Manga UK Announce DBZ Battle of Gods DVD/Bluray release

[Baggie_Saiyan]

Base.com have just charged me so hopefully it arrives on time for Monday.

I asked Manga UK about why they only included Japanese DD 2.0 and this is what they replied back with:

Hi, sorry you feel that way. I've enquired with Manga HQ about this and we can only work with the assets provided to us. ^JG

Meh.

Typical response, I take it 2.0 was cheaper to obtain and they just decided to stick with it?

[BlackCatScott]

Heres front/back covers as well as a look at the cards as requested. There's also a alternative cover without all the logos on. Disc art is the same as the front cover.

[Bullza]

I see base.com had to go and raise the price of the standard blue ray version from £15 to £17 just days before release. How very annoying.

[dbboxkaifan]

Heres front/back covers as well as a look at the cards as requested. There's also a alternative cover without all the logos on. Disc art is the same as the front cover.

Spoiler:

This all looks pretty nice so maybe I'll re-order it the upcoming week after all.

Considering Manga UK cheapened out for the Japanese audio I'll watch the English dub first in 5.1 'cause the trailer/7min clip made it look like the dub was really good (perhaps even better than the Kai dub).

Shame on you Manga UK.

[NintendoBlaze53]

"Based on the legendary COMIC BOOK" UGH, their company name is MANGA UK, why couldn't they just put manga on the cover. Anyway, the Australian version better not cheap out on the audio tracks.

[Vegard Aune]

Considering Manga UK cheapened out for the Japanese audio I'll watch the English dub first in 5.1 'cause the trailer/7min clip made it look like the dub was really good (perhaps even better than the Kai dub).

Speaking as someone who typically can't stand the dub of DBZ but watched this movie in English anyway out of curiousity... yeah, the dub is good. There are a few spots here and there that I take issue with, sure, but on the whole it's probably the best English-dubbed Dragon Ball thing I've seen. (Mind you, I've only seen bits and pieces of Kai.)

[dbboxkaifan]

I see base.com had to go and raise the price of the standard blue ray version from £15 to £17 just days before release. How very annoying.

Huh, that's weird but then again maybe they're trying to get people to buy the "Collector's Edition" just for slightly more (and they get the extras).



If Amazon slashes the price from £21.50 to £18-19 then I might be able to get one of Flubit's suppliers to do me a cheaper price (£15-16) because this really doesn't feel like it's worth £18 much less £21.

[Bullza]

If movies like X-men, Dawn of the Apes, Guardians of the Galaxy etc are £15 there's certainly no need for this to be more than that. I'll wait until it comes down to that price before I buy it. I would have probably ordered it by now if not for that.

In fact more and more of these films are coming out at £13 to buy now like Transformers 4, Expendables 3 and 22 Jump Street.

[Baggie_Saiyan]

If movies like X-men, Transformers, Guardians of the Galaxy etc are £15 there's certainly no need for this to be more than that. I'll wait until it comes down to that price before I buy it. I would have probably ordered it by now if not for that.

But they have bigger fan-bases, T4 made $1,087,404,499 WW, I'm sure they can afford their blu-ray's to be a little cheaper, but Manga can't take that risk, for everyone 1 person who buys BoG there is probably 10 who buy T4/x-men etc, it is just illogical to think BoG need to be the same price as those films.

[dbboxkaifan]

But they have bigger fan-bases, T4 made $1,087,404,499 WW, I'm sure they can afford their blu-ray's to be a little cheaper, but Manga can't take that risk, for everyone 1 person who buys BoG there is probably 10 who buy T4/x-men etc, it is just illogical to think BoG need to be the same price as those films.

If you're right it's gotten (somewhat) worse for them after the fact that the Japanese audio is only DD 2.0 so fans of the Japanese version dropped their pre-orders.

*sigh* Anime Ltd. should be the one in charge of Dragon Ball UK releases not Manga UK.

[Baggie_Saiyan]

But they have bigger fan-bases, T4 made $1,087,404,499 WW, I'm sure they can afford their blu-ray's to be a little cheaper, but Manga can't take that risk, for everyone 1 person who buys BoG there is probably 10 who buy T4/x-men etc, it is just illogical to think BoG need to be the same price as those films.

If you're right it's gotten (somewhat) worse for them after the fact that the Japanese audio is only DD 2.0 so fans of the Japanese version dropped their pre-orders.

*sigh* Anime Ltd. should be the one in charge of Dragon Ball UK releases not Manga UK.

It's not even on the top 100 sales in the DVD/Blu-ray category on Amazon. And is Currently 6th on the best selling anime whilst the DVD is 16th.

[Bullza]

But they have bigger fan-bases, T4 made $1,087,404,499 WW, I'm sure they can afford their blu-ray's to be a little cheaper, but Manga can't take that risk, for everyone 1 person who buys BoG there is probably 10 who buy T4/x-men etc, it is just illogical to think BoG need to be the same price as those films.

Nah that's got nothing to do with it at all. Base, Amazon, Zavvi etc all set their own prices which has nothing to do with Manga UK.

These DTV animated movies DC put out, they aren't more expensive than the standard movie. I think Assault on Arkham was only £10 on Blu Ray when that came out. I can see movies on there now that most people haven't even heard of that are cheaper than £15.

It's not even on the top 100 sales in the DVD/Blu-ray category on Amazon. And is Currently 6th on the best selling anime whilst the DVD is 16th.

DBZ isn't popular in UK. It never has been. Plus people won't wanna pay a ridiculous £21.50 for something that should be more like £16.50. That's $34 in US currency but on Amazon US it's only $18.

[Sshadow5001]

I got the email confirmation earlier today, hopefully it'll be here on Monday .

[90sDBZ]

DBZ isn't popular in UK. It never has been.

You couldn't be more wrong there. It was the number 1 show throughout its run in the UK on Cartoon Network, CNX and Toonami. They used to have week long marathons of it during school holidays. It stayed on the air with reruns for over 2 years after the series ended. It was the show that made Cartoon Network UK put their Toonami block on in the first place, and later singlehandedly kept the UK Toonami 24 hour channel alive for years. The games have always sold very well here and continue to do so to this day. The Orange Bricks have done very well for Manga UK, and Kai got good ratings when it aired on Kix. Hell even the Big Green dubbed movies sold well back in the day.

[Bullza]

I don't know if you have any evidence for any of that but I was at school when DBZ was airing. Throughout the entire time I was at both primary or secondary school nobody ever once mentioned the show. Pokemon was hugely popular and my mom works at a school and told me Yu Gi Oh was popular.

I knew people who watched Digimon and even Beyblade but DBZ may as well have not existed. I never saw any toys for it, nothing DBZ related. When I finally got into it I asked my parents if they'd heard of it, no, I asked a few friends and only one had heard of it but not seen it.

DBE bombed everywhere but bombed especially hard here compared to countries like France, Italy, Spain and Australia. BoG didn't even get a theatrical release unlike a lot of others countries.

The DVD's didn't come out till late.

I had to check if DB Kai even aired in this country and it did on Kix a channel I've never heard of and certainly not a main cartoon channel.

[Ajay]

I was also at school during DBZ's prime and I can say that my experience was entirely different to yours. Dragon Ball was HUGE. It wasn't until way later that things like Yu-gi-oh and Beyblade became a thing.

The show was so popular that Cartoon Network would literally dedicate weekends to show nothing but the show. Full on marathons of nothing but Dragon Ball Z.

90sDBZ is right. Sorry dude, you couldn't be more wrong.

[Bullza]

How am I wrong when evidence proves opposite? Cartoon Network did loads of those marathons, Justice League and X-men Evolution had them too, I remember because I spent the whole time recording every episode.

The Google trends show that the term Dragon Ball is not searched for that much in UK compared to most other countries, it has a mere search volume index of 6 which is one of the lowest in Europe. Worldwide in 2004 Dragon Ball got twice the amount of searches as Yu Gi Oh but in UK Yu Gi Oh was searched for more out of the two. It obviously didn't even begin to compare to Pokémon.

Battle of Gods was not released there when it was released in US and neighbouring countries because they probably knew it wasn't worth it when Dragon Ball Evolution wasn't half as successful as it was in other European countries. It didn't even make $1 million.

On amazon uk it comes out in only 2 days but it's still all the way down at #674 on amazon's best selling DVD's. It was as high up as #30 in US.

Battle of Z only sold 15,000 copies in UK. Ultimate Tenkaichi sold 39,000 copies. That's next to nothing.

And like I said DBZ Kai was put on some no name TV channel with a bunch of cartoons that finished years ago and they'll probably never release it on DVD or Blu Ray. If it was popular it would have been put on a worthwhile channel.

[NitroEX]

I think the lack of merchandise and DVDs compared to the US contributed to the show being somewhat forgotten in the UK, that and DBZ was always on premium channels while Pokemon and Digimon were on free channels at the time.

Despite that it was still a popular show when I was growing up, practically all boys at my primary school talked about it especially during the Cell sagas. I can't recall much discussion throughout high school years but that was because I moved a lot during that time plus Z had ended then and CNX were focusing on GT and DB which was around the series' decline in popularity.

Battle of Z only sold 15,000 copies in UK. Ultimate Tenkaichi sold 39,000 copies. That's next to nothing.

To be fair, those games weren't very good. Not all DBZ fans are going to blindly buy poor games, I'm a big fan but I chose not to buy them.

[90sDBZ]

How am I wrong when evidence proves opposite? Cartoon Network did loads of those marathons, Justice League and X-men Evolution had them too, I remember because I spent the whole time recording every episode.

The Google trends show that the term Dragon Ball is not searched for that much in UK compared to most other countries, it has a mere search volume index of 6 which is one of the lowest in Europe. Worldwide in 2004 Dragon Ball got twice the amount of searches as Yu Gi Oh but in UK Yu Gi Oh was searched for more out of the two. It obviously didn't even begin to compare to Pokémon.

Battle of Gods was not released there when it was released in US and neighbouring countries because they probably knew it wasn't worth it when Dragon Ball Evolution wasn't half as successful as it was in other European countries. It didn't even make $1 million.

On amazon uk it comes out in only 2 days but it's still all the way down at #674 on amazon's best selling DVD's. It was as high up as #30 in US.


Battle of Z only sold 15,000 copies in UK. Ultimate Tenkaichi sold 39,000 copies. That's next to nothing.

And like I said DBZ Kai was put on some no name TV channel with a bunch of cartoons that finished years ago and they'll probably never release it on DVD or Blu Ray. If it was popular it would have been put on a worthwhile channel.

X-men Evo and Justice League didn't stay on the air for anywhere near as long as DBZ did. Those shows came and went while DBZ was literally ALWAYS on the lineup from its premiere in March 2000 until it getting taken off in summer 2005. A show just doesn't stay on the air for that amount of time without being popular.

As for the internet in 2004, DBZ had already reached its end by then and was staying on in reruns while Yu-Gi-Oh was a fad for awhile around that time. I remember kids at my primary school being interested in Yu-Gi-Oh cards for a couple of months, before everyone getting tired of it and moving on to other things. As for Pokemon (and I am also a fan of it and the games were still good), it was already past its peak by the early 2000s. The fact that DBZ ended in early 2003 but stayed on the air until mid 2005 in reruns alone, and still had long marathons should be enough of an indication that it was popular.

DB Evolution had already been doomed by word of mouth at that point.

I can also speak from personal experience of importing Orange Brick Season 4 on Ebay UK back before they actually got released here. I had ordered it from this seller who later contacted me, apologizing that it would be a bit late as their weekly stock had been short and that they had run out of that particular season. And this was a guy who dispatched only to the UK.

I know for a fact that all 3 Budokai games sold well enough to go Platinum, and that Shin Budokai on the PSP also sold very well.

As far as toys are concerned there used to be plenty in Toys-r-us and the Argos and Index catalogs. I still have quite a few of them around somewhere.

Manga have already expressed interest in releasing Kai on Blu-ray on more than one occasion. They asked on their twitter a few months back if people would rather have the Z Blu-rays or the Kai Blu-rays.

[VegettoEX]

Regarding those game sales, and to put some hard facts behind the anecdotal evidence being passed around...

Bandai Namco (well, just Bandai back then) was specifically calling out the European market for its sales figures during the Budokai era (so 2002-2004). In fact, in their fiscal 2005 report (which would have been in calendar year 2004), they noted for Europe:

In addition, in the video game software area, the “Dragon Ball Z 3″ contributed substantially to operating results.

You don't get something that "contributed substantially to operating results" without a massive fandom behind it to support said sales.

Europe was and remains huge for them for DBZ game sales; see the "Collector's Edition" of present games exclusively coming out in Europe for the end-result of that decade-old long-tail fandom.

(Now you can just as easily come back and say, "Well the UK isn't all of Europe!" but it's the UK that's leading the pack in all of this.)