Is there any point in collecting the Dragon Boxes in 2022?

[JuniorRDZ04]

No, it is not worth it as of October 5th, 2025.
There is a version of the Z anime with the original broadcast audio (sounding super clear and crisp) as well with clear, non-cropped anime footage with its original colors. I believe Seed of Might have done this restoration, BUT there is a YouTuber named Geekdom101 that makes public watchings on Twitch every Saturday on Discord watching 3 episodes of the anime. (He's currently on Freeza vs Goku)
If nothing gets your attention, be friends with Tori-rent.

[Vegard Aune]

The Dragon Boxes are a 2003 era remaster done from the best existing source video (like, period) but with very limited touchups that seems to have consisted pretty much entirely of cleaning up scratches and cropping off the damaged edges of the film and basically nothing else, as well as keeping the magnetic audio from those film prints. Which from what I understand were thought to be the best audio option at the time, as the existence of higher quality recordings from the original broadcast only came out later, and at the time the DBoxes were considered to sound absolutely pristine? Of course even to this day Toei is absurdly stubborn and refuses to even acknowledge the existence of those masters, and them using the magnetic audio for GT where the original audio masters still exist was an objectively boneheaded, stupid move. But like, any issues the Dragon Boxes have, aside from the faded colors, are issues that other releases either share or amplify. I'd still say they're the best official option for watching the show, though they probably also should be watched on a CRT TV, as they really do not upscale well.

CR could in theory put out a potentially better release, and FUNi sort of dipped their toes into that with the Level sets... which were promptly canceled due to not selling great, and instead we got that 2014 remaster which, like... had less visible detail than the DVDs. For all the issues one can point to with the DBoxes, from their washed out colors, to being somewhat held back by the DVD format, to FUNi's version specifically having more compression issues than the Japanese ones... I mean the 2014 remaster just renders all the backgrounds as a smeary wobbly mess. And yet, the 4:3 version of that remaster is still probably the "best" you can get that doesn't require scouring the second-hand market and giving all your money to scalpers. But from where I'm standing? I would not pay for that remaster. Like, period. I also don't think I would pay the prices one has to pay nowadays for the Dragon Boxes though. Like... Honestly, if you want them as a collector's item, I'd sooner recommend looking on the Japanese second-hand market and getting their Dragon Boxes, both for them being a cooler shelf piece and because they're not as prohibitively expensive. Like, the Japanese ones have gone down in price over time, whereas the US ones, especially box 2 and... 5, I think? have just soared to the point where those alone will cost you more than the full 291 episode series in Japan.

Then if you want them as an actual means of watching the show, and therefore need the US ones since those actually have English audio and subtitles... No, I don't think it's worth it, not for the price they're charging. I don't think any option is worth it in that regard. Are there any streaming services around that use the DBox footage? Or at least the 4:3 FUNi remaster? I'd probably say just go for those over the sets because just... one is overpriced beyond belief and the other is just kinda trash. And the one that's overpriced beyond belief is also like... none of the money you'd be spending on it would be going to anyone involved with making the show anyway.

[Jord]

It's probably the last good DVD release Z will ever get if you prefer the Japanese version. At least for the Western market.
The point more or less lies with how much you want to spend. I got lucky and have been able to buy them all for a decent price, with box 4 costing a bit more. (That does seem to be the rare box for some reason)

Would I spend the money they cost now? No way.

[coola]

No, it is not worth it as of October 5th, 2025.
There is a version of the Z anime with the original broadcast audio (sounding super clear and crisp) as well with clear, non-cropped anime footage with its original colors. I believe Seed of Might have done this restoration, BUT there is a YouTuber named Geekdom101 that makes public watchings on Twitch every Saturday on Discord watching 3 episodes of the anime. (He's currently on Freeza vs Goku)
If nothing gets your attention, be friends with Tori-rent.

And there is group, that already restored DB and DBGT original colors, and they apparently started doing DBZ, so yeah, fan work beat the crap over every official release, and honestly, Toei should just buy Seed of Might work and put it on DVD/BD.

[funrush]

Yea the closest thing we have to a "definitive" version with the broadcast JPN audio, both Falconer and Kikuchi scores, color correction, all that is stuff you're gonna find on the seven seas. Obviously I'm not gonna endorse that on here cause of legal stuffs but Funi/Toei gotta get their heads out of their butts if the fans are putting these pretty solid packages together.

As far as the official releases go I think the main competitors are the Dragon Box DVDs and the Bluray steelbooks for the 30th anniversary. Maybe the original fullscreen DVD singles if you want to get as close to the Toonami airings as possible since I believe there's some redubbing in the later releases.

Both the Dragon Box and 30th anniversary steelbooks are uncropped. Dragon Box has the Next Episode Previews which is awesome if you wanna watch the Japanese version. The only downsides to the Dragon Box is there's no Falconer option. And the colors aren't as accurate as they could be, lots of scenes where there is a bit more pink than there's supposed to be, an easily recognizable example of the colors being off is that the sky during the Goku vs. Vegeta fight in both the DBoxes and Kai is more of like a dark seafoam color than the straight up blue it's supposed to be. For the 30th anniversary, the picture is in HD and looks pretty nice IMO but it's a bit overly smoothed, you can tell it's been through a lot of processing. I believe there are no next episode previews, but it DOES have the Falconer score. So if you're a dub fan that set may be more ideal. Can't speak for the color accuracy compared to cels but from what I've seen the colors are still a tad overly whitened to my eyes, but not that noticeable especially compared to the straight up bleached Orange Bricks.

And, yuck, the prices. I can't tell you how much it would cost to get the whole series in DVD singles from Ginyu saga onwards cause I'd be researching that shit for hours. But the steelbooks seem to be listed for like $120 on average, if I look at sold items I can see some people got deals like some of them sell for $60, but also some of them selling at $200. But on average if you shop smart you can probably get the whole set for around a grand. Dragon Boxes some of the 7 sets go for like $150 but some of them are selling for like 300-500, so you're probably looking at closer to 1.5-2 grand for the whole set.

Obviously neither of these pricings is ideal, and the fact that people are throwing that much money at this should be a signal to Funimation that it's time to do a new fullscreen release or at the very least simply reprint one of these two sets. Maybe Funi will do another remaster at some point but I doubt it. The 30th is probably the nicest we're gonna see out of Funi for a while. Remember how exciting it was when the Level sets were coming out? Man those were cool looking. They maybe had a bit too much noise but the picture quality was really nice and sharp. Would have loved to see how the rest of the series would turn out.

I guess it's not impossible that Toei would have a new remaster done and then Funi begs for years to be allowed to release it here and then eventually we get it. Like a new HD Dragon Box. I saw like a 4k version of Chala Headchala on Youtube the other day, although maybe that specific clip is from a remastered movie and not any indication that they're interested in remastering the show. But yeah I think we're stuck between these 2 out of print sets unless Toei feels like doing something.

[MasenkoHA]

I guess it's not impossible that Toei would have a new remaster done and then Funi begs for years to be allowed to release it here and then eventually we get it. Like a new HD Dragon Box. I saw like a 4k version of Chala Headchala on Youtube the other day, although maybe that specific clip is from a remastered movie and not any indication that they're interested in remastering the show. But yeah I think we're stuck between these 2 out of print sets unless Toei feels like doing something.

Dragon Ball Z hasn’t gotten a home video release in its home country since the Dragon Boxes in 2003. As far as Toei is concerned Dragon Ball Kai is their HD remaster of Z and they don’t seem interested in in doing anything else. We are far more likely to see Crunchymation do another steelbook release or Collector’s Edition of Z than see Toei do a physical media release. Toei seems to believe if Japanese fans want to watch the series they can subscribe to Netflix. Crunchymation might actually be barely better than Toei in this one aspect. (As far as Z is concerned, not so much the original series and GT)

[GhostEmperorX]

We are far more likely to see Crunchymation do another steelbook release or Collector’s Edition of Z than see Toei do a physical media release.

And the chances of even that are getting lower and lower, Sony's got its own new series to shill (completely unrelated to DB of course), and it's only a matter of time before CR is expected to get on board with that instead of doing their own thing with Z home releases.

[Scsigs]

No, it is not worth it as of October 5th, 2025.
There is a version of the Z anime with the original broadcast audio (sounding super clear and crisp) as well with clear, non-cropped anime footage with its original colors. I believe Seed of Might have done this restoration, BUT there is a YouTuber named Geekdom101 that makes public watchings on Twitch every Saturday on Discord watching 3 episodes of the anime. (He's currently on Freeza vs Goku)
If nothing gets your attention, be friends with Tori-rent.

The color corrected version of Z isn't out yet. They've done the original DB, GT, the specials, & the movies through color correcting the DBoxes & Japanese Blu-Rays with the broadcast audio synced to the DBox masters. This is because the original anime & GT are less episodes & the specials & movies pretty much only needed proper white balancing from the Blu-Rays since they're actually remastered from Toei's 1st gen film stock. They're slowly working on Z, but it's 291 episodes, so it's taking a lot longer.

But, thanks for sucking off Geekdom real quick rather than knowing the facts.

Yea the closest thing we have to a "definitive" version with the broadcast JPN audio, both Falconer and Kikuchi scores, color correction, all that is stuff you're gonna find on the seven seas. Obviously I'm not gonna endorse that on here cause of legal stuffs but Funi/Toei gotta get their heads out of their butts if the fans are putting these pretty solid packages together.

As far as the official releases go I think the main competitors are the Dragon Box DVDs and the Bluray steelbooks for the 30th anniversary. Maybe the original fullscreen DVD singles if you want to get as close to the Toonami airings as possible since I believe there's some redubbing in the later releases.

Both the Dragon Box and 30th anniversary steelbooks are uncropped. Dragon Box has the Next Episode Previews which is awesome if you wanna watch the Japanese version. The only downsides to the Dragon Box is there's no Falconer option. And the colors aren't as accurate as they could be, lots of scenes where there is a bit more pink than there's supposed to be, an easily recognizable example of the colors being off is that the sky during the Goku vs. Vegeta fight in both the DBoxes and Kai is more of like a dark seafoam color than the straight up blue it's supposed to be. For the 30th anniversary, the picture is in HD and looks pretty nice IMO but it's a bit overly smoothed, you can tell it's been through a lot of processing. I believe there are no next episode previews, but it DOES have the Falconer score. So if you're a dub fan that set may be more ideal. Can't speak for the color accuracy compared to cels but from what I've seen the colors are still a tad overly whitened to my eyes, but not that noticeable especially compared to the straight up bleached Orange Bricks.

And, yuck, the prices. I can't tell you how much it would cost to get the whole series in DVD singles from Ginyu saga onwards cause I'd be researching that shit for hours. But the steelbooks seem to be listed for like $120 on average, if I look at sold items I can see some people got deals like some of them sell for $60, but also some of them selling at $200. But on average if you shop smart you can probably get the whole set for around a grand. Dragon Boxes some of the 7 sets go for like $150 but some of them are selling for like 300-500, so you're probably looking at closer to 1.5-2 grand for the whole set.

Obviously neither of these pricings is ideal, and the fact that people are throwing that much money at this should be a signal to Funimation that it's time to do a new fullscreen release or at the very least simply reprint one of these two sets. Maybe Funi will do another remaster at some point but I doubt it. The 30th is probably the nicest we're gonna see out of Funi for a while. Remember how exciting it was when the Level sets were coming out? Man those were cool looking. They maybe had a bit too much noise but the picture quality was really nice and sharp. Would have loved to see how the rest of the series would turn out.

I guess it's not impossible that Toei would have a new remaster done and then Funi begs for years to be allowed to release it here and then eventually we get it. Like a new HD Dragon Box. I saw like a 4k version of Chala Headchala on Youtube the other day, although maybe that specific clip is from a remastered movie and not any indication that they're interested in remastering the show. But yeah I think we're stuck between these 2 out of print sets unless Toei feels like doing something.

FUNimation was folded over into Crunchyroll a few years ago by Sony, so they're no longer a thing. The most we can hope for CR to do is use a new remaster by some other company, since they're not in the business of doing them themselves & just rereleased the shitty 2013-14 remaster FUNi did under their banner. I imagine AB Groupe will eventually do their AI upscaled & color corrected remaster, which we don't know when that'd be since they've been dragging their feet on just finishing the first series.

As for how much it'd be to buy the whole set, I did that 2 years ago where I bought the first 4 sets on eBay because I had the last 3. I paid probably in the realm of $400-$500 for them. For me, it was worth it. I bought the steelbooks from Amazon before that (thankfully, Amazon had a few sales where I was able to get them in a "Buy 2, get 1 free" deal, so I only paid 2/3 of the price), but even then, I was unsatisfied. I wanted the other DBoxes, so I just pulled the trigger on them to finish them out. Your mileage may vary, but I just wanted what I see as the best release of the series where I don't smell copper thinking about how bad they are. I paid for the steelbooks, so I've given FUNi my money for the series, so I don't feel bad shitting on their own remasters, getting the older releases, & downloading any color corrected versions in the future.

If you're talking about Kineko Video, they somehow got theatrical film prints of some of the movies, scanned them into their computers, & have released them on pirating sites & even put the remastered opening on their YT channel. It's much like how the Star Wars community managed to get theatrical film prints of the original trilogy, scanned them, & put out 4K versions of those movies in the last few years for those who just wanna do the tedious thing of just watching the theatrical cuts of those movies because George Lucas has made it impossible to watch them in high def & proper widescreen.

[MCDaveG]

I collect DC comic books, Lego, games and most blurays physically, as I do love collecting stuff.
But honestly, against all the anti-piracy rules, after the blurays went in, 4K TVs, my options were for Japanese DBoxes, that I wouldn't be able to watch without ripping them into MKV or MP4 and add subs, or US DBoxes, that were so limited, that I have basically missed them at time starting at low-paying job back then and now the option is to get them secondhand and in good condition for rudiculous prices, so they can:

• Look like crap on 4K TV

• Japanese track is in mono and sounds like something from 1950s

• DB and GT missing in the equation

When you can get a fanmade projects, don't ask me how, that:

• Did an OK upscale

• Thanks to various fans, are using stereo broadcast tracks from when they aired on TV as Fuji scrapped these after airing and some fans have the episodes recorded

• Did a better job at preserving the original or close to original color grading and representation of the show

Back in the day, DBoxes were a miracle! But they are outdated nowadays and the other options are Frankenstein monsters where it's always missing something or makes it worse.

I don't wanna rally people for pirating, but I can just say, that outside of manga releases (where I can enjoy the story even with censored boobies, peepees or redrawn laser guns), I can't honestly support any release except for Dragon Box, if it was relevant on the side of money and technology.

[PowerPhantom245]

I really wish Toei released proper HD remastered Blu-ray for ALL 3 series (original, Z, and GT) to commemorate 40th anniversary of anime.
You think a show that has gotten this much praise and respect, should have gotten higher quality release on HD by now.
I get that remastering frame-by-frame for 500+ episodes are very expensive and time consuming, but there should be more than enough demand to warrant such a release.
Popular anime like Sailor Moon, Ruruouni Kenshin, Ranma 1/2, Yuyu Haskusho, Evangelion, etc. has gotten their release on higher quality release in recent years, so why Dragon Ball is left behind?
It's sad that only good quality for original 3 series are OOP Dragon Boxes; Blue (original) and Green (GT) Bricks are fine/serviceable.
If Toei released it, then Crunchyroll just put sub and dub American release, it would be fine.

Get in the BALL Toei; just release Dragon Box Blu-ray set!

[GhostEmperorX]

I imagine AB Groupe will eventually do their AI upscaled & color corrected remaster, which we don't know when that'd be since they've been dragging their feet on just finishing the first series.

Apparently they decided to call it quits because Toei just wouldn't budge.

[PowerPhantom245]

I imagine AB Groupe will eventually do their AI upscaled & color corrected remaster, which we don't know when that'd be since they've been dragging their feet on just finishing the first series.

Apparently they decided to call it quits because Toei just wouldn't budge.

Typical Toei.

[GhostEmperorX]

Typical Toei.

Yes, so any time you see an anime TV series from the 20th Century (at least the 80's-90's period) getting a sensible, high quality release, chances are you won't see Toei on the list of studios these belong to.
The only exception to this I can think of is Slam Dunk or so, Sailor Moon has its own problems (even with an author who actually cared).

stereo broadcast tracks from when they aired on TV

I have to mention here that the only thing that was stereo (i.e. 2 channels) out of all of original DB/Z was Movie 13.
Even if it was all stereo, it would still encounter the same degradation issue if it were sourced from degraded optical audio and not the master tapes.

[PowerPhantom245]

Typical Toei.

Yes, so any time you see an anime TV series from the 20th Century (at least the 80's-90's period) getting a sensible, high quality release, chances are you won't see Toei on the list of studios these belong to.

The only exception to this I can think of is Slam Dunk or so, Sailor Moon has its own problems (even with an author who actually cared).

Which kind of sucks and frustrating, since those are the most important and influential era for anime; at least for my generation.
Modern anime like One Piece, Naruto, Bleach, etc. owes a lot to those series.
Respect the past, embrace the future.
An anime that is important Dragon Ball should NEVER treated poorly for home video release and deserve a lot of respect.

[GhostEmperorX]

Which kind of sucks and frustrating, since those are the most important and influential era for anime; at least for my generation.
Modern anime like One Piece, Naruto, Bleach, etc. owes a lot to those series.
Respect the past, embrace the future.
An anime that is important Dragon Ball should NEVER treated poorly for home video release and deserve a lot of respect.

Something important to keep in mind is that Toei, much like Nintendo, is an old JP company rooted in old ways that lead them to have a lot of retrograde approaches to the way they do certain things (like being overprotective of their copyright but also this whole preservation issue).
It's why the studios making common sense decisions with releases of their material are all younger companies over there (even for those founded in the 70's or 80's).

Toei also dragged their feet with adapting to certain new formats (stereo) until rather late in the game.

[TechExpert2021]

Something important to keep in mind is that Toei, much like Nintendo, is an old JP company rooted in old ways that lead them to have a lot of retrograde approaches to the way they do certain things (like being overprotective of their copyright but also this whole preservation issue).

Although not a Japanese company, Viacom/Paramount is also overprotective of its IPs and copyrights (see: Viacom's lawsuit against YouTube in 2007). Same goes for Disney.

[MCDaveG]

Typical Toei.

Yes, so any time you see an anime TV series from the 20th Century (at least the 80's-90's period) getting a sensible, high quality release, chances are you won't see Toei on the list of studios these belong to.
The only exception to this I can think of is Slam Dunk or so, Sailor Moon has its own problems (even with an author who actually cared).

stereo broadcast tracks from when they aired on TV

I have to mention here that the only thing that was stereo (i.e. 2 channels) out of all of original DB/Z was Movie 13.
Even if it was all stereo, it would still encounter the same degradation issue if it were sourced from degraded optical audio and not the master tapes.

Ah, you’re right of course… the quality difference is insane tho.
And GT is in stereo. At least the later 2/3 of it, if I remember that well.

[GhostEmperorX]

Although not a Japanese company, Viacom/Paramount is also overprotective of its IPs and copyrights (see: Viacom's lawsuit against YouTube in 2007). Same goes for Disney.

US corporations are on a whole other level of low so I don't even bother looking in their direction.

[Yellow Flower King]

I think this threads premise is a bit outdated, because while the Dragon Boxes may or may not be the best it could be, or that fans could remaster it on their own, worthwhile home video releases WILL ALWAYS be vital. Owning your own physical copy of your favorite show is vital in this era of Streaming constantly moving shows around.

[Dragon Ball Ireland]

I think this threads premise is a bit outdated, because while the Dragon Boxes may or may not be the best it could be, or that fans could remaster it on their own, worthwhile home video releases WILL ALWAYS be vital. Owning your own physical copy of your favorite show is vital in this era of Streaming constantly moving shows around.

I agree, it's good to have a copy of your favourite shows, but at this stage the Manga UK Blu-Rays are probably more worth people's money than the Dragon Boxes. They are at least 4:3, so buying them shows the demand is there, and actually supports the show, whereas all the money anyone pays for Dragon Boxes will only go to scalpers because they are OOP.