And, just like I did with the first ( http://daizex.fanboyreview.net/viewtopi ... 71&start=0 ), I will now do a review of the second portion of the manga in the Vizbig format. I will also talk about the first portion (or the entirety of the Dragon Ball manga in this format) whenever it might be pertinent.
For those of you who don`t know what the VizBigs are, they are re-releases of manga in a different format. They are published by Viz and they are in english. They have larger frames than the regular volumes and normally each VizBig volume has 3 original volumes included or more (in "omnibus" fashion).
For more information on this particular format you can view this link: http://www.viz.com/news/newsroom/index.php?id=64
This review will reflect mainly upon the Dragon Ball Z Vizbig collection. For those of you who don`t know, the original japanese manga is called simply Dragon Ball and has 42 volumes. However, Viz divided the manga in two portions. The first one contains the first 16 volumes and is called Dragon Ball. The other is called Dragon Ball Z and contains the remaining volumes.
Front Covers:
Back Covers:
Spine art:
The Volumes Index (click to view):
DBZ Vol 1 Index: http://i223.photobucket.com/albums/dd4/ ... index1.jpg
DBZ Vol 2 Index: http://i223.photobucket.com/albums/dd4/ ... index2.jpg
DBZ Vol 3 Index: http://i223.photobucket.com/albums/dd4/ ... index3.jpg
DBZ Vol 4 Index: http://i223.photobucket.com/albums/dd4/ ... index4.jpg
DBZ Vol 5 Index: http://i223.photobucket.com/albums/dd4/ ... index5.jpg
DBZ Vol 6 Index: http://i223.photobucket.com/albums/dd4/ ... index6.jpg
DBZ Vol 7 Index: http://i223.photobucket.com/albums/dd4/ ... index7.jpg
DBZ Vol 8 Index: http://i223.photobucket.com/albums/dd4/ ... index8.jpg
DBZ Vol 9 Index: http://i223.photobucket.com/albums/dd4/ ... index9.jpg
I will divide this review in topics to make it easier to read.
1 - Size
This release has the peculiar characteristic of being larger than any other english Dragon Ball edition to date.
While the standard manga is about 7.4 x 5 inches (or about 18.8 x 12.4 cm), this edition is about 8.7 x 5.8 inches (or about 22 x 14.7 cm).
That allows the manga to have larger panels than the previous editions. The result is bigger art.
Personally I find that awesome. Its a different experience reading the manga in this size and overall I find it more pleasing.
Its also interesting to note that they have about the same size as the Japanese "Perfect Edition" Kanzenbans, which is a very high quality release of the manga, except in thickness since the Vizbigs collect more material in one volume than one Kanzenban volume does.
Also, regarding the Vizbigs` thickness, its also interesting to note that each Vizbig volume has less thickness than the corresponding volumes of the regular release. For example, DBZ volumes 1, 2 and 3 of Viz`s regular edition have a collective thickness of about 1.7 inches (or about 4.3 cm) but DBZ Vizbig 1, which collects them, has a thickness of about 1.4 inches (about 3.6 cm). This basically means more shelf space.
There might be those who won`t like the size of this edition because its heavier then regular volumes and etc. I`ll admit that it depends on personal preference. But I like it.
2 - Quality of paper and print
This edition is printed in a very nice high quality paper. Its a paper that its not either thin or thick, but it looks and feels somewhat resistant.
Besides that, the paper is white, which allows it to beautifully contrast the black and white of the manga much more effectively than the grayish paper color of the regular editions. I much prefer this kind of paper.
The print is also, overall very good.
P.S. I forgot to mention in my review about the first collection that the print has less quality in some of the first chapters, but it quickly picks up. In this collection (Dragon Ball Z) this doesn`t seem to happen, as far as I noticed.
3 - Color pages
One of the appeals of this edition is the colors it possesses on some pages and chapters, which weren`t available on previous english editions (they were printed in black and white like the others). These colors are the original colors used by Toriyama in the original chapters. However, it does not have all the original colored pages available in color (unlike the Kanzenban, which has them all).
This fact has enraged some fans who expected all the pages to be in the edition. But we can not deny that some pages are better than none. And the ones which are there look very good indeed.
But just how many color pages and chapters were left in color in the Vizbigs?
I`ve counted them to find out and made a few statistics with the results:
DB VizBig Collection overall statistics:
Fully colored pages ( 51 out of 79 = 65% kept )
Red and Gray Scale pages ( 182 out of 305 = 60% kept )
Combined color pages ( 233 out of 384 = 61% kept )
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DBZ VizBig Collection overall statistics:
Fully colored pages ( 62 out of 86 = 72% kept )
Red and Gray Scale pages ( 204 out of 252 = 81% kept )
Combined color pages ( 266 out of 338 = 79% kept )
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Combined DB and DBZ VizBig Collections overall statistics:
Fully colored pages ( 113 out of 165 = 68% kept )
Red and Gray Scale pages ( 386 out of 557 = 69% kept )
Combined color pages ( 499 out of 722 = 69% kept )
Conclusion: most of the color pages are there and the DBZ collection even has a higher percentage of colored pages kept than the DB collection.
It is my personal opinion that its a shame that they didn`t include all of them printed in color. But having most of them, despite that not being a perfect score, its pretty damn good, especially since the other english releases of the manga don`t have any.
Here is an example of a fully colored panel:
P.S: it should be noted that quite a few of the colored title pages are not featured in color in the Vizbigs. However, almost all of them are present in Daizenshuu 1, which Viz has already published in a virtually perfect release. That release is a must have, so, if you don`t have it, go get it while you have the chance. Thanks to it, and besides all the other great things that exist in the book, you will also own quite a few colored title pages that are not in the Vizbigs.
4 - Censorship
Let`s get something straight before talking about the Vizbigs regarding censorship. The manga of Dragon Ball has never been released in its entirety uncensored by Viz. Ever. So, the Vizbigs also have censorship.
But there are different levels of censorship. Some editions were badly censored and others only have minor censorship.
So, which level of censorship do the Vizbig have? Well, there are editions with even less censorship out there than the Vizbigs, but the Vizbig`s censorship is also minor.
Since this is also a matter of personal opinion, I think the best thing to do is to show you all the censorship that exists in this edition (sorry about the quality of some scans):
DB censorship:
(This panel is only an example of what they do whenever a middle finger appears. There are more, but instead of listing them all, I`ll just use this and tell you that this or something like this happens everytime a middle finger is drawn in that fashion. Also, the dialog of the uncensored panel is a fan translation, its not official, pay no attention to that detail).
(This is a Mr popo example. I only put this one as an example because this happens every time he appears. Their censor his lips to make him look less similar to a sambo. This way they try to avoid racial implications).
DBZ censorship:
(This particular panel is not from the DBZ portion, but it still gets the point across that this also happens in the DBZ portion, not just in the DB portion. Everything I stated about it previously still holds true here).).
(This particular panel is not from the DBZ portion, but it still gets the point across that this also happens in the DBZ portion, not just in the DB portion. Everything I stated about it previously still holds true here).
(Their guns are altered to make them look less realistic. There are other panels with them but its pretty much the same thing. Every gun these two guys had was altered to look less realistic)
(It was altered to make it look like #17 killed him with his hand rather than with his gun.)
And... Thats it. This is all the censorship there is on the Vizbigs. Too much for you? Only you know. Personally I think that its a shame that the censorship exists but its not too intrusive and its rare and minor. Both collections combined make up a 42 volume manga and this is all the censorship there is. I can live with that just fine.
EDIT: I forgot to mention something. In black characters with big lips (besides Mr. Popo) Viz also likes to color their lips into the color of their skin. Unlike Mr. Popo, they keep the lips but they change their color. And this is true in both DB and DBZ Vizbig collections. This is a very minor edit and almost no one notices it. But since I promised you this included all the censorship, I thought it was best to mention it. At the time I made this review, I completely forgot about these edits, since they are so minor.
Here is an example:
So, now, I believe this is truly all the censorship the Vizbig have.
5 - Presentation
The covers of the Vizbig are not that great looking but they are Toriyama art. I do however like the back covers and the spine art, but they could have done a better job.
6 - Contents
Besides the volumes themselves, this edition also includes the title pages of the chapters and sometimes some extras like art that appeared in the Shonen Jump magazine or some of the original Taukonbon covers. These extras are not consistent however and only exist in some volumes. The Toriyama`s volume comments are included along with its art. The "Toriyama ask me anything corner" is also included in the first collection (DB collection). The Vizbigs do not include, however, some of the unique art that some taukonbon volumes had and they don`t include the Taukonbon original spine art (but Viz`s Daizenshuu 1 has it, along with all of the original Taukonbon covers and a lot more art. If you don`t have it, buy it).
As for the final chapter, two great things could have happened in this release. It could have had the Kanzenban ending (the kanzenban has a few extra pages in the final chapter) or it could have had the final chapter presented totally in color, something that its even rarer than the Kanzenban ending and that is only included in the original Shonen Jump issue that had the last chapter and in Daizenshuu 2, which was never translated to another language I believe (at least for english it wasn`t).
In reality, neither happened. At least not fully. The final Vizbig volume presented most of the final volume in color but not all of it. It left two color pages in black and white and one of them is one of the two exclusive pages of the original ending. To see it in color would really be something special and pretty rare as I`ve explained. The other exclusive page of the original ending was left in color fortunately, but this page is not as rare as the other one since its included in Daizenshuu 1, which Viz has already released (its the final page of the chapter where Toriyama says goodbye).
In conclusion, it was a shame, but that is hardly enough to destroy the merits of this release. It merely failed to bring us something truly unique. It would have been great and it would have made this release even better, but that does not diminish the release and its merits in my opinion.
7 -Translation and dialog
There are a few name changes, some little tweaking in the dialog, but in the end this is what you need to know: its virtually the same as the dialog in the other Viz editions and Herms considers that the translation Viz used should get 7 stars out of 10 if he were to rate it, which is pretty good. A Viz line might not be literally equal to the original line but what it means and implies is virtually always correct.
8 - Price
This is the great selling point of this edition (pun intended). Its price is pretty much unbeatable and that is a great advantage when we are collecting a 42 volume manga, especially if we are buying it online where its price tends to be even lower. Its much cheaper than the regular edition and its even cheaper than the box sets of the regular edition.
But despite this great price, it also has a great quality/price ratio. Its not perfect, but like it was stated, it has high quality paper, most of the color pages and bigger frame. Its a shame about the censorship and some color pages missing, but if that doesn`t bother you that much, or you simply don`t think those details are enough to be worth spending a lot more money, then this release is for you, even if in the future a english Kanzenban release is available (since it will surely be much more expensive).
Compared to the regular and existing editions, the Vizbig is hands down better due to its multiple advantages.
Conclusion:
I`ve already said most of what I wanted to say in this last point about the price. Its also a shame about the final chapter but even without it, this release is pretty awesome.
Overall I would give this release 8,8 stars out of ten. (You all know what a 10 is).
And now, to end this review, a full shot of the complete spine art of the two collections:
Click here to view it uncropped and in full size: http://i223.photobucket.com/albums/dd4/ ... ection.jpg
