Post your Battle of Gods Theatre Experience

[Naruto6583]

DC tried that with Mask of the Phantasm years ago but it didn't make money so thats why all dc's animated movies are straight to dvd

It was supposed to be a DTV, but WB changed its mind with little notice and didn't give it much advertising before its wide release. I believe it had a wider release than Battle of Gods.

Huh I did not know that

[fps_anth]

Just got back from the theatre. Totally sold out, so I was happy to see that. Most of the audience seemed older, early to mid 20s.

The sound in my theatre was AWFUL, unfortunately. It was really like watching the movie on my laptop or something. Not good at all.

Nevertheless, it was fun watching the movie in the theater. I actually liked the dub, even. Birus' voice actor was great. Audience was laughing a lot. Loudest reaction came at Vegeta's bingo song, of course.

It seems like the movie has been pretty successful at the box office, especially considering it's a limited release. Hopefully that means we won't have to wait as long to see the next DBZ movie in theaters.

[Gaffer Tape]

Just got back from seeing it again! Damn, though. I don't know why I keep buying tickets in advance for this, though. For the second time in a row, I just waltzed right in, and no one checked me at all. All the people who told me that the name "Oracle Fish" is used in the dub were right. It was after their conversation, though, and the Oracle Fish doesn't look that much like a traditional fish, so I wouldn't have been surprised if people who didn't know the movie going in even knew it was in reference to the same character. Not much to say I haven't said already, although I got a few comments on my shirt this time, which I didn't get before. The audience wasn't quite as into it as my previous audience had been, but they were still pretty good, and Vegeta's BINGO song definitely got the best reaction, with Pilaf thinking Trunks said he was his girlfriend a close second. That line always gets such a big reaction that they always miss Shuu saying the same thing. Since we're on the subject, though, didn't FUNimation start using the name Shuu a long time ago? Why are they back to Shao now?

I'm, sadly, mostly a solitary DB fan. It's not something I can talk about with people I know. That's not because it embarrasses me or because I can't find anybody. I know plenty of DB fans. It's just with every one of them I meet it's like we're talking a different language, and it's just not any fun. It's not meant to insult anybody, but it's always the same type of dub fans who obsess over battle powers and kewl rock guitars and bitchin' fights and spreading completely inaccurate rumors that I have to dispel. We might as well be fans of different things. And none of my close friends are big DB fans. So it's an odd feeling sharing in this movie with a great, packed audience and still feeling very much alone. However, there were two girls sitting behind me, and, when the credits were rolling, I started listening to them talking, and they actually sounded like they knew what they were talking about. They apparently hadn't seen the movie before since they were asking each other if there was anything after the credits, but they were swapping information like the fact that Super Saiyan exists so Toriyama wouldn't have to ink Goku's hair, and that there's a new movie coming out next year but without all the baseless rumors added in. Part of me wanted to strike up a conversation, but I ultimately didn't really have a natural opening, and, like I said, most of my experiences with Dragon Ball people outside of this forum are alienating, so I ultimately didn't.

[The Doc]

I saw it back on the 6th, and despite already owning the HK BD and having seen the movie nine times before, it was still a blast to see once again on the big screen.

My crowd was fine, which was a relief to have since I had some friends see it opening day, and returned with tales of some unfavorable crowds at their shows. However, this was still the first available showing in my immediate area. I got to the location about an hour ahead of time, but the snack line in itself took about 20 minutes (anecdote: the guy behind me was pissed because the tickets said "Dragon Ball" and not "Battle of Gods" because he didn't want the ticket taker to think he was there for Dragon Ball Evolution), so I didn't actually enter the theater it was showing in until about a little more than a half an hour ahead of time, and it was already about 60-70% full. I tried sitting next to someone who looked like they wouldn't be obnoxious or screw around during the show. Luckily the dude was never loud or said anything dumb, same goes for the friend he was with, aside from the part where his friend said "Have you heard about Dragon Ball Xenoverse? It's the new DBZ game that they're going to use to introduce the villain for the new movie next year, like Battle of Z did! I can't wait to see who it will be!" The seat on the other side of me was being saved for someone's boyfriend, who was worrying me a bit because of how endlessly chatty he was being when he got back. As soon as the movie started, and the 20th Century Fox logo came up he started going "ahah yeah! Fox! SCREW YOU FOX! You know Fox is the reason this movie took so long to be licensed, they held onto this movie for so long, Fox is the devil, blah blah blah" I had my finger on the shut up button ready to go, but thankfully he zipped it as soon as the Kai's dialog started. The dude only made like three or four other comments throughout the movie, which were thankfully few and far enough between. Like as soon as Vegeta's BINGO scene started he put his head in hands and exclaimed "GOD" (thankfully most of the rest of the crowd seemed to be laughing and into it), and during the Goku vs Beerus fight he exclaimed "CGI WHAT THE FUDGE". Thankfully that was the extent of it, and I can't recall a single negative reaction the audience had to anything else.

The dub turned out really good! The first trailer gave me some doubts but most of them were cleared up when I actually saw the finished and final product. I'm gonna throw my minority opinion out there, and say I actually like King Kai's voice, I think Sean nailed it once again. Many of his lines got big laughs from the audience, especially the "I HATE YOU GOKU" when he was doing Kamehameha training. Beerus was one voice I felt very doubtful about after the first trailer, but after seeing the full film now, I think Jason aced it. I'm still not 100% in love with the new Bulma, but a majority of her lines came out good here. I was SO happy to hear the original Pilaf and Shu voices back in this brand new production. I grew up watching original Dragon Ball long before I touched any of Z, so those voices are special to me, and I was so happy to hear them once again on point.I didn't feel much of a reaction from the audience when those guys first appeared, but many of their lines got lots of laughs, they definitely won everyone over. Another minority opinion- I don't like the way Laura did Trunks here, without the rasp here, he just sounded like Tommy Pickles to me. I liked a lot of the actual dialog written for Trunks, but the way his voice was done here was one of the very few things I didn't really enjoy. I thought Goten sounded great, though. Kara held it down, and also really brought out the classic Gotenks. I also wasn't a fan of the way Sabat did Shenron this time around, I thought the voice didn't sound as nearly omnipresent as the original stuff, thus making it sound way less cooler. Thankfully, after all the clips and trailers, I was used to it by the time I went to see the movie. I thoroughly enjoyed the way he did Vegeta and Piccolo, though.

I liked most of the line changes. Many of them were either more comical, or fit the context of things a little better. For example, King Kai trying to talk to Goku about root beers, and Gohan wanting to play along with the hostage game. There was a very few couple of lines I didn't like the way they were done, for example the 26 minutes joke felt more like a fourth wall reference to anime, than something Beerus was actually interested in doing during his trip to King Kai's, which to me is way funnier. Also the 25 feet joke, I thought it was funnier when Pilaf was just bemused that Trunks could fly. That part was always like "haha wow this guy is REALLY late to the game" vs "he flew such a short distance, how absurd!!" I think aside from those two, and maybe one other, I ate up all of the other changes and translations done.

I was surprised how many people left as soon as the end credits started. About two thirds of the theater started shuffling out as soon as Head-Cha-La started up. I love the end credit sequence to death so I stuck around for it. I heard nothing but praise for it on my way out, except for one guy who said Funimation never puts enough bass in their audio mixs, and this wasn't an exception.

By no means a perfect night, but all in all still a really good, and fulfilling night. Can't wait to see how Funimation handles the Blu-ray release.

[ConfusedPhantom]

Seeing Dragon Ball in theaters was great. The audience was pretty awesome. No meme shouting in sight. XD They all laughed at the right moments. It almost really enhanced the experience for me. And, it amazes me how well this movie held up even after seeing multiple times. I still enjoy it a lot!

As for the dub, I was really impressed! Sean Schemmel really nailed Son this time. It was a lot more natural, his deliveries for the most part are great and he even kinda felt like he channeled Nozawa this time. I also really liked Sabat's Vegeta, too. It's still a little forced, but his performance was pretty fantastic here. Not to mention, GOTEN AND TRUNKS. By Kami, they both sound like kids now! That's AWESOME. D: The script is very well adapted too, all the added stuff still worked with the movie. But, the ones that I don't like are Kaio and Buu. Hearing those voices out of that surround sound system was extremely grating. Other than that...I personally think this is FUNi's best dub of Dragon Ball yet. They really did a good job.

[Valerius Dover]

Since we're on the subject, though, didn't FUNimation start using the name Shuu a long time ago? Why are they back to Shao now?

Wait, what? They call him Shao in this movie? They haven't used that name since the 1995 dub. He was always Shu in the Funi dub. That's a really odd change. They were consistent before, why change things now?

[Metalwario64]

I think I forgot to mention that someone in front of me was watching the over 9000 scene on his phone, and he tried to turn it up as loud as it would go, but you could just barely hear it still.

Also, a Blu-ray menu also showed up before the film at my theater, and everyone started laughing and clapping. Also saw lots of Goku shirts, and on the way out I heard someone say "I think Goku's turning evil in the next one".

Any hint about the extended cut on the menu, also what was the menu like? So a November release is imminent then, though I hope not, since I want the UK to have it first we hardly ever have anything first!

Not for the movie, it was a menu that had some selections and was on "Play Movie".

Actually, I think it was the PS3 menu now that I've searched for it. I didn't know because I don't have one.

[Kunzait_83]

I originally had no intention of catching this theatrically: but a very close friend got a too-good-to-pass-up job opportunity way far out of state and is moving away soon. He was part of a close group of friends of mine and we'd all been anime fans together since a very, very long time ago. We all wanted to hang out together one last time before he left. We ended up going to the movies together and there wasn't anything else playing we were interested in; but Dragon Ball was something we all loved way back when and this just happened to be the night it was showing. So even though not a single one among us was ever a dub fan (and about half of us had already seen Battle of Gods in Japanese already months ago), it felt like a fitting enough choice given the circumstances.

We were all shocked at how goddamn packed the theater was. Especially for a one night showing for something that's this relatively niche ("relatively" being the operative word here). A few people were even in cosplay, with one guy having gone to the trouble of doing up his hair SSJ style. It was so crowded we could only sit way, way down in the front-most “neck breaker” row. Between the awkward seating and dub-Kaio's obnoxious gurgle blaring directly into my ear canal at point blank range, it wasn't exactly the most ideal way to see the movie.

As far as the movie itself goes, this was maybe my third time or so seeing it. I saw it in Japanese awhile ago at least twice. The best part is the ending, which is in some ways arguably a better ending for Goku as a character than the manga was. My biggest problem though is that it leans maybe a bit too much on the comedy aspect of the series. Dragon Ball, like most wuxia of its era, was always at its best when it walked a very fine, tightrope balance whiplashing to and fro between demented, goofy slapstick, and grimly serious melodrama.

Everyone here by now long well knows that the original series was never as “hardcore xtreme dood” as the dub and dub fandom made it out to be, but by the same token (and this has grown into a colossally HUGE sticking point for me with this series' fandom over the years) it was also never quite as 100% whimsically fluffy as later post-dub fans of the Japanese version (particularly a lot of folks here) have spent the better part of the last decade+ trying to convince people. The truth has always lay somewhere dead-center in between those two equally wrongheaded extremes.

Battle of Gods is, clearly, way, way, WAY infinitely better than the two preceding bits of brand new post-1997 Dragon Ball animation (the Jump special and, ugh, Episode of Bardock) and for the most part I like it okay enough, but it sways its pendulum a bit too far towards the series' sillier aspects for its own good. If one were to lump it in with the original 13 DBZ movies and call it DBZ movie 14 (as I'm more or less almost tempted to do, despite the almost 20 year time gulf), I'd place it as upper-middle-ish tier among those. Far, far better of course than the bottom rung stuff like movie 11, but still nowhere near the mountain peaks of awesome that is something like movie 1.

At its worst, parts of it sorta reminded me vaguely of the first half of movie 10: too much use of Goten and Trunks shenanigans as a crutch to pad things out (a lot of that Pilaf, Shu, and Mai stuff with Goten and Trunks felt shoehorned in and could've stood to be cut down a bunch). Also Beerus' freaking out over the pudding felt weirdly out of character for how he was being portrayed up to that point (super relaxed and unflappable). It was definitely a very “classically old school” Dragon Ball bit: having an all powerful god or god-like character throw a ridiculous tantrum over something stupidly childish and petty. But it didn't seem right here in this particular case. It felt instead like Toriyama and/or the other writers forgot for a moment that they were writing a brand new villain and momentarily slipped into writing Beerus as if he were Fat Majin Boo for a brief spell.

At its best though, it felt like some of the best parts of the Boo era crammed into about an hour, which was really nice. Pudding non-sequitur aside, Beerus is a pretty cool villain and a very nice addition to the DBZ movie rogues gallery. What can I say, I've always from day one had a huge, huge soft spot for Dragon Ball's wonky and odd pantheon of deities, and Beerus and Whis are no exceptions. The way Beerus moves around in general is a lot of fun (and suits his personality and general demeanor) and makes him feel really visually unique among DB/Z villains, even beyond his Egyptian-themed design. Which also makes his fights that much cooler as well. Hell, I'd say the majority of his character IS pretty much all conveyed simply in how he moves: like a slinky, vain Siamese cat. It'd be awfully nice if SOMEBODY would finally make an actually halfway non-shitty DBZ fighting game once again, so he can be playable in it (I doubt he'll probably make it into that amazing looking Hyper DBZ fan game sadly, but who knows?). I'd have also really liked to have seen Whis fight at least a little bit honestly, but what can ya do?

And I can't say enough good things about what the ending does for Goku's character and how perfectly it hits on Dragon Ball's core themes. As legitimately interesting as the notion of someone like Goku becoming a teacher and finally passing along his skills to a student is, Goku has always felt a lot more like an eternal student: someone who will never stop learning or wanting to learn more (er... about martial arts, obviously: he's not exactly a Rhodes scholar otherwise). As much as some people seemed to want to see him grow into a sensei/sifu role and as much as the manga and anime toyed with the idea, its never seemed to fit him particularly well honestly. Piccolo, definitely. Hell I could even see Tenshinhan and Kuririn ending up down that road pretty easily. Goku? Nah. Too much of a wild, restless spirit.

But yeah, despite my misgivings and general iffiness on its tone, there's no getting around the fact that BoG definitely would've made for a far, far, faaaar better and more rousing initial “revival” of Dragon Ball in animated form than the Jump special, which felt like a lost, unaired Boo saga filler episode (and not an especially great one at that). And the less said about Episode of Bardock, the better (the single worst thing in the DB/Z anime canon easily: worse than anything in GT even). After two whiffs, third time's the charm I suppose.

Oh yeah, the dub. Not that I relish even talking about it at all at this point, but it WAS part of my “theatrical experience” with this thing, so I guess I gotta say *something* or other about it.

I remember once upon a time when people would defend the dub as “having gotten a lot better as it went on”, folks like me would counter that it was more like FUNimation trying to “polish a turd”. Well they've kept on polishing it for a good long while all these years to a point now where I'd say its like they took that same turd and ran it through one of those “purifier” devices, like the ones that allow people to drink their own urine and such.

There's still the ghostly vestiges of the awful, awful thing it was that can never fully go away without starting over from scratch (Kaio being the most overbearingly obvious example) but for the most part this was at least semi-watchable; something I could never say for the rest of the dub at any point prior (leaving Kai aside). There's still some pretty cringey moments (again: Kaio), but they're kept to a record minimum here. And I even genuinely really liked Beerus and Whis' voices (Whis especially: he was pretty fun in English).

Sabat's still Sabat. i.e. grating and lame. Schemmel's Goku has come a long, long way: he sounds legitimately passable and very occasionally/miraculously even somewhat fitting in the role whenever he talks normally now: but the elephant in the room main problem with him remains that he still sounds forced and awkward whenever it comes time for him to do fight scenes. It's nowhere near as rock bottom horrendously unlistenable and embarrassing here as its been throughout the main anime stuff from back in the day, but as much as his voice has evolved over time, the sad fact is he just cannot do Kung Fu noises to save his life. And this is a Kung Fu anime in which he's the main character that spends gigantic heaps of screentime doing the lion's share of the fighting, soooooo...

Anywho, as far as theatrical experiences go it wasn't exactly the best circumstances, but my friends and I all got to watch an anime together one last time before one of us parts ways from us for who knows how long. Was certainly worth it I'd say.

Fitting I suppose that I end off a post on this place of all places on a note about friendship.

[Hellspawn28]

It's quite a shame that a movie like this is not getting a wider release. That seems to be par for the course for anime movies in general, but this is Dragon Ball. I guess we're lucky if you consider how Marvel and DC animated movies never really hit theaters either...and those franchises are popular with all age groups.

More theaters would be nice, but it's a Dragon Ball animated movie. The target audience is the fans of the series. We do have a lot of fans in America, both casual and hardcore but not enough to help support 3,000+ plus screens all over the country. If the movie is not popular enough to support those many screenings then lose the distributors a ton of money. Niche movies like Battle of Gods work well on one time week event films because it can get all of the fans together to go see it. If it had a bigger release then the movie would drop down completely on week two because the main target audience already seen it. Movies based on niche franchises rarely get big releases. The only example I can think of was Godzilla 2000 back in 2000, but that happen because Sony wanted to hold on the Godzilla franchise longer before their rights expire.

[Kamiccolo9]

It's quite a shame that a movie like this is not getting a wider release. That seems to be par for the course for anime movies in general, but this is Dragon Ball. I guess we're lucky if you consider how Marvel and DC animated movies never really hit theaters either...and those franchises are popular with all age groups.

More theaters would be nice, but it's a Dragon Ball animated movie. The target audience is the fans of the series. We do have a lot of fans in America, both casual and hardcore but not enough to help support 3,000+ plus screens all over the country. If the movie is not popular enough to support those many screenings then lose the distributors a ton of money. Niche movies like Battle of Gods work well on one time week event films because it can get all of the fans together to go see it. If it had a bigger release then the movie would drop down completely on week two because the main target audience already seen it. Movies based on niche franchises rarely get big releases. The only example I can think of was Godzilla 2000 back in 2000, but that happen because Sony wanted to hold on the Godzilla franchise longer before their rights expire.

Guardians of the Galaxy was an extremely niche title, and it got a huge release. And it was probably Marvel/Disney's biggest risk they've taken so far with the Marvel Cinematic Universe.


I should know, I've been trying to get people into the comic for years, only to be told by pretty much everyone that they would read the "real" Avengers instead of "space Avengers."

[JEFFMAN219]

Just came back from watching the movie a couple of hours ago and man I was surprised to see that the theater was so packed. Overall I enjoyed my experience with the movie and the dub was so well done it made me enjoy watching the movie even more then I did when I watched the subbed version.

[foxfang4]

Saw it in Toronto. It was jam packed. One of the best cinematic experiences I can remember. I felt as though most of the cinema had never seen the Japanese original. But people were howling at every joke. At the end, everyone applauded and cheered as the credits rolled.

The voice acting was tremendous by the way. Everyone was on their "A" game.

[funrush]

I can concur that Funimation supplied theaters with Blurays, as audio got messed up in the screening I was at, and everyone watched them turn on the Bluray player on screen after they checked connections and fixed the problem. So on the whole thing that seems common about screenings starting with problems, I'm assuming the theater people haven't used the Blu Ray player enough (or at all) to get all the kinks worked out.

My experience was very new and interesting for me, it felt a lot different than going to see most movies. Even just seeing people walk in with their Goku or Capsule Corp shirts. There was this sense of underlying unity I didn't normally feel with films. Like we were all here because we were fans of the same thing and all laughed together at the funny parts. I would do it again multiple times and I hope we get the next movie in 2016. Thoughts on the film itself, I hadn't watched the film already so I went in mostly fresh, all I knew was Goku had a Super Saiyan God form with red hair and he fought this cat thing named Beerus. Upon walking into the theater early to get the best seats and waiting a while, we get a screen saying no signal, the audience simultaneously groans. They get it on but the audio is very skippy, every other half second it would cut out. The audience starts complaining and they shut it off at the very first shot of Supreme Kai's face. Everyone begins to applaud. I comment on how I wish the movie was a little shorter, as the people behind me laugh. They reset the Blu-ray player or projector, whichever one and the movie begins with fixed audio but a shrunk aspect ratio with giant white bars at the top and bottom. Second reset, the film is working. Everyone was very happy with the movie I think, lots of laughter to the point where I couldn't hear some lines after punchlines due to roaring laughter. The car driving scene got some laughs, and the pudding scene, as did the Bingo scene of course. But I think the joke the audience reacted to best was the 26 minutes thing. In fact the audience laughed quite a lot, it'd be a long list. Just goes to show how much my viewing session really enjoyed Dragon Ball. The Super Saiyan God mechanic was interesting and implemented in a new original way besides ye ol "I trained so much my hair grew 4 feet". I don't know how the ending felt, because like they were grateful to Beerus for not killing them all, but he still is probably a villain out to destroy other worlds when he gets pissed off??? I feel kind of wrong for liking him at the end. I guess you're supposed to feel more of a "haha that rascal" type of thing. Dub was fantastic, made a great movie even greater. After the huge applause at the credit roll my friends and I stayed the whole time to even watch the manga panels appear on screen. Overall it was a highly positive experience, fantastic movie, and it made my day.

[ShaneisMC]

Ended up seeing it 3 out of the 4 times it was shown in Albany Georgia. Only wasnt able to catch the showing on thursday. Was incredibly proud to see it sold out every time. You could genuinely feel a sense of connection to everyone in the crowd, it was like no one was a stranger. Everybody was super pumped, i've never been a part of a movie crowd like that before. Wednesday night in particular, after the movie was over literally everybody in the theater just completely exploded in cheers and applause. Can't wait for confirmation of release date for blurays. I'm gonna wear that thing out :p

[rs_chaosmaster]

I wonder what funimation would consider as a successful box office for this limited event in just a four day event it will be #11 on the all time anime list for US Domestic Gross as long as it gets $200,000 for Today. Princess Mononoke Currently holds that 11th spot but BOG is so close to taking it and Mononoke was in theaters for 8 weeks so I would think funimation would be pretty satisfied with these results??

[Tanooki Kuribo]

so I would think funimation would be pretty satisfied with these results??

I would imagine so. I honestly don't think anyone thought it would do as well as it did. It probably shocked a lot of people by grossing a little over 2 million, and maybe gave FUNimation (and perhaps to a lesser extent, FOX) something to consider for future DBZ films...?

[ConfusedPhantom]

I think I forgot to mention that someone in front of me was watching the over 9000 scene on his phone, and he tried to turn it up as loud as it would go, but you could just barely hear it still.

Mwahahaha. Even the theater speakers are against it! Justice has been served.

[Attitudefan]

They were only playing on the Wednesday and this Saturday. So, I went today, Saturday! I tried to get my friends to come but they were all busy or bailed! I HAVE NOT SEEN ANY SPOILER EXCEPT FOR SSJ GOD AS I TRIED TO AVOID ALL SPOILERS AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE.

Anyways, I am almost late, with 10 minutes to spare just getting there, without purchasing a ticket. When I am buying the ticket, the vendor says someone bought one too many and gave it to me. I didn't have to pay for it and got in for free! That was awesome!

I then got to get a good seat despite the theatre nearly being sold out (much to my surprise, since something like Short Peace had only me, my friend, and a group of three people who saw it), I got a wonderful seat in the center without people sitting right next to me. I got to sit back, relax and enjoy!


I tried to avoid all spoilers (except that Goku became a SSJ God; couldn't avoid that). Thus, it was all a surprise for me. The whole film. The dub was great too with thrown in lines that surprised me a bit (but felt very organic) such as when Bulma mentions something about "your mother," or something along those lines.

Everyone was laughing and loving the throwbacks, including me.

However, I felt the end felt kind of weak. The whole film was well fleshed out and very funny (especially the Vegeta and Pilaf stuff!) up until the really lame holding hands ceremony to become a god. Man that was bad. Haha. The final fight left something to be desired. A lot of flash but not enough substance. I was thinking of the Tenkaichi Budokai fights and the fights in the Saiyan arc and Freeza arc, and this movie fell short a bit in that field (Dead Zone will still be the best DBZ movie in terms of fights).

The music was decent but forgettable (unlike Kikuchi where you will remember all the themes forever). The dub was really excellent!

I'll give it an 8/10 and my experience a 10/10!!!

Oh yeah, some guy dressed up as Goku with SSJ hair and all! Others were wearing DBZ shirts and other merch. It was awesome. Interestingly, it was filled with people mostly around my age, girls, guys, people from all walks of life. People kept coming in after the movie started. Such a jam packed house! It felt strange since it felt like everyone was catching DBZ on TV after school vibe to it with their inner fan exploding from their own aura. It was weird to be around people who are like you and me (like tons of people similar in the same room all cheering for what we love, DBZ!). I wish we got more anime movies here in Canada (and in Vancouver especially!).

There were like only two or three young children there where everyone else was 20-40 range. It was so cool! Best theatre experience ever. I missed the Madoka screenings, but I hear those were really similar too (with the fans cheering, laughing etc. and it being packed to the rafters).

[zain7197]

Had a great time seeing it at Carmike 12 in Snellville, GA! It was sold out and there was a great audience. The english dub was a lot funnier than the japanese in my opinion and everybody laughed a lot. Trunk's voice seems to have changed a little despite having the same voice actor. I really loved his original voice and this one kinda felt like a downgrade to me but was decent nonetheless. Overall it was awesome and i am really hoping the next movie gets an american theatrical release as well!

[DragonBalllKaiHD]

I originally had no intention of catching this theatrically: but a very close friend got a too-good-to-pass-up job opportunity way far out of state and is moving away soon. He was part of a close group of friends of mine and we'd all been anime fans together since a very, very long time ago. We all wanted to hang out together one last time before he left. We ended up going to the movies together and there wasn't anything else playing we were interested in; but Dragon Ball was something we all loved way back when and this just happened to be the night it was showing. So even though not a single one among us was ever a dub fan (and about half of us had already seen Battle of Gods in Japanese already months ago), it felt like a fitting enough choice given the circumstances.

We were all shocked at how goddamn packed the theater was. Especially for a one night showing for something that's this relatively niche ("relatively" being the operative word here). A few people were even in cosplay, with one guy having gone to the trouble of doing up his hair SSJ style. It was so crowded we could only sit way, way down in the front-most “neck breaker” row. Between the awkward seating and dub-Kaio's obnoxious gurgle blaring directly into my ear canal at point blank range, it wasn't exactly the most ideal way to see the movie.

As far as the movie itself goes, this was maybe my third time or so seeing it. I saw it in Japanese awhile ago at least twice. The best part is the ending, which is in some ways arguably a better ending for Goku as a character than the manga was. My biggest problem though is that it leans maybe a bit too much on the comedy aspect of the series. Dragon Ball, like most wuxia of its era, was always at its best when it walked a very fine, tightrope balance whiplashing to and fro between demented, goofy slapstick, and grimly serious melodrama.

Everyone here by now long well knows that the original series was never as “hardcore xtreme dood” as the dub and dub fandom made it out to be, but by the same token (and this has grown into a colossally HUGE sticking point for me with this series' fandom over the years) it was also never quite as 100% whimsically fluffy as later post-dub fans of the Japanese version (particularly a lot of folks here) have spent the better part of the last decade+ trying to convince people. The truth has always lay somewhere dead-center in between those two equally wrongheaded extremes.

Battle of Gods is, clearly, way, way, WAY infinitely better than the two preceding bits of brand new post-1997 Dragon Ball animation (the Jump special and, ugh, Episode of Bardock) and for the most part I like it okay enough, but it sways its pendulum a bit too far towards the series' sillier aspects for its own good. If one were to lump it in with the original 13 DBZ movies and call it DBZ movie 14 (as I'm more or less almost tempted to do, despite the almost 20 year time gulf), I'd place it as upper-middle-ish tier among those. Far, far better of course than the bottom rung stuff like movie 11, but still nowhere near the mountain peaks of awesome that is something like movie 1.

At its worst, parts of it sorta reminded me vaguely of the first half of movie 10: too much use of Goten and Trunks shenanigans as a crutch to pad things out (a lot of that Pilaf, Shu, and Mai stuff with Goten and Trunks felt shoehorned in and could've stood to be cut down a bunch). Also Beerus' freaking out over the pudding felt weirdly out of character for how he was being portrayed up to that point (super relaxed and unflappable). It was definitely a very “classically old school” Dragon Ball bit: having an all powerful god or god-like character throw a ridiculous tantrum over something stupidly childish and petty. But it didn't seem right here in this particular case. It felt instead like Toriyama and/or the other writers forgot for a moment that they were writing a brand new villain and momentarily slipped into writing Beerus as if he were Fat Majin Boo for a brief spell.

At its best though, it felt like some of the best parts of the Boo era crammed into about an hour, which was really nice. Pudding non-sequitur aside, Beerus is a pretty cool villain and a very nice addition to the DBZ movie rogues gallery. What can I say, I've always from day one had a huge, huge soft spot for Dragon Ball's wonky and odd pantheon of deities, and Beerus and Whis are no exceptions. The way Beerus moves around in general is a lot of fun (and suits his personality and general demeanor) and makes him feel really visually unique among DB/Z villains, even beyond his Egyptian-themed design. Which also makes his fights that much cooler as well. Hell, I'd say the majority of his character IS pretty much all conveyed simply in how he moves: like a slinky, vain Siamese cat. It'd be awfully nice if SOMEBODY would finally make an actually halfway non-shitty DBZ fighting game once again, so he can be playable in it (I doubt he'll probably make it into that amazing looking Hyper DBZ fan game sadly, but who knows?). I'd have also really liked to have seen Whis fight at least a little bit honestly, but what can ya do?

And I can't say enough good things about what the ending does for Goku's character and how perfectly it hits on Dragon Ball's core themes. As legitimately interesting as the notion of someone like Goku becoming a teacher and finally passing along his skills to a student is, Goku has always felt a lot more like an eternal student: someone who will never stop learning or wanting to learn more (er... about martial arts, obviously: he's not exactly a Rhodes scholar otherwise). As much as some people seemed to want to see him grow into a sensei/sifu role and as much as the manga and anime toyed with the idea, its never seemed to fit him particularly well honestly. Piccolo, definitely. Hell I could even see Tenshinhan and Kuririn ending up down that road pretty easily. Goku? Nah. Too much of a wild, restless spirit.

But yeah, despite my misgivings and general iffiness on its tone, there's no getting around the fact that BoG definitely would've made for a far, far, faaaar better and more rousing initial “revival” of Dragon Ball in animated form than the Jump special, which felt like a lost, unaired Boo saga filler episode (and not an especially great one at that). And the less said about Episode of Bardock, the better (the single worst thing in the DB/Z anime canon easily: worse than anything in GT even). After two whiffs, third time's the charm I suppose.

Oh yeah, the dub. Not that I relish even talking about it at all at this point, but it WAS part of my “theatrical experience” with this thing, so I guess I gotta say *something* or other about it.

I remember once upon a time when people would defend the dub as “having gotten a lot better as it went on”, folks like me would counter that it was more like FUNimation trying to “polish a turd”. Well they've kept on polishing it for a good long while all these years to a point now where I'd say its like they took that same turd and ran it through one of those “purifier” devices, like the ones that allow people to drink their own urine and such.

There's still the ghostly vestiges of the awful, awful thing it was that can never fully go away without starting over from scratch (Kaio being the most overbearingly obvious example) but for the most part this was at least semi-watchable; something I could never say for the rest of the dub at any point prior (leaving Kai aside). There's still some pretty cringey moments (again: Kaio), but they're kept to a record minimum here. And I even genuinely really liked Beerus and Whis' voices (Whis especially: he was pretty fun in English).

Sabat's still Sabat. i.e. grating and lame. Schemmel's Goku has come a long, long way: he sounds legitimately passable and very occasionally/miraculously even somewhat fitting in the role whenever he talks normally now: but the elephant in the room main problem with him remains that he still sounds forced and awkward whenever it comes time for him to do fight scenes. It's nowhere near as rock bottom horrendously unlistenable and embarrassing here as its been throughout the main anime stuff from back in the day, but as much as his voice has evolved over time, the sad fact is he just cannot do Kung Fu noises to save his life. And this is a Kung Fu anime in which he's the main character that spends gigantic heaps of screentime doing the lion's share of the fighting, soooooo...

Anywho, as far as theatrical experiences go it wasn't exactly the best circumstances, but my friends and I all got to watch an anime together one last time before one of us parts ways from us for who knows how long. Was certainly worth it I'd say.

Fitting I suppose that I end off a post on this place of all places on a note about friendship.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading your post. Are you going to hang out here a bit more often, I hope?