AB Video to release original Dragon Ball on Blu-Ray

[MasenkoHA]

The answer as to why Toei is willing to circulate good quality audio of GT, and won't allow such with the previous two series is basically the same reason FUNimation put out a posthumous DVD release of the Saban dub of Z but did nothing with the Westwood dub. Toei still has self-sourced master audio of GT, whereas for anything prior to that, they'd have to source the audio from homemade recordings which, even under these circumstances, they resent the very notion of said practice.

Now, I probably shouldn't say the two incidents are exactly the same, since the details of FUNimation's motivation for stiffing the fans, and Toei's reasons of same are somewhat different. But the bottom line is, they both refused to put over something of which they had nothing to do with and also exists at all in spite of themselves.

FUNimation had a hand in producing the Saban dub - A-Okay.

FUNimation did not play a part in making the Westwood dub, and it only really exists due to the discontentment of certain broadcasters in relation to the shoddy execution of their own Texas-based dub - Not okay.

.

Well no. Funimation did not have a hand in producing the Saban dub. They DID produce it. It's their dub. Not Saban's, not Ocean's, not Pioneer's. Funimation's. They are the key players in the existence of that dub. The fact that the main people involved with that dub are no longer associated with Funimation doesn't change that.

The Westwood dub isn't their dub. They likely don't have the masters to release it. They have no reason to want to release it.

It's not remotely comparable to the Toei thing.

[Dragon Ball Ireland]

Toei has no master audio of DB or DBZ, and the only feasible alternative of emulating that would be to obtain unauthorized recordings from fans - Not okay.

Or.... they could, ya know, just ask Fuji TV.

Also, regarding the GT, could we actually, possibly, maybe have film of the special? It looks like it's labelled here:



That would be a significant find as we've only ever seen scans from the videotape master for broadcasts.

The Westwood dub isn't their dub. They likely don't have the masters to release it. They have no reason to want to release it.

Maybe not, but they could probably easily release it since their business relationship with Ocean enabled them to create it. In a roundabout way, as NitroEX once suggested Funimation is kinda responsible for the Westwood dub's creation because they likely never wrote into the contracts Ocean couldn't use the Texas cast or Faulconer score to get Dragon Ball Z on the air in Canada, and Ocean's job was simply to distribute it in Canada. Granted Funimation were a new company so it's understandable they would be naive. Though equally by charging such a fortune for royalties Funimation also gave YTV and AB Groupe incentive to shop around because it was absurd they were selling season 5 of Dragon Ball Z for $10,000,000, for example.

[MasenkoHA]

Maybe not, but they could probably easily release it since their business relationship with Ocean enabled them to create it.

Then it becomes why would they release it? It's an edited only tv dub that didn't even air in the US, New Zealand, or Australia. They've also mentioned in the past that retailers like Wal-Mart don't like multiple versions of the same thing because "customer confusion"

It would make sense for MangaUK* to release it in the UK because that dub actually aired there.


*And I guess Crunchyroll owns MangaUK now but that just brings up the point of Crunchyroll somehow being more incompetent than Funimation

[TheGreatness25]

Maybe not, but they could probably easily release it since their business relationship with Ocean enabled them to create it.

Then it becomes why would they release it? It's an edited only tv dub that didn't even air in the US, New Zealand, or Australia. They've also mentioned in the past that retailers like Wal-Mart don't like multiple versions of the same thing because "customer confusion"

It would make sense for MangaUK* to release it in the UK because that dub actually aired there.


*And I guess Crunchyroll owns MangaUK now but that just brings up the point of Crunchyroll somehow being more incompetent than Funimation

The only reason for it to ever see the light of day is as a novelty to a small pocket of fans who even know or care that it was produced in the first place. But, it might be worth it just as an attempt to make some sort of money on something just sitting in a vault somewhere. Kind of like what the Rock the Dragon set was.

[GhostEmperorX]

It should also be noted that Toei's various Japanese home releases of Sailor Moon, Yu Yu Hakusho, and the like do not suffer from optical audio artificing whatsoever due to the fact that they still possessed master audio of these properties from when they released the various respective series out in sequence on Laserdisc at the time of these series' circulation.

Pardon me, but it's best to be careful here, as the bolded was a Pierrot series instead of Toei.

[Dragon Ball Ireland]

The only reason for it to ever see the light of day is as a novelty to a small pocket of fans who even know or care that it was produced in the first place. But, it might be worth it just as an attempt to make some sort of money on something just sitting in a vault somewhere. Kind of like what the Rock the Dragon set was.

One of the biggest missed opportunities in Dragon Ball history is Manga UK not releasing the Westwood dub, it would have sold like hotcakes.

Sadly their Dragon Ball DVDs and Blu-Rays were almost exclusively repackages of Madman and Funimation's discs right up until the rebrands:

• Dragon Ball Z Season DVDs - Madman Orange Bricks
• Dragon Ball GT Season DVDs - Madman Green Bricks
• Dragon Ball Season DVDs - Madman Saga sets
• Battle of Gods DVD/Blu-Ray - Madman DVD/Blu-Ray
• Resurrection F DVD/Blu-Ray - Madman DVD/Blu-Ray, although slightly reauthored to use dub names in subs
• Dragon Ball Kai Season DVDs/Blu-Rays - Madman Part DVD/Blu-Rays
• Dragon Ball Z Movies 1-13 DVD/Blu-Ray - Funimation Double/Triple Features
• Dragon Ball Z TV Specials DVD/Blu-Ray - Funimation Double Feature
• Dragon Ball Super Part DVD/Blu-Rays - Funimation Part DVD/Blu-Rays
• Dragon Ball Kai : The Final Chapters Part DVD/Blu-Rays - Funimation Part DVD/Blu-Rays
• Dragon Ball Z Season Blu-Rays/Steelbooks - Funimation Dragon Ball Z 30th Anniversary Discs

The only time a Manga UK release was not a copy and paste job was for Super Broly where they hired out Visual Data London to create the disc (which ironically Madman imported for Oceania).

[coola]

Would be pretty sad, if that delay was caused for "unauthorized" use of broadcast audio. And 1st boxset will soon be pulled off shelves to put "correct" audio. Making "broadcast audio" first print Dragon Box level of overprice. It will also be shown, like with Star Wars Original Trilogy, that fans make better release than "official" ones

[jjgp1112]

I think you misunderstood what I was saying. From what Geekdom also said in the video I referenced, from what he heard, FUNi got film reels for all of the shows, TV specials, & movies that they had originally licensed & dubbed from Toei in the mid-2000s. Before that, they were probably going off of digi beta tapes Toei gave them. Every DVD & Blu-Ray of them that FUNi has released since 2007 with the Z Orange Bricks & later Blu-Rays, the first 17 DB & Z movies, the 3 Z & GT TV specials, OG DB, & GT were remastered from said film stock & put on new releases. Said film stocks were 2nd or 3rd generation duplicated prints, so they're not as good as what we'd get from an official Toei remaster, but the base colors are fine & there's enough detail preserved that realistically, all they need to do is have a good pass through with grain removal & a pass at making sure the color balance is correct & they're completely fine to use. They're 16mm film for the shows (minus the few episodes from Z's Freeza Arc for some reason) & 35mm for the films & I believe the Z specials. Their remasters of DB, GT, & all of the movies are fine for the most part, minus the fact that DB is apparently cropped in a little too much, GT's a bit too red-skewed, & the 2nd DB movie had its frame rate halved for no reason. But, Z, they consistently screwed up in 1 way or another. However, after they did their remasters, they apparently completely threw out the film stock for everything BUT Z & probably the Z movies since they released THOSE on Blu-Ray, but not the 4 DB movies for some reason. And apparently because, in their words, they're "not as popular as Z."

The GT and DB "remasters" were clearly based on the digibeta footage they'd already used for the singles, with only the first 29 episodes of DB coming from film since they never actually released those episodes on home video. They just applied some noise reduction to the video footage and called iot a day, though GT's wound up with a weird plasticy look while DB was pretty reasonable. Hell, I think GT still has interlacing artifacts and stuff.

Furthermore, their GT material are actually copies of the raw negatives that Toei used for the Dragon Box.

[sangofe]

I think you misunderstood what I was saying. From what Geekdom also said in the video I referenced, from what he heard, FUNi got film reels for all of the shows, TV specials, & movies that they had originally licensed & dubbed from Toei in the mid-2000s. Before that, they were probably going off of digi beta tapes Toei gave them. Every DVD & Blu-Ray of them that FUNi has released since 2007 with the Z Orange Bricks & later Blu-Rays, the first 17 DB & Z movies, the 3 Z & GT TV specials, OG DB, & GT were remastered from said film stock & put on new releases. Said film stocks were 2nd or 3rd generation duplicated prints, so they're not as good as what we'd get from an official Toei remaster, but the base colors are fine & there's enough detail preserved that realistically, all they need to do is have a good pass through with grain removal & a pass at making sure the color balance is correct & they're completely fine to use. They're 16mm film for the shows (minus the few episodes from Z's Freeza Arc for some reason) & 35mm for the films & I believe the Z specials. Their remasters of DB, GT, & all of the movies are fine for the most part, minus the fact that DB is apparently cropped in a little too much, GT's a bit too red-skewed, & the 2nd DB movie had its frame rate halved for no reason. But, Z, they consistently screwed up in 1 way or another. However, after they did their remasters, they apparently completely threw out the film stock for everything BUT Z & probably the Z movies since they released THOSE on Blu-Ray, but not the 4 DB movies for some reason. And apparently because, in their words, they're "not as popular as Z."

The GT and DB "remasters" were clearly based on the digibeta footage they'd already used for the singles, with only the first 29 episodes of DB coming from film since they never actually released those episodes on home video. They just applied some noise reduction to the video footage and called iot a day, though GT's wound up with a weird plasticy look while DB was pretty reasonable. Hell, I think GT still has interlacing artifacts and stuff.

Furthermore, their GT material are actually copies of the raw negatives that Toei used for the Dragon Box.

Guys, can we stay on topic? I know nothing is happening but I would prefer the topic not to be closed.

[BlueChi]

The second worst thing that could happen is here. This release is forcibly on an indefinite hiatus, and the graphic designer in some replies is not making it very subtle that this was forced upon AB by Toei.

Link to their statement: https://twitter.com/Tony_Mr_P/status/17 ... 1489497119
They've also shared what would have been the spine art for the following volumes, tho the amount was still yet to be decided on.

Good on DB to also have their own Level Sets, now most likely canceled due to even more idiotic reasons beyond their control.

[Caulifor]

So not only is the project on pause, apparently there were TWO more boxes planned instead of just one. That means it would take even longer for them to finish the series. Sad news all around.

[Scsigs]

I really hate Toei & their fucking egos.

[Cure Dragon 255]

I am so sad you guys, I dont do Home Media, but I am sad I was a downer in this thread. You really didnt need more doom and gloom, and you did well to have hope until the end.

[SuperSaiyaManZ94]

I wonder, if the release comes back at some point and isn't just permanently canceled after Vol. 1 would AB be forced to use another version for the remaining volumes or would they have to restart the entire thing from scratch. Essentially having to go back and start over from the beginning of the series all over again. Like as in Toei mandating them to use the upscaled Dragon Box version that Selecta Vision did which is more or less just the non color corrected DBox footage filtered out and of course the typical low quality ass sounding optical mono audio for the Japanese track. So, it would effectively be a downgrade from the first set more or less.

Also, was it Toei Europe who made this call or Toei Japan? So apparently this release was quashed because the broadcast audio was used for it without their approval or something. Seriously, it seems like the suits have some kind of backwards ass mindset when it comes to these things. Unless i'm missing something here, i was under the belief that Toei apparently didn't really care all that much about the original audio but it apparently seems that was enough for this BD release to be shelved?

[FortuneSSJ]

Shueisha/Toei aren't thinking this though. Nothing forbids fans from remaster the rest of episodes with the broadcast audio and release it online. For free.

Copyright or whatever doesn't matter. If fans want to release a quality version like this online, they will do it. Nobody can beat Internet.

[BlueChi]

Colour Correction and the Broadcast Audio were the prime two golden carrots that Toei could dangle in front of us in order to keep vomiting out home media releases of the shows, especially in partnership with Funimation.

In an age where people can buy online and bypass region restrictions, AB one-upped them in every single category and their anti-consumer practices wouldn't be as effective moving forward.

This, I think, is the real reason behind this release being canceled straight away after the unanimous positive reception.
The only way to improve upon it would be with a straight-up rescan.

[SuperSaiyaManZ94]

Shueisha/Toei aren't thinking this though. Nothing forbids fans from remaster the rest of episodes with the broadcast audio and release it online. For free.

Copyright or whatever doesn't matter. If fans want to release a quality version like this online, they will do it. Nobody can beat Internet.

True, i mean there have already been posts of the entire original run of the anime with the broadcast audio online before this (color corrected and not) so even if it doesn't happen at the official level after this the fan community will almost certainly pick up the slack.

It's much the same as with the unaltered theatrical cuts of the original Star Wars trilogy films, for if Lucasfilm/Disney isn't going to step up themselves and do it anytime soon the fans have thus gone the distance and created many different high quality HD versions (Harmy's Despecialized Edition, 4K77/80/83.etc) to preserve the films as they were originally released in theaters and on home video prior to the 1997 and onward repeatedly altered Special Edition versions.

[MasenkoHA]

Shueisha/Toei aren't thinking this though. Nothing forbids fans from remaster the rest of episodes with the broadcast audio and release it online. For free.

Copyright or whatever doesn't matter. If fans want to release a quality version like this online, they will do it. Nobody can beat Internet.

Until they release a cease and desist

[jjgp1112]

Japanese companies are so behind the 8-ball in the most bizarre ways. I think culturally, it's because they have too many old farts holding power to an even greater degree than it is over here in the states, and that's already at catastrophically bad levels as it is. But Japan it's like to the 18th power, on top of their natural, prideful stinginess with foreign companies.

Whether it's video games or TV, the worst mistake you can make as a foreign licensing partner with a Japanese company is do a better job with their property than them

[GhostEmperorX]

Guess we should have expected the worst from Toei after all. Looks like their restructuring didn't really change much of anything in this regard.
Anyways, outside of those cases where nothing can truly be done, it seems like they're the only ones in their field who still have this problem (even while noting that Nintendo is basically their gaming counterpart).