Dragon Ball Z DVD questions

On the note of region coding. While doing some testing (which is becoming a regular occurance), I've noticed that at least ADV UK titles aren't region coded, or at least they work on my computer that is set to R1. MVM discs don't work, and Optimum discs crash the computer (if it's set to the wrong region), some Manga discs work and some don't.

Very strange!
 
Noratav said:
The short answer is no. The dub we got was made by Ocean in Canada for non-US markets. This release uses the Funimation dub, which was only shown on TV in the US. The long answer is slightly more complicated, given that the Funi dub was shown overhere for a few episodes during the Namek/Freeza sagas, before being switched back to the canadian dub.
Click to expand...

actually, thats not true, the movies and sayajin saga shown on cartoon network in the UK were the ocean group, the rest of the series was the funimation dub.
 
the rest werent. we had only a few on funimations dub episodes. we got alot of seasons in oceans dub, youtube it thtll show noratavs right
 
CitizenGeek said:
It's baffling that FUNimation haven't released any of their DBZ over here. DBZ would surely sell better than most anime?
Click to expand...
Maybe they see it as somewhat of a risk and although there are people that consider DBZ a classic in it's own rights more see it as one of the worst examples anime has to offer.
 
Sy said:
Maybe they see it as somewhat of a risk and although there are people that consider DBZ a classic in it's own rights more see it as one of the worst examples anime has to offer.
Click to expand...

Most anime fans consdier DBZ to be a bad series?

And even if that is the case, DBZ has higher mainstream appeal than pretty much any other anime series, right?
 
CitizenGeek said:
Most anime fans consdier DBZ to be a bad series?
Click to expand...
Well most seem to agree that the fights are dragged out to the point of being ridiculous with only a few pages of the manga taking up a whole episode, the animation ranging for good to abysmal and the filler being generally terrible. That's just the general points that seem to get picked up on a lot.

Maybe people might pick it up for the nostalgia?
 
I remember reading (perhaps in Andrew's Beez thread) that DBZ is being tied up by some European company that's refusing to release the series itself or to allow others to have a go. That's why the few movies we have out over here utilize that terrible dub in which Picollo is called "Big green" or something like that.

It's not really a case of it being unpopular over here; indeed, I suspect it would probably outsell Naruto, given DBZ is like the most popular TV anime released on DVD in the US.
 
I don't think it'd be really be too much of a gamble.

Considering Tesco and Asda are still perfectly happy to stock the videogames, and even have them as Game of the Week (as the latest DS release was), there's obviously still a lot of people with an interest in it...which is quite impressive considering it hasn't been on TV in years.
 
Paul said:
I remember reading (perhaps in Andrew's Beez thread) that DBZ is being tied up by some European company that's refusing to release the series itself or to allow others to have a go. That's why the few movies we have out over here utilize that terrible dub in which Picollo is called "Big green" or something like that.
Click to expand...

That's bizarre. If this company can't afford to release DBZ, then you'd think they'd sell the license ....

Sy said:
Well most seem to agree that the fights are dragged out to the point of being ridiculous with only a few pages of the manga taking up a whole episode, the animation ranging for good to abysmal and the filler being generally terrible. That's just the general points that seem to get picked up on a lot.
Click to expand...

It just sounds like another Shoenen Jump series (which it is) like One Piece, Bleach or Naruto. Or is DBZ exceptionally bad for dragging out fights and inconsistent quality?
 
CitizenGeek said:
Or is DBZ exceptionally bad for dragging out fights and inconsistent quality?
Click to expand...
Apparently so. I once heard that they would stretch about four or five pages of the manga into a 20 minute episode just to make it last longer so they wouldn't catch up with the manga. Apparently sometimes this went on for months worth of episodes.

Like the original "Dragon Ball" anime, "Dragon Ball Z" suffered from the same manga-to-anime pacing problems which resulted in the excess of filler material in the previous anime. In some ways, the problem was more pronounced during the production of the "Z" series as the increased focus on action resulted in many issues of the manga devoted entirely to action sequences. These combat-oriented issues were more difficult to "stretch" into episodes than more diverse action and this resulted in pacing problems throughout some sections of the series.
Click to expand...
 
The most famous example of the stretching out in DBZ came during the Frieza fight, when the planet Namek was supposed to explode after 5 minutes; those 5 minutes are encapsulated within at least 5 20-minute episodes.

So yeah, in some sections the dragging out is epic. However, speaking as someone who was rather obsessed with DBZ back during 2002 (I think that was the year), if you love Shonen Jump anime, it doesn't really matter too much; in fact, DBZ is the influence of every modern fighting anime - without it, there would be no Bleach or Naruto.

Funnily enough, back during the days of CNX - they had a month's worth of DBZ marathons in which they aired back to back episodes of the series from 6AM till 8AM; I tried to tape it all! All 300 episodes worth! I've never actually watched them (over a dozen VHS tapes!), but I still remember getting up so early in the morning and setting my alarm to make sure I caught the intervals to switch out the used up tapes!
 
omg yes DBZ fight build ups were ridiculous lol, sometimes the build up ie justtalking pre fight would last a week of episodes lol, so damn frustrating. Plus when u take out the intro, end and averts it was only like 17 mins per episode.
And the gap between the series run was aaaaaaaaaaages, i mean i'm sure we waited months on end till new episodes came out sometimes it felt closer to a year, still worth it though lol.
 
CitizenGeek said:
Paul said:
I remember reading (perhaps in Andrew's Beez thread) that DBZ is being tied up by some European company that's refusing to release the series itself or to allow others to have a go. That's why the few movies we have out over here utilize that terrible dub in which Picollo is called "Big green" or something like that.
Click to expand...

That's bizarre. If this company can't afford to release DBZ, then you'd think they'd sell the license ....
Click to expand...

It's not a matter of they can't afford to release it, they just won't, besides according to Andrew at Beez that info is out of date. The series was released on DVD in Spain though, but that's the only place in Europe where it has been released.
 
With regards to the quality, I felt Dragonball Z was magnificently animated, in many areas. It really was massively entertaining to watch, given that we received a new episode to watch basically every week day. It's the sort of series that works really well in a box set.
 
I have all three boxsets and they definitely work on region 2 dvd players. As for the cropping and quality, the cropping is barely noticable, I only saw it when I had previously seen images of the shots on the internet. The only few problems are the whole dissapearing line thing (look it up), not worth while extras, not the best packaging ever and the fact that they didnt have rock the dragon as the opening, which peeved me off... Some episodes, one in particular on season 3 (cant remember which) look really good after the remastering, but that brings me back to the dissapearing lines of others:/ Then again, they are definitely worth the price they are going for, I got each of mine for around £20:D
 
Back
Top