FUNimation DBZ "Legacy" Video Series

[VegettoEX]

Leading up to their production of Battle of Gods, FUNimation is hitting hard on the content-generation front. They're apparently putting together a four-part retrospective series about their work on DBZ.

Anyone else feel like they're making a very conscious effort to produce content these days that appeals to all types of fans of the franchise?

PART 1:


NOTES:

• Covers the initial time period of 1994ish with Fukunaga and his partners obtaining the sub-license to the series from Toei.
• The version of "CHA-LA HEAD-CHA-LA" being played is the Mexican version. Now, FUNimation's clearly had the rights to the Mexican!Spanish dub of the series for a while (their DBZ Movie 5 single-disc DVD had the Mexican dub, the "Ultimate Uncut Edition" had the Mexican dub, they did some single-disc releases of it for a while, etc.)... but... uhh... why are they using that version of the song here? They're YouTube partners, so I can't imagine them using the original Japanese version of the song would trigger a content flag. I mean, it's THEIR sub-license. Totally bizarre.
• The flip-flip of the cropped widescreen (from the new Blu-ray "season" sets commercials) to the proper 4:3 Kai footage is kinda hilarious.

PART 2:


NOTES:

• Covers 1995ish with FUNimation becoming a real company and the later employees finding out who they were and becoming fans of the series

PART 3:


NOTES:

• Covers the 1998 timeframe of DBZ struggling with timeslots in syndication and catching a bigger break on Cartoon Network's Toonami block

[B]

Yeah, the first thing I noticed was the 4:3 clips, not picking up that it was from Kai. It's essentially a shorter version of Fukunaga's interview on the first Blu-ray Brick.

[Gyt Kaliba]

Oh wow, I hadn't heard about this, thanks for the share. I know they've been celebrating their 25th anniversary this year, both in general and on the DBZ front (I mean, it was their first property, so they kinda have to), and have even had a couple of timelines set up on their main site showing when certain events took place. I'll have to get around to watching this when I get a free moment.

[Puto]

Actually, YouTube partners get autoflagged now too, I think.

[Blade]

Any chance of someone in the States putting up a mirror version for us guys on the wrong end of their region lock?

[Ajay]

Interesting video, I guess. Nothing particularly new or groundbreaking but I guess it's nice they're giving Dragon Ball some more attention.

That comment section is so depressing. SIgh. YouTube never lets you down for being a reminder of how awful and divided this fanbase is.

Any chance of someone in the States putting up a mirror version for us guys on the wrong end of their region lock?

Try using the ProxMate or Hola Better extention for Chrome/Firefox to bypass region restrictions.

[BlazingFiddlesticks]

A very strangely organized video. Why bring in the Battle of Gods trailer clips at the end?

Though I will be the one to say the amount of breasts in the in-post video recommendations is worthy of a hearty sigh; I don't think it's was Funi planned on dealing in so much back in 1994!

[Blade]

Try using the ProxMate or Hola Better extention for Chrome/Firefox to bypass region restrictions.

I was feeling too lazy to find a proxy, but those work a charm. Cheers mate

[Tatakae!!Ramenman]

I think they're putting out a lot of content like this on youtube and as extras on the season blu rays because there was a long period of time where people were complaining about the releases having barely any extras and being mostly episodes. Like when the season sets came out, Kai came out, and the Dragon Boxes were coming out.

[Baggie_Saiyan]

I think they're putting out a lot of content like this on youtube and as extras on the season blu rays because there was a long period of time where people were complaining about the releases having barely any extras and being mostly episodes. Like when the season sets came out, Kai came out, and the Dragon Boxes were coming out.

I was especially disappointed when Kai had no audio commentries, would have been (mondo) cool to hear Sabat & co talk about specific episodes.

[WesMan23]

Here's part 2. http://www.youtube.com/embed/pNDjIkmWKe0 It's basically Justin Cook and Chris Sabat talking about how awesome everybody thought DBZ was, and how they watched it, un-subbed, in Japanese on VHS. Pretty nifty.

[Ajay]

Enjoyed that much more than part 1. I always like listening to Sabat talk about the show despite my feelings about his acting quality. He seems very aware of the fanbase and purists' opinions on the show. It's really nice to hear him talk realistically about the franchise as a whole rather than the usual 'We're FUNimation! We made DBZ what it is! YEAH!' type spiel that you get from others.

[funrush]

I didn't take a heavy look at the footage but are those the level sets? Maybe Funi likes them over the 16:9 sets.

[linkdude20002001]

[*]The version of "CHA-LA HEAD-CHA-LA" being played is the Mexican version. Now, FUNimation's clearly had the rights to the Mexican!Spanish dub of the series for a while (their DBZ Movie 5 single-disc DVD had the Mexican dub, the "Ultimate Uncut Edition" had the Mexican dub, they did some single-disc releases of it for a while, etc.)... but... uhh... why are they using that version of the song here? They're YouTube partners, so I can't imagine them using the original Japanese version of the song would trigger a content flag. I mean, it's THEIR sub-license. Totally bizarre.

Didn't they only have the Mexican audio at first? I swear I remember old interviews by the voice actors saying how they had scripts that were abysmal in translation quality and also they didn't even have the Japanese audio to reference, just the Mexican dub.

[Baggie_Saiyan]

I didn't take a heavy look at the footage but are those the level sets? Maybe Funi likes them over the 16:9 sets.

There were some widescreen shots later on in the video, like part one. So who knows.

[Soul]

Pretty sure again, the 4:3 footage is of Kai.

[Ajay]

Pretty sure again, the 4:3 footage is of Kai.

From Part 2? That was Level Set stuff. Look at all that grain.

[dbboxkaifan]

Pretty sure again, the 4:3 footage is of Kai.

From Part 2? That was Level Set stuff. Look at all that grain.

Plus, Kai was grainless (they cleaned up the image for modernisation).

[Soul]

Hmm, my bad. That's perplexity odd then at any rate.

[Super Sayian Prime]

1995 with the Texas cast? Someone got their dates wrong.

A very strangely organized video. Why bring in the Battle of Gods trailer clips at the end?

Because they're using this as a promo piece for the film's upcoming theatrical release.