few minutes of the cast & crew talking about unimportant behind-the-scenes stuff. All I heard was "We had no budget and didn't know what we were doing!" and "We realized we were sitting on a goldmine!" (only slightly paraphrased)

The only real content...
Matthew O'Hara: "What we're doing this time, is because of the nature of that 16 mm film--for those who are familar with film or the old look especially-- the 16 mm is a, uh, has a certain look to it, a certain characteristic you don't see in productions that are produced digitally. You'll see all kinds of imperfections, the grain, the shakiness. That's present in that old film; so what we've done is we've gone through it and it's a painstaking process, going through it frame-by-frame. We have a team working on it right now. We've been working on it for 2 years basically doing this process, where we're going through and looking for every blemish we can repair, stay true to the original show, and really make it new in a sense that it's going to be a fresh new look, it's going to brighter and bolder, and all of the details' gonna be really apparent when you see it on Blu-ray in HD, 'cause that's 6 times the detail of the DVD, plus all this restoration work. I think the fans will really like it"

and the tagline at the end...
Sabat: "See Dragon Ball Z like never before, and go behind the scenes, yesterday and today. Fully remastered in rich high-definition video. And featuring over five hours of exclusive interviews, production archives, and previously unreleased photos from the cast and crew who helped transform Dragon Ball Z into an international phenomenon. Relive the saga in a whole new way, the Ultimate Collector's Edition of Dragon Ball Z on Blu-ray. Collect them all!"

I have two questions:

1) How did they handle the infamous 4 panel shot during the Saiyan arc?

and

2) Audio? What's the deal - how's the Japanese track sounding with their 'remaster'?


EDIT: Thirdly - can someone take a proper lossless screenshot and upload it to i.minus.com - that site won't compress your images at all. I want to see how much/if any grain is in tact.

1) What episode is it in?

2) The voices and background music sound exactly the same to me compared to the dragon boxes. The Cha-La intro is the same as the orange bricks, which had a lot less low-end than the dragon boxes. It doesn't seem to me like there was any noticeable remastering.

3) http://min.us/m1LFsZYunDoQG
By lossless, did you mean .tiff? I put all the snapshots I had on there but they're still only .png. Any new shots I put up will be .tiff.

[B]

There's a shot of the Turtle Sage drinking beer in that live-action trailer that looks really bad. The detail in his outline is pretty much gone, and everything is brightened to the point where his white beard blends in with the white foam of his beer. How's that look in the final product, if anyone knows?

Turtle Sage is an alcoholic to the point that he is slowly, but surely, becoming beer.