Manga UK picks up Dragon Ball

[LostTimeLord]

Personally I'd take the 4% PAL speedup over Madman's distractingly jerky NTSC-PAL conversions any day. At least pulldown on NTSC DVDs can be removed with filters on players like VLC, which doesn't seem to be the case with interlaced PAL conversions (based on other Manga DVDs, at least); and most of FUNimations later DVDs are encoded in 24fps, which eliminates the pulldown problem on most TVs anyway.

[GarrettCRW]

As someone who 1) appreciates the music of the films and TV shows I watch and 2) is a stickler for watching films as intended, pulldown is the price of admission. Dragon Ball fans are lucky: the show's final masters are on 24 fps film, which is not the case for many '80s and '90s TV shows. That means the show can be presented in a form even better than ever imagined at the time of production-in high def *and* without pulldown. There are shows I love where I'd kill for an ancient NTSC-to-PAL transfer because their "remastered" DVDs are half-finished and edited due to ignorance.

[90sDBZ]

So I was reading an early review on Amazon UK for the first set and the reviewer mentioned how he owned the Madman release and said that it included the 1995 BLT Ocean dub of movie 1. He also said that the UK release would include this although it seemed to be based on assumption. My question is are we actually 100% sure that this release will use the Madman encodes? And how do we know that Manga didn't simply convert Funi's Blue Bricks release to PAL? And if it is the Madman saga sets repackaged then can we guarantee they won't remove the movie due to licencing constraints? It just strikes me as strange they didn't mention the movie in their announcement is all.

[dbboxkaifan]

And how do we know that Manga didn't simply convert Funi's Blue Bricks release to PAL?

Season 1: Episodes 1-28 (The Emperor Pilaf and First World Martial Arts Championship sagas)

Season 2: Episodes 29-57 (Red Ribbon Army and General Blue sagas)

Season 3: Episodes 58-83 (Commander Red and Fortune Teller Baba sagas)

Season 4: Episodes 84-122 (Tenshinhan Shinhan and King Piccolo sagas)

Season 5: Episodes 123-153 (Piccolo Jnr. saga Parts 1 and 2)

- The first 4 Seasons will each be 4-discs sets, where as Season 5 will be a 6-disc box set.

- The UK box sets will be branded as "Season" sets, not "Collection" or "Saga" sets. This is to follow the same pattern of releases that we have implemented for Dragon Ball Z and Dragon Ball GT. The reason for keeping them as "Season" sets is to ensure there no confusion with the box sets in retail. We appreciate that fans of the series wouldn't be confused if presented differently, but we want to make sure that everyone has complete clarity when it comes to the presentation of the box sets.

Source: http://www.mangauk.com/post.php?p=drago ... se-details

Not only do they reveal that it's exactly the same of episodes per disc as on the Saga set releases, but also the last two "seasons" will have the same quantity of discs (10 in total) that were released by Madman and.. they acknowledged the use of the terms/releases "Collection" and "Saga" so they know what they're doing.

For now I'd like to use Manga UK's release of Soul Eater: Complete Series (8 DVD Fat-Pack) as proof that their source was none other than Madman's release.

Proof 1:



The artwork of the discs are the same.

Proof 2:



There were four Collections in total, but Manga UK renamed the discs slightly while keeping the rest as is.

Proof 3:



"DVD Produced By: Madman Entertainment" I don't see Manga UK being credited anywhere.

Anyhow, I wonder if it's Madman's fault that the early episodes of Soul Eater look like ass or simply FUNimation's source wasn't that great to begin with.

[90sDBZ]

Okay cool. So one more question. In the madman set is the movie on the same disc as the episodes or does it have a disc to itself? Because if its the latter they could still exclude it. Although it might be worth noting that the One Piece sets do credit Manga UK.

[dbboxkaifan]

The edited film is a bonus feature on Disc 1 of The Saga of Goku (Part 1-2).



It might be worth noting that it has a different soundtrack not the original by Kikuchi.

[90sDBZ]

Ah ok. It's good news that it'll be included as it'll give extra incentive for people to buy. I actually don't mind the movie being the BLT dub as that's probably harder to come by these days and Manga are bound to release Funi's uncut version at a later date along with the other movies.

[dbboxkaifan]

Here are some screenshots of Madman's DB release:

Spoiler:

On my HDTV without any filters it's very grainy whereas here it seems to be somewhat hidden. Gorgeous picture quality but it's a shame there aren't Next Episode Previews though I'm happy with the Japanese Episode title cards in return.

P.S.: Episode 026 works fine there aren't any video errors.

[LostTimeLord]

The Manga UK 'Soul Eater' DVDs must have been re-authored to some minor degree because they open with the Manga UK logo, even if that was all they changed. It would probably be easier for Manga to remove 'Blood Rubies' from disc one than it would be to license the film (assuming it wasn't included in the TV series license). And if the movie is included, then it's odd that Manga hasn't announced it by now.

[90sDBZ]

The Manga UK 'Soul Eater' DVDs must have been re-authored to some minor degree because they open with the Manga UK logo, even if that was all they changed. It would probably be easier for Manga to remove 'Blood Rubies' from disc one than it would be to license the film (assuming it wasn't included in the TV series license). And if the movie is included, then it's odd that Manga hasn't announced it by now.

Well to be fair I don't think they mentioned A Hero's Legacy until later on after they announced GT Season 2. Fingers crossed Blood Rubies will still be included. I already own the US Blue Bricks, but with the different picture quality, the ability to watch it on any of my region 2 players and the possibility of the movie being on there I might invest in Manga UK's release.

[eledoremassis02]

The Japanese title cards are alternate angles? I might get this for the first 13 epsidoes

[dbboxkaifan]

The Japanese title cards are alternate angles? I might get this for the first 13 epsidoes

Yep. This is what I love about the Single sets they have the original Japanese title episodes whereas the Blue Bricks don't and it's grainy too (BB's DNR'd).

[DBZ Mick]

There are some little bugs in the Madman sets.

Episode 73 I believe it is, ONLY plays the dub subtitles.

Episode 81- If you watch in Japanese after the title card,s it will skip to the second half of Episode 83. You have to play it in English to get around this. Playing it in Japanese afterwards is fine.

Also the packaging isn't the best, I've got one disc a little cracked in the centre...

[Fizzer]

There are some little bugs in the Madman sets.

Episode 73 I believe it is, ONLY plays the dub subtitles.

Episode 81- If you watch in Japanese after the title card,s it will skip to the second half of Episode 83. You have to play it in English to get around this. Playing it in Japanese afterwards is fine.

Also the packaging isn't the best, I've got one disc a little cracked in the centre...

Surely those must now be known issues, and will be fixed in Manga UK's release?

[Shnuki]

If no one told them, they propably don't know.

[RocktheDragon]

If no one told them, they propably don't know.

Well maybe someone would have noticed through Manga Uk's own testing of the product, like if they did any Q&A.

[RocktheDragon]

I knew it was gonna happen. I'm still conflicted. Buying these for me would basically mean I've abandoned all hope of the FUNi DB Dragon Boxes happening. Hm. I'll have to think hard about this.

For me this question has popped up numerous times being in America. I'm sort of holding up a shred of hope that Funimation will release a DB Dragon Box but I just might bite and get the original Japanese Dragon Box for DB. But I think I'd rather pick up the GT and Movie Dragon Box first just because they have cool accessories.

[dbboxkaifan]

Surely those must now be known issues, and will be fixed in Manga UK's release?

Manga UK doesn't even get the package properly done much less what is in the discs. The only way they'd know about it is if fans had told them and then perhaps they'd be aware of it.

Not to take any credit but I was the done that asked them whether they'd call it "Saga", "Collection", "Part" or whatever because the original Madman DVDs are called "Collection Part 1" and "Collection Part 2". Oh well, it's not the shitty packaging that's going to make me stay away from getting the 10 DVDs left of CP2.

It's most likely just a repackage so don't get your hopes up.

[Baggie_Saiyan]

Manga UK is great for a bare bones release. Sadly, their prices are either on par or expensive then the U.S counterparts. I only use them as a last resort and since the blue bricks aren't uk friendly, I'll have to eventually get these. Hope they have reversible covers at least.

[Solidus]

Manga UK have updated their cover art for season 1 of Dragon Ball. They've changed the main colour to yellow and are using the blue and red logo. The still have the 'Digitally Remastered' tag across the top for some reason but bar that it looks fairly sleek.