Dragonball Z – Digitally Remastered: “Widescreen”, My Foot
Author: 
January 8, 2008 
There are many of Anime DVD re-releases out right now, including Fullmetal Alchemist, at an affordable price. Since this trend began, I would get my hand on a series that I enjoyed very much on television and add it to my growing Anime DVD collection to watch any time I want to. So far, I own Fullmetal Panic, G Gundam, Azumanga Daioh, Big O, Tenchi Universe, Tenchi in Tokyo, and Tenchi Muyo: Ryo-Ohki. I purchased them for under $40 each (including separate volumes, like G Gundam and Big O). Before the battle of the new video formats comes to an end, I would like to get my hands on more series. That anime is: Dragonball Z
What’s wrong? Why aren’t I buying them? The so-called “Digitally Remastered, High Definition” boxsets? Because they aren’t what they say they are. The boxset sounded too good to be true. It was released too soon for a 298 episode series. Why did they release this after re-releasing the individual Saiyan/Vegeta Saga DVDs? Whatever the deal is, I am a bit disappointed by the releases. If you read around DVD review sites, such as Anime on DVD, you will know why not many fans aren’t buying them. If you’re strapped for time to read a clear opinion, I’ll be happy to explain. However, I must warn you that I do not own any of the boxsets. Although, I can adapt possibilities of changes from the first Vegeta Saga DVDs.
The Lack of “Widescreen” – This is one of the biggest issues with the boxsets. The original video contained many up-close shots of the characters, as well as that late-eighties graininess quality. The “remastering” ruined it; pretty much the whole screen has been cut away, leaving only the characters’ eyes in view. Here’s some photographic evidence.
Audio – The English dub has been revised, but the changes aren’t really noticeable since the first release of the Vegeta Saga. The only thing I was happy about the first release, was that I could finally hear the FUNimation actors for Raditz, Nappa, Vegeta, and the others for the first time. If memory serves correctly, there were still instances of the curse, “Darn It!” Without cursing, there is no Dragonball Z. The only time we get to hear the characters curse [in English] are in the movies or in the Budokai/Tenkaichi games. As far as I’m concerned, we’re stuck with the “TV-Y7″ language.
Packaging – The covers of the boxsets with the characters of the corresponding saga (i.e. Vegeta for Vegeta Saga, Freeza for Freeza Saga) are awesome–but the character designs are a little “dated”. The set comes with a booklet of the “History of Dragonball Z”, chronicling the popularity of the franchise in the United States. Many reviews argue that the boxsets should come with more extras from the Japanese Dragon Box set, such as *better* toys. I agree; As a Dragonball fan of nine years, FUNi should reward us with a bit more schwag for buying their DVDs–not just for Dragonball.
Other Odds and Ends – A couple of other things that I noticed with the boxsets that are missing is the Spanish dub. This could have been a nice selling point of the DVDs. Although I had yet to master the language, I was fond of the Spanish dub of DBZ. It was fun watching Telemundo at 7:30 in morning of episodes that were 30+ or so ahead of Cartoon Network’s seasonal limit–uncut and uncensored. I also admired the Spanish version of Hironobu Kageyama’s “Cha-La-Head-Cha-La”.
There’s also a known bug with the Japanese audio. If you wanted to hear the Japanese opening, along with the English dub, you could only hear the American opening. I couldn’t understand this problem. When I would watch the movies, I would switch the audio to Japanese when I wanted to hear theme song, then switch back to the English audio. I guess they had made it where you wouldn’t have to do that, but it wasn’t properly programmed on the DVDs.
After reading so many reviews of the boxsets, that I have forgotten the smaller details but the critical flaws. Again, this is from experience of watching the episodes from the first release. I can tell just from reading that the problems are actually there and is keeping me from buying them. I would buy them someday if a retailer marked them down to a reasonable price than $30. Although, if they do that, then that would indicate that FUNi is planning something with the series–like a better boxset. Only time will tell.
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Dear DBZ fan,
You’re leaving out a few things with your complaints….or rather overlooking some of the facts and distributors side of those opinion issues.
First off – with wide screen, FUNimation did not simply block off a random area of the screen and say there, its a widescreen product. The original animation cells were drawn in the same same as most other animes…there is more area than can fit on the screen with any type of croppng for presentation. You are still gaining screen area on the sides even though you are losing a small amount on the top and bottom, those scenes can be viewed either way. I’ve watched a lot of both wide and full screen versions and you don’t lose much either way. I will vouch for FUNimation being selective about where and how they cropped the frames. As I said the image can, and has to be, cropped no matter what for presentation’s sake and widescreen is now simply the standard format. They also used a 1.78 aspect ratio which allows for more overall screen area than a traditional FLAT 1.85 aspect ratio.
-I’m not going to argue with you about the audio tracks but any redubbing process is going to carry through holes, even subbing will have some given errors. If you ever want to get the closest to original experience possible you have to watch something in the original language.
-Some of your ‘photographic evidence’ was a little off as well, in particular was the image where you stated that the character should be foaming at the mouth and you said that the de-noising process had removed this detail because of automation. This is probably not true, remember that this version of the DBZ release was done using the original film cells from the animation studio. When animation gets re-licensed form country to country in a lot of instances things will get cut, censored, or even sometimes added in. It’s possible that in the first version that was licensed and broadcast in North America the frothing at the mouth section was added on top of the original animation. I’ve watched these remastering computers at work, which is usually not an automated process by the way, and they look for details that only appear on one frame at a time and mask these flaws using a previous frame.
-You had pointed to another frame that had a white mark all the way acrossed the top and said that flaws still exist….well duh. It’s film, DBZ was produced prior to an all digital process where animation gets put together inside of a computer and goes straight to a digital media release format, which is why you don’t see any flaws like that on new animation, or even live-action movies. When you are working with film, there are going to be flaws no matter what.
-Most of the other comments you made are fairly minor details, I see your point and I understand that its something that you’re looking for in a DBZ set but most of these are pretty minor if you are really looking to pick up a copy of the DBZ series….I mean why be concerned about what ever figures or whatever are coming with the your DVD when you are buying a DVD to watch the show anyways….that’s just marketing anyways. So take it a little easier on FUNimation next time, its a lot of hard work to put a DVD set like this together, remastering is a long intensive process to do correctly and they handled an entire 290+ episode series that’s reignited a lot of peoples love of a show and gotten even more people into;. cut the people some slack if they put some “dated character renderings” on their boxes.
@crosstopher: I appreciate your concerns over this matter. I know FUNimation is doing their best to release Dragonball Z in the best way possible. Actually, I wasn’t that harsh to FUNimation, if I remember correctly.. Seeing this post is a bit old, what I said doesn’t have to be taken into consideration; I can read at it right now, not to be quoted, and confirm that what I ranted about was true to my opinion, but ever since I personally thought over on just buying the boxsets and calling the case closed and be happy. If FUNimation were to re-re-release the new HD DBZ episodes that will air in Japan soon, it would be expensive to buy both the current boxsets and the HD versions…
I think they should have left it full screen. The widescreen does cut away way to much important stuff. For example, when goku and majin vegeta are getting ready for battle, the screen cuts off Goku’s hair and forehead completely as he is powering up. I’m garenteing that this will happen in season 9 when goku powers up when he realises Kid buu is sleeping. Half of(if not all)Goku’s head will be cut away by the screen. I was all for this remastered series when they brought the box set of season one out. I was really happy and anxious about collecting the series in it’s original “The way it was meant to be seen” Version from beginning to end. But I think they really ruined it by making it widescreen.
from my personal collection: http://i1010.photobucket.com/albums/af226/sireniankyle/dbzproof.jpg its not just cropped. look at the background.