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

[Kid Buu]

I don't know if that review covers it, but the DVD version of VIZ's Sailor Moon is encoded in 16x9, but the image is 4x3 with black bars on the sides, so when you watch it on a CRT 4x3 TV (like mine), it's like watching a Blu-ray; you get the bars on the top and bottom.

That's a pretty big blunder, and I've heard that their new Ranma release has the same problem. I really hope this gets brought up to Viz so I can buy those new Ranma sets (old ones are lousy these days, but it's better than watching a tiny screen), and maybe check out Sailor Moon some day (but considering they said they'd reprint the first Dragon Ball 3 in 1 with corrections and still haven't I have my doubts as to whether they actually would recall, and/or replace these DVDs).

Even FUNimation, with their tampering, were at least competent enough to encode them with the right aspect ratio (of course, the Orange Bricks were 16x9, but my point is they were actually encoded in 16x9), even in their days of their horrible settings with tons of macroblocking.

The Ranma Blurays are really good. That might be because Viz didn't remaster the Ranma Blurays though. Urusei Yatsura, Maison Ikkoku, and Ranma were all put on Bluray for Rumiko's 35th year anniversary.

[Metalwario64]

Yeah, I meant to clarify I was talking about the Ramna DVD having the same aspect ratio encoding issue, but it seems I forgot to do so.

[Kid Buu]

Ah okay. Actually I'm not sure if the DVD versions existed in Japan or if Viz just made it themselves.

[eledoremassis02]

I'd thought the Sailor Moon Blu-rays would at least be OK but they're actually terrible not only are they filled with ghosting the blurrness makes it worse too, sure it's good that they at least kept the original aspect ratio but other than that they fucked it up. Viz shouldn't have attempted to release this in "HD" because they're obviously not qualified to do so.

I'm guessing those who pre-ordered the Limited Edition either did so for the packaging 'cause if it's for the actual video quality they'll be sending these turds back to where they once came from.

In case any of you want to see how bad the Sailor Moon Blu-rays are here's lossless screenshots: - https://mega.co.nz/#!iMAmFbSJ!lDuBQFj_s ... nGoU5lXZeU

So disappointed with this release as I had hoped it'd be a pleasant experience to watch SM in HD than that shameful Crystal series. The DVD version will be based on the Blu-ray so it's not good either.

Thank you for sharing! Wow...these are even worse then I expected!

[Metalwario64]

So, on their Neon Alley blog, Viz stated "we will be omitting pillarboxing on the Sailor Moon DVD sets going forward."

That makes it sound like they won't recall or reissue the first set, despite that atrocious encoding error. It's crazy the way they've botched this release. I'm not even sure if they're aware of the Ranma DVDs having the same error (if they indeed do that is).

At least with FUNimation and Dragon Ball Z, it was a conscious, advertised decision to alter the aspect ratio (though I don't know if that's really much better, thinking about it ).

[eledoremassis02]

So, on their Neon Alley blog, Viz stated "we will be omitting pillarboxing on the Sailor Moon DVD sets going forward."

That makes it sound like they won't recall or reissue the first set, despite that atrocious encoding error. It's crazy the way they've botched this release. I'm not even sure if they're aware of the Ranma DVDs having the same error (if they indeed do that is).

At least with FUNimation and Dragon Ball Z, it was a conscious, advertised decision to alter the aspect ratio (though I don't know if that's really much better, thinking about it ).

Same with the DB 3-in-1's. "Late this year" they were planning on fixing the issue and no comment about a replacement program or anything.

[kei17]

The Blu-ray release of Galaxy Express 999 is also a shitty upscale because Toei junked the original film masters and now they have only access to SD digibetas. In the worst-case scenario, Toei might have also disposed of the original masters of the other series that have received upscaled Blu-ray releases such as Sailor Moon, Saint Seiya, and Slam Dunk. Maybe we are very fortunate to be able to complain about quality of HD remasters. Our shows certainly still have the film masters at least.

[eledoremassis02]

The Blu-ray release of Galaxy Express 999 is also a shitty upscale because Toei junked the original film masters and now they have only access to SD digibetas. In the worst-case scenario, Toei might have also disposed of the original masters of the other series that have received upscaled Blu-ray releases such as Sailor Moon, Saint Seiya, and Slam Dunk. Maybe we are very fortunate to be able to complain about quality of HD remasters. Our shows certainly still have the film masters at least.

Wernt the Sailor Moon DVDs the equivalent of the Dragon Boxes quality wise? Is it possible they cleaned up their laser disc source since those look pretty good.

[dbboxkaifan]

The best Sailor Moon home releases out there are the Japanese and the Italian DVDs so regardless of this being on Blu-ray it means jack shit since the quality's pretty bad. I'll give it that on Blu-ray the disc is more resistant due to its coating but as long as you're careful when using the DVDs they won't get scratched either way.

God forbid you make a decent release, Viz.

[Soul]

Pff, I think it's not right to bash Viz solely on their releases of the Dragon Ball manga and the Sailor Moon anime.
Let's not forget how great of a release the Full Color edition of the manga is; with Viz's anime releases, they've been getting better and better over the last 3 or 4 years; Ranma was just the icing on the cake.

As for Sailor Moon, aside from encoding and DVNR issues, it does seem like most of the issue DOES stem from Toei not knowing how to give their distributors proper master.

[MarcFBR]

Pff, I think it's not right to bash Viz solely on their releases of the Dragon Ball manga and the Sailor Moon anime.
Let's not forget how great of a release the Full Color edition of the manga is; with Viz's anime releases, they've been getting better and better over the last 3 or 4 years; Ranma was just the icing on the cake.

As for Sailor Moon, aside from encoding and DVNR issues, it does seem like most of the issue DOES stem from Toei not knowing how to give their distributors proper master.

Viz generally has a long history of odd issues.

But even ignoring the many video issues with Sailor Moon on Bluray and DVD...

The Ranma Blu-rays are good because they had to do nothing to do them minus a final encode pass (their old overlays weren't used, and ironically they had issues with the overlays even in the old days, a number of the overlays were overlaid on the video with the wrong aspect ratio, even going back to the VHS days. Which basically means Viz has had video and aspect ratio issues going back to the earliest stuff they've done...)

The new Ranma DVDs (based on the Blu-ray copies) on the other hand ARE screwed up. The fact it's 2014 and they are not only making mistakes that a video intern wouldn't make, but that no one has caught many of these issues (which repeat over quite a few releases) until over half a year of being told (and still attempting to defend the mistake on a blog) suggests a heavy level of just not understanding what they are doing, which makes every disk they do suspect. This is part of what brought down Bandai Entertainment. Bandai had a very long haul with disks that would not play correctly, which made people stay away from their releases until they'd get confirmation the disks would work (and in fact had their disks ejected from Best Buy for an extended period due to the amount of returns.)

Something is going on at Viz, because while they do have a long history of odd video issues, these are far worse issues than small odd issues, they suggest people who actually don't know how to do their actual jobs (much of Viz's video work seems to be done out of house, so saying 'Viz' is shorthand for the people Viz has hired to do the work.)

[Attitudefan]

To be fair, the DBZ DVDs had those ghosting problems too, and was especially prevalent on the first strike movie box set release with the first 3 DBZ movies released in 2005.

It's possible that whatever FUNi did with those films back in 2005 is what is happening to the Sailor Moon release. It could be that they are not sourcing film masters but beta tapes.

[MarcFBR]

To be fair, the DBZ DVDs had those ghosting problems too, and was especially prevalent on the first strike movie box set release with the first 3 DBZ movies released in 2005.

It's possible that whatever FUNi did with those films back in 2005 is what is happening to the Sailor Moon release. It could be that they are not sourcing film masters but beta tapes.

That isn't quite the issue. Simply having tapes doesn't guarantee ghosting (and Funi used to have serious video issues, but that all went away when they replaced a video guy.

The issue is Viz has been told about issues, and not only says problems don't exist, but then has thrown up things that doesn't make sense, and at times doesn't match up with other things they've said, or even with reality.

And no one said they were sourcing from film. From day one they've claimed their source is the R2 DVD masters.

Comparing DVDs from one company from a decade ago to major mistakes on video work done on Blu-rays and DVDs now don't quite equate (moreso when you consider things like the pillarboxing/flag issue on the DVDs, which not only has been showing up on Viz DVDs for over half a year, they've been told about it constantly, and it's a mistake an intern wouldn't make... so not only have they been told about it, and still missed it, in a recent blog post they actually tried to explain it was better that way and then quickly went 'but we won't do it for future disks'.)

Everything about the video on this release is fucked. For all the issues the DBZ BDs have, those were on purpose and at least had a stated goal, even if it was a terrible idea.

http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/99793

The mouseover image on that one is taken from the Italian DVDs scaled up with a basic resizing filter, and are sourced from the same source Viz claims they are using.

That's not making a mistake, or making a poor choice in regards to how the show should look. That's not having any idea what you are doing, at all. I generally try and cut anime companies and their employees a lot of slack because it's people who do a job they generally really care about, but that screenshot there shows that whoever worked on the video for this release, probably shouldn't be working in video, or at the very least, needs to relearn the basics.

And the best part of all this... they left the clean OP in the credits alone, and it looks fine, so to some degree 'they got bad masters' isn't super likely.

And I'll go ahead and say this is the worst video work I have ever seen. And I own both the original Highlander DVD, and the Season 1 Blu-ray for Highlander the Series, both of which are legendary for their terrible-ness.

[DB_Fan1991]

While the Sailor Moon Blu-Ray is pretty bad I still think DBZ is a lot worse just because it was cropped. I also say it's not as bad as the hideous transfer that The Sword In The Stone got last year.

[MarcFBR]

While the Sailor Moon Blu-Ray is pretty bad I still think DBZ is a lot worse just because it was cropped. I also say it's not as bad as the hideous transfer that The Sword In The Stone got last year.

I can't stress this enough.

In my wide collection are some of the worst disks ever released.

The DBZ Blu-rays aren't nearly as bad as the Sailor Moon release.

And I legitimately believe the Sailor Moon release may be the worst remaster/upscale/whatever you want to call it, of a show ever done.

I rank it above legendarily bad/weird disks like the original Highlander movie DVD, Highlander Season 1 on Blu-ray, the ADV Sailor Moon disks, that one episode of Robotech from the original DVDs that is basically unwatchable, the Rhino Transformers DVDs where they used the wrong video footage and added new sound effects and claimed they were always there since the 80s, and I could go on.

The thing about the DBZ release- cropping, over saturated picture, other issues, it came out the way they wanted.

All of this is offset by just how horrible the Sailor Moon disks are. And for Viz to not only charge a horrible price, but to actually be talking about how proud of the work they done to make it look accurate, amazing, etc.

So let me be clear, this isn't hyperbole, or me being extreme for emphasis. I literally mean this and am having issues thinking of anything that comes close (although I'm sure there must be something):

Viz's Sailor Moon may be the worst anime release of all time as far as video quality goes.

And for added emphasis, will link this again:

http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/99793
The Viz Blu-ray compared to a quicky upscale done of the Italian DVDs, which are based on the same masters Viz claims to be using.

[DB_Fan1991]

My question to you however is this, is it as bad as The Sword In The Stone's ghastly transfer?

[MarcFBR]

My question to you however is this, is it as bad as The Sword In The Stone's ghastly transfer?

Sword in the Stone was a bottom of the barrel transfer.

I'd argue this is the gunk that had previously leaked out of the barrel and is sticking the barrel to the floor.

Sword in the Stone is no doubt in the stack of 'oh man, this is one of the most terrible jobs ever' and one of the more notable ones.

Even just on a pure video ratio, Moon is worse than Sword, but Moon ends up having other worse points that aren't obvious for the time being. Sword was an MSRP of $20 I believe, so worse case scenario, you spend $20, it's terrible, and you can move on, sad that it's not getting a proper release (and on day 1 I'd guess it was easily findable for 15 or less.)

Sailor Moon on BD, ignoring the high MSRP (80,) I didn't see that drop below $50 on release date. There is going to be about TEN of those. So if Sailor Moon is something that means something to you, and it's something you have to own... that's gonna end up being $500 (I'd hope the movies don't end up screwed up, but just talking about the show for now.)

Even just on video though, I honestly believe Moon is worse, and may be the worst Blu-ray I've ever seen. And sitting on my shelf is the horribly upscaled from videotape to 720p video Blu-ray release of Highlander Season 1, a set that anyone who knows me knows I nearly went insane when I got that and dug through it.

But, to swing it back to DBZ, and since I'd guess the Sword in the Stone thing is personal for you, I'd rank them like this, in order of best to worst:

DBZ Season BDs, Sword in the Stone 50th BD, Sailor Moon BD

Of course, in the case of DBZ and Sword it can feel slightly more rage inducing at times because there have been better quality releases in HD that either didn't finish (DBZ) or you have to get it in specific formats from specific places (Sword) and some people are trying to be a bit more forgiving of Sailor Moon based on the belief that chances are it will never be done in HD properly (which is what it is, but a proper upscale of the 2009 masters, as seen in the link I've posted a few times, can look quite good.)

Plus, honestly, I can forgive the DBZ release moreso than I can Stone and Moon, because regardless of any argument, Funi did try better looking DBZ BDs and they didn't sell (regardless of the reason) and at the end of the day, a good chunk of DBZs audience in the USA wants the show that way, regardless of if their opinion is wrong or not. Sword and Moon just look like crap. Sword already had a decent HD master ready to go, and Moon could have been upscaled very basically from the last set of Japanese DVDs and could have looked great.

Edit- Since I keep bringing up Highlander Season 1 on BD, I found 2 lossless caps I made when it came out.

http://db-destiny.net/highlander-s1.png
http://db-destiny.net/highlandercap2.png

[coola]

While i understand, that Toei is difficult company to work with ( http://tfwiki.net/wiki/Toei ) Viz shouldn't lied about quality of Japanese DVD http://screenshotcomparison.com/compari ... /picture:1 Now I'm honestly afraid aboud Shout Factory Zyuranger, i really would love to own Super Sentai legally, instead of fansubs, but, if fansubs have better quality than legal product (Like with Sailor Moon) then something is wrong here.

[dbboxkaifan]

if fansubs have better quality than legal product (Like with Sailor Moon) then something is wrong here.

The Italian and Japanese DVDs are better than whatever illegal fansub release or Viz's crappy Blu-ray/DVD 'remaster' .

[DB_Fan1991]

My question to you however is this, is it as bad as The Sword In The Stone's ghastly transfer?

Sword in the Stone was a bottom of the barrel transfer.

I'd argue this is the gunk that had previously leaked out of the barrel and is sticking the barrel to the floor.

Sword in the Stone is no doubt in the stack of 'oh man, this is one of the most terrible jobs ever' and one of the more notable ones.

Even just on a pure video ratio, Moon is worse than Sword, but Moon ends up having other worse points that aren't obvious for the time being. Sword was an MSRP of $20 I believe, so worse case scenario, you spend $20, it's terrible, and you can move on, sad that it's not getting a proper release (and on day 1 I'd guess it was easily findable for 15 or less.)

Sailor Moon on BD, ignoring the high MSRP (80,) I didn't see that drop below $50 on release date. There is going to be about TEN of those. So if Sailor Moon is something that means something to you, and it's something you have to own... that's gonna end up being $500 (I'd hope the movies don't end up screwed up, but just talking about the show for now.)

Even just on video though, I honestly believe Moon is worse, and may be the worst Blu-ray I've ever seen. And sitting on my shelf is the horribly upscaled from videotape to 720p video Blu-ray release of Highlander Season 1, a set that anyone who knows me knows I nearly went insane when I got that and dug through it.

But, to swing it back to DBZ, and since I'd guess the Sword in the Stone thing is personal for you, I'd rank them like this, in order of best to worst:

DBZ Season BDs, Sword in the Stone 50th BD, Sailor Moon BD

Of course, in the case of DBZ and Sword it can feel slightly more rage inducing at times because there have been better quality releases in HD that either didn't finish (DBZ) or you have to get it in specific formats from specific places (Sword) and some people are trying to be a bit more forgiving of Sailor Moon based on the belief that chances are it will never be done in HD properly (which is what it is, but a proper upscale of the 2009 masters, as seen in the link I've posted a few times, can look quite good.)

Plus, honestly, I can forgive the DBZ release moreso than I can Stone and Moon, because regardless of any argument, Funi did try better looking DBZ BDs and they didn't sell (regardless of the reason) and at the end of the day, a good chunk of DBZs audience in the USA wants the show that way, regardless of if their opinion is wrong or not. Sword and Moon just look like crap. Sword already had a decent HD master ready to go, and Moon could have been upscaled very basically from the last set of Japanese DVDs and could have looked great.

Edit- Since I keep bringing up Highlander Season 1 on BD, I found 2 lossless caps I made when it came out.

http://db-destiny.net/highlander-s1.png
http://db-destiny.net/highlandercap2.png

Yikes, Highlander S1 does look bad, but still I think Sailor Moon looks a lot better than that heck even DBZ looks better than that does. I have my perfect HD release of DBZ that being Kai then again I am not a videophile like you seem to be (correct me if I'm wrong). I'm just glad that I finally can own a legal release of Sailor Moon. The Japanese audio on it sounds great which already makes it better than ADV's crap release. I may be the only one who actually doesn't mind the Sailor Moon release.