First off look at this cover, I love ALL of Pioneers covers. They used the original movie poster art, which I know FUNimation kinda does now. But back then there was no crappy flash type images. This was a picture, they put some English text on it that was it.
I know we've all seen this image so many times that its just a blur of cover art. Just look at it, look how cool its drawn. From the smallest detail like the shadows on the nimbus cloud, to the guy in the back who looks nothing like Garlic Jr. This is a really well done piece of art. The thing I like about Garlic Jr. on the cover is that he looks very 80's ish, I don't know why but he does. I hate this new "everything has to be redrawn in flash to look good" idea. You can never get this much deatil from a flash drawing. This looks like its right out of an art book.
And now for the actuall DVD. For such an early DVD release it was nicely done. Surprisingly they have a "Deleted TV Scenes" option.
When you click it you have the option to watch about 80% of two episodes that were never dubbed split into two parts. I say 80% because they cut the opening, last episode preview, bumpers, a few seconds of the episode and the closing. So 80% sounds about right. There still in Japanese but they have subtitles.
Another cool thing about this DVD is when you click on the "Spoken Languages". You have the option to watch it dubbed in Namekian, what? Are my eyes playing tricks on me, did they really dub it in Namekian?
No..of course not. But hey thats pretty cool though. Come on FUNimation give us a good Namekian dub! Keep the Japanese music in this time! Joking of course lol
There is also a "Other DBZ Video" option. Now, on other Pioneer DBZ movies they actually have 1 - 2 minute clips of each video, here they don't. I suppose cause they were yet to release a lot of DBZ on video. Look how long ago this was. Look, they only released up to episode 10 of DBZ. Episode 10! That was all you had to choose from in the whole DBZ series in 1997, episodes 1 - 10! I know by then they have shown maybe up to the end of the Vegeta saga on TV, but not on home video. Wow.
The quality is a pretty grainy. At the time of this release it was alright, we didn't know better. Now after seeing higher quality versions this just looks like they dragged the movie reel through a field of spiney things from Mario bros. Some scenes are better then others. Some colors look more digital then others. What it comes down to is its just a grainy copy. Its an old movie. Company's weren't all about digital re masters yet. Especially not with a DragonBall movie dubbed in English. Anime was still just considered "Sci-Fi" back then. All you kids today and your digital anime and your digital re mastered 90's anime. Go read some Manga on the floor of Boarders you ungratefully bastards! The dub itself is actually one of the best for DragonBall Z. Its pretty close to the actuall Japanese translation and the original Japanese music is left in. Those two things combined is why people still have this DVD today.
Interesting end credits, the Pioneer version first credits the Japanese cast before they credit the English cast. That's pretty damn cool of them. FUNimation sometimes won't even credit the Japanese cast at all.
Another thing about the end credits is that image of Gohan at the "The End" screen. I don't know why or what happened but theres a Toei animation 1989 stamp on the bottom right of the screen. It wasn't on the 2005 re-release, but it was in the Dragonbox version. So I guess its safe to assume its on the original print being its on the Dragonbox. I dont know why but later on FUNimation added copywrite text to the bottom of the screen for Bird Studios and Toei Animation. It really dosen't matter at all but just something really odd of FUNimation to do.
In November FUNimation is releasing this movie and movies 2 and 3 with there voice actors. When that happens FUNimation will have dubbed the whole Dragonball series with there voice actors. Like it or not, thats pretty amazing. Well, I hope you kids learned somthing, and I hope you old people remeberd what it was like for us lonely anime fans. It was a time when you would go into a book store, ask for manga and they would think you wanted books on magma.
