Episode #0065 (18 February 2007)

[Chuquita]

Informative review. :3

Julian's mic skipping near the end gave me this mental image of you guys having built a Julian-bot (Robo-Julian, either way) and I had to keep from laughing so everyone else in the house wouldn't wonder why I was laughing. XD


The FYE people at Quakerbridge Mall tend to do that to me too, popping up and asking me if I need help, but not to the extent you experienced.


I miss Suncoast.

[DaemonCorps]

Yeah, I've only had my set for a few weeks and it's all ready covered with wear and tear, and that is not good anal retentiveness.

Yeah, the slipcover really doesn't give much protection. At least with most other digipack sets, the slipcover only opens from the side, reducing how much possible nicks could be had.

Julian's mic skipping near the end gave me this mental image of you guys having built a Julian-bot (Robo-Julian, either way) and I had to keep from laughing so everyone else in the house wouldn't wonder why I was laughing. XD

Yeah, that happens a lot when I listen to these podcasts. I seriously don't like having to explain why I'm laughing.

[Grandmaster J]

Wow. This episode makes me really appreciate the Vegeta Saga DVDs I've already owned for years now. Hell, I'm feeling lucky to be an owner of the Dragonbox singles of the first 40 episodes, give or take. I think I'm going to make some extra copies now, just incase.

[Mr.Piccolo]

Informative review. :3

Julian's mic skipping near the end gave me this mental image of you guys having built a Julian-bot (Robo-Julian, either way) and I had to keep from laughing so everyone else in the house wouldn't wonder why I was laughing. XD

I was thinking the same thing and tried not to laugh. The scary thing is that I told my dad about Julian's story and he found that hilarious.

The FYE people at Quakerbridge Mall tend to do that to me too, popping up and asking me if I need help, but not to the extent you experienced.I miss Suncoast.

That's the same with my FYE, it's horrible. The only reason I go to it is because that's the only video store at my mall..Suncoast was there but they closed it down. They sold senzu beans at Suncoast! Senzu Beans!
-Rick

[Taku128]

Informative review. :3

Julian's mic skipping near the end gave me this mental image of you guys having built a Julian-bot (Robo-Julian, either way) and I had to keep from laughing so everyone else in the house wouldn't wonder why I was laughing. XD


The FYE people at Quakerbridge Mall tend to do that to me too, popping up and asking me if I need help, but not to the extent you experienced.


I miss Suncoast.

I've always thought that whenever Julian's mic skips. I wonder if EX built him himself or if he hired someone else to...

[Bardock the Mexican]

Shame you guys didn't get an interveiw from me either email or maybe I would've indulged you guys and given a phone interview. I think people need to know about what Funi is omitting from the new boxsets. I think that the omission of the Mexican dub was unforgivable by Funimation. they should've left the dub intact. It's the one that a lot of people heard and liked, me included. Yeah...good podcast even though I wasn't in it.

[SonGokuGT]

I think that the omission of the Mexican dub was unforgivable by Funimation. they should've left the dub intact.

It's already got three language tracks... Do you want to sacrifice image quality? Besides, the US is not Mexico, and Mexico will undoubtedly have their own release sometime. Seems they're doing a good job with Saint Seiya.

[Armageddon]

Great review!

[SSJ_Vejita]

The 'Remasterd' Boxset is without no doubt one of the worst products out there. But I'm still wondering if I should purchase it
Of course I prefer the Dragon Box footage. But here's the thing. The Dragon Boxes are hard to get and there a'bit expensive. I could get the DVD's from Play-Asia or CDJapan. The thing is, besides a couple of words, I don't understand Japanese (yet?). So unless I plan to learn Japanese in my own free time (wich I think would take very long) or I have to spend a lot of money on the Dragon Box's DVD's. Wich are 30 euro's a volume wich is still quit expensive.
Than on the other hand, you have the Remasterd Set where you'll get 40 episodes for 40 euro's. But like everyone I'm having problems with the widescreen and the colors but I also want to watch the series in legal way. What should I do? Wait 'till I have enough money so that I can buy the Dragon Box material (I don't really mind that there are no subtitles) or buy the Remasterd boxset and watch the show as it is?

[Vegard Aune]

What should I do? Wait 'till I have enough money so that I can buy the Dragon Box material (I don't really mind that there are no subtitles) or buy the Remasterd boxset and watch the show as it is?

Just buy the remastered set. Like you said, it's cheaper and has more episodes. (Unless you buy the actual Dragonboxes, which is VERY hard, as they aren't in production anymore.) And the widescreen, from what I heard, for the most part isn't much of a problem. Though the Dragonbox is still far superiour, I think the season sets are an acceptable way to watch the show too.

[Obi-Wan]

The thing is, besides a couple of words, I don't understand Japanese (yet?). So unless I plan to learn Japanese in my own free time (wich I think would take very long) or I have to spend a lot of money on the Dragon Box's DVD's. Wich are 30 euro's a volume wich is still quit expensive.

In general, Japanese is not that hard to learn once you learn the grammar. Vocabulary is also very important, but if you've watched a lot of subtitled anime, vocabulary is very easy to pick up on. Last semester, there were a few quizzes I admittedly didn't study for but ended up acing due to watching anime for over a decade. I'd recommend learning it because then watching anime becomes a decent listening comprehension tool as well as a hobby. The only problem is when characters speak in a different dialect because your teacher probably will not teach you those. Like in DB, a lot of the characters speak in the Nagoya (I think?) dialect. But if you can pick up on the conjugations, then it's pretty easy to work around.

If you want to learn it on your own time, I'm sure you could do that too. But it will take a lot of dedication and hard work. I tried to do that before I took courses in college and I find that having a teacher and being quizzed daily does wonders for retention and overall understanding of the language. It's definitely something you should look into if you really want to learn the language. I've averaged a 98 (out of 100) in the four courses I've taken, and I haven't had to study nearly as hard for them as other academics.

[SSJ_Vejita]

I don't think I could take Japanese classes because there aren't any in the city I live in (The Netherlands). Well, I could alway's go to Japan and learn it there
Anyway. In the near future, if I have enough money, I could alway's buy the Dragon Box material. For now, I'll think about purchasing the remasterd boxset.

[Golden Lockhart]

Hello all. I am listening to this podcast right now. It is as entertaining as the Editorals written by these talanted wedmasters. I just want you to know, I have purchased "The big orange Brick" a few days ago. Even though the dubbing is STILL flawed and they, for some wierd reason, ommited some of the music from the dub with Japanese music (What was the name of the song during the Flashback where Kaioh is telling Goku of the past?), I still like it. I always keep it on the Japanese track though and would switch back and forth between languages to see what they altered in terms of rewrites.

I really like your podcasts period. You know, I often read the editorals outloud. Thank you guys once again!

[nwoo_2002]

Just re-listend to the review and some slight glimmer of hope for a possible insert song. The Italian version of The SSJ2 scene kept the insert song. So maybe Funi will use it for thier original music score afterall.

[Raki]

Don't mean to necro-bump, but I'm listening to the podcast right now. Really good so far; I might listen to more. Also, I'd like to point out that my little cousin (13 years old) noticed that the older releases even look better than the orange bricks.

[Ash]

I don't think I could take Japanese classes because there aren't any in the city I live in (The Netherlands). Well, I could alway's go to Japan and learn it there
Anyway. In the near future, if I have enough money, I could alway's buy the Dragon Box material. For now, I'll think about purchasing the remasterd boxset.

Don't know how old you are, but you can study it in several places in the Netherlands. Leiden University is the only university that offers Japanese Language and Culture, while there is a Japanese translator study in Maastricht and Trade Management aimed at Asia in Amsterdam (both HBO) that offer Japanese courses.

(If you go to Leiden, you'll become my kouhai ;P)

[Silversport16]

Are you serious? All media will be cropped in this manner soon enough. Such a slight "flaw" shouldn't take away from the idea that there are 30 episodes on sale for like $30-40. There's a high quality picture, remastered in High Definition. Anyone with an HD player can REALLY see a difference. The sound is great, original soundtrack and Bruce Faulconer's American soundtrack. Who honestly cares about how the DVD's are packaged and if the discs are overlying or not. These "flaws" or "cons" are absolutely insignificant. And the booklet... are you serious? No one cares. You're complaining about the spine... c'mon now. The transferring documentary... who cares. I guess I'm just easy going.

If you have an LCD or plasma, the wide screen is great. So go get one.

[FUNimationRocks]

Are you serious? All media will be cropped in this manner soon enough. Such a slight "flaw" shouldn't take away from the idea that there are 30 episodes on sale for like $30-40. There's a high quality picture, remastered in High Definition. Anyone with an HD player can REALLY see a difference. The sound is great, original soundtrack and Bruce Faulconer's American soundtrack. Who honestly cares about how the DVD's are packaged and if the discs are overlying or not. These "flaws" or "cons" are absolutely insignificant. And the booklet... are you serious? No one cares. You're complaining about the spine... c'mon now. The transferring documentary... who cares. I guess I'm just easy going.

If you have an LCD or plasma, the wide screen is great. So go get one.

I think they were upset by the way Funimation lied about the release. Everything mentioned in the podcast is perfectly reasonsonable to have a debate about, and the issues brought up are meant to be informative. It isn't as if they're telling people, under no circumstance should you buy this set. In fact, it was mentioned that if you're looking for the episodes cheap and you don't mind that you're purchasing a product that isn't all that it was promised to be, then you should pick it up.[/i]

[VegettoEX]

The fact that this particular podcast episode continues to get attention and responses is, I believe, quite a testament to how the product is still rather controversial among the fanbase. Of course, it's also still plugged on the sidebar of the home page, so yeah.. not like I'm not doing my own part in its promotion, still.

I'd like to hit up a couple points that have been recently brought up. I'm really struggling with the idea of even doing this though, since we've had to lock threads time and time again due to flat-out asinine personal attacks rendering conversations completely useless and unequivocally completely incapable of happening. I hate to open up that can of worms, myself, since I've responded with the locks time and time again... so please note that I'm obviously watching this even more closely than other threads.

Also, I'd like to point out that my little cousin (13 years old) noticed that the older releases even look better than the orange bricks.

I think that's something really important to point out. When these things are presented to people that aren't of the "hardcore" variety (or even "softcore" fans, for lack of a better phrase)... they notice the weird things about them. Meri's mom noticed. Corey's girlfriend noticed. As the hardcore DBZ fans, we need to take a step back from the two perspectives we're used to seeing ([1] the truthfully-critical, and [2] the passive), and see that other people really do notice things about these products.

Are you serious? All media will be cropped in this manner soon enough.

Do you have any particular evidence to support this? There is, as-of-yet, no true precedent. There is no current trend. There is no forecast.

shouldn't take away from the idea that there are 30 episodes on sale for like $30-40

Which, as you'll note, is a fact we re-iterated time and time again in our review as perhaps the greatest selling point of the products and a shining example of FUNimation's marketing brilliance.

There's a high quality picture, remastered in High Definition. Anyone with an HD player can REALLY see a difference.

This statement makes little sense. While it is true that FUNimation "remastered" the footage "in high-definition", these season boxsets are inherently incapable of being presented "in high-definition" on a standard DVD. It is absolutely true, however, that these will be upscaled in a better fashion than prior releases for what they are and how FUNimation intends them to be viewed, but that's a completely separate argument and discussion.

The sound is great, original soundtrack and Bruce Faulconer's American soundtrack.

If you are a fan of the American, television-broadcast score and/or the original Japanese score, you are absolutely correct. No arguments against these facts were brought up what-so-ever. On the other hand, it was discussed and proven how the mixing on the track with the revised English dub and Japanese score is rather horrendous (highs vs lows, directionality, levels, etc.), and that for whatever reason, there are missing pieces of music in certain places.

Who honestly cares about how the DVD's are packaged and if the discs are overlying or not. These "flaws" or "cons" are absolutely insignificant. And the booklet... are you serious? No one cares. You're complaining about the spine... c'mon now.

I think you confuse "complaining" with "explaining". It would be horrendous journalism and reporting to not mention these items. Again, we are not shills for any particular company or group. If we did not mention these items, it would be an irrelevant, non-thorough review that I wouldn't bother to take seriously.

If you have an LCD or plasma, the wide screen is great. So go get one.

This suggestion holds little water. Corey reviewed on an HD set, while we reviewed on an SD set (TV) and HD set (computer). What you are really saying is that you don't take issue with the image (and, furthermore, disagree with our sentiments on the image), which is a perfectly fine and just opinion to hold.

I'd really prefer that this didn't turn into a huge ordeal like other threads have unfortunately fallen to, but I am more than happy to entertain lively, informative, friendly discussions. Please keep it civil if you choose to respond. Thanks!

[TripleRach]

Are you serious? All media will be cropped in this manner soon enough.

Do you have any particular evidence to support this? There is, as-of-yet, no true precedent. There is no current trend. There is no forecast.

Actually, I think there's more evidence against that than anything. Widescreen ratios in TV shows have generally been preserved on DVD for years. Movies might get alternate pan-and-scan releases, but never in favor of the original widescreen anymore. So if 16:9 shows weren't being cropped when 4:3 TVs were still dominant, why would 4:3 shows suddenly be getting cropped now that 16:9 sets are becoming more prominent? Especially since the anti-black bars crowd can now have their newer TVs crop or stretch the image to fit.