OP created by the wonderful TheAwesomePossum:
What is Dragon Ball?
Dragon Ball is a manga series created by Akira Toriyama. It was serialized in Weekly Shonen Jump from 1984 to 1995, spanning 519 chapters which were compiled into 42 volumes along the way. It’s a series that started similarly to a previous Toriyama work, Dr. Slump (which is also awesome, go read it!). However, as the foes appearing got more and more powerful with higher stakes, Dragon Ball became more and more serious. The manga has gone on to sell millions of copies worldwide, becoming an international hit.
The anime
In 1986, Toei Animation premiered the first episode of an animated adaptation of Dragon Ball on Fuji TV. New episodes aired weekly, adapting the manga into an animated format with some bits and “filler” added in and changed by Toei. The music was composed by Shunsuke Kikuchi. The anime aired 153 episodes from 1986 to 1989, covering the first 195 chapters. Three movies were produced and premiered along the way.
In 1989, Toei Animation wanted to differentiate their anime adaptation of the Saiyan arc and what would eventually come as a separate series in name. Since Toriyama thought he was nearing the end of the manga at the time (lol), the anime’s version of the Saiyan arc was named Dragon Ball Z because Z is the last letter in the alphabet (I’m not kidding. That was his reasoning. Look it up.)Shunsuke Kikuchi continued his role as the series composer. The first episode of Z immediately aired the week after the last episode of Dragon Ball. Dragon Ball Z aired for 291 episodes from 1989 to 1996, covering chapter 196 to chapter 519, the last chapter of the manga. Thirteen movies and two TV specials were produced and premiered along the way.
Aren’t you forgetting something?
Oh yes, Dragon Ball GT. Toei Animation wanted to keep the DB train rolling, so they decided to start producing their own anime-only continuation of the Dragon Ball manga. Toriyama drew them a few concepts and character designs, and Toei went wild with it from there. A new composer, Akihito Tokunaga, was brought along to do the music for GT. GT aired for 64 episodes from 1996 to 1997. It’s good to note that the first episode of GT aired the week right after the last episode of Z. In 1996, a movie celebrating the 10th anniversary of the Dragon Ball anime was made. This is the movie that we know as Path to Power. In 1997, a TV special was aired that covered the story of Goku Jr. and Pan, one hundred years after GT.
Slumber and Resurrection
Excitement and promotion of the Dragon Ball franchise died in Japan during and afterwards GT. It wasn’t until 2002 that Dragon Ball experienced a revival in Japan. New video games, guidebooks, interviews, merchandise, etc, were being produced at a rapid pace. The Kanzenban, a premium release of the original manga, re-compiled the 519 chapters into 34 volumes. Finally, a home video release for the 3 TV anime and 17 movies was created for Japan, the Dragon Boxes!
Reunion
In 2008, Toei Animation premiered a 34 minute Dragon Ball OVA at Jump Festa as part of a celebration of Weekly Shonen Jump’s 40th anniversary. "Yo! Son Goku and Friends Return!" featured new characters like Tarble and his wife. There was also the appearance of new Freeza minions, Abo and Cado. The idea of a reunion for the DB characters where family and friends catch up and the tone of the OVA can be seen as a precursor to Battle of Gods. The OVA was seen as technically canon when Tarble was mentioned in Battle of Gods. However, Dragon Ball Super did not include the line mentioning him, which begs the question if this OVA can be seen as canon to the “Super” timeline anymore. This OVA has not been released outside of Japan.
Renewal
In 2009, Toei Animation announced that they were producing a high definition “refreshed” version of Dragon Ball Z to be called Dragon Ball Kai. It was re-named Dragon Ball Z Kai in international markets. The stated goal of the series was to cut down on filler in order to follow the manga more closely. The first episode aired on Akira Toriyama’s birthday, April 5th, 2009. Kai initially aired for 97 episodes from 2009 to 2011, covering the Saiyan arc to the Cell arc. The 98th episode, covering Trunks’ visit to the future, remains unaired in Japan and is included in the last BD/DVD home video release. Kenji Yamamoto, the music composer for the first 95 episodes of Kai, was no stranger to the series as he did the music for many DBZ games, including the popular Budokai trilogy. Due to allegations of musical infringement directed towards Yamamoto, the 96th and 97th episodes of Kai aired with a replacement score comprised of BGM Shunsuke Kikuchi scored for DB and Z. The score for all previous episodes of Kai was also immediately replaced with lazy placement of a limited selection of Kikuchi BGM.
A Return to a Beloved Character
As part of a promotion of Super Saiyan Bardock in the card-based arcade game Dragon Ball Heroes, it was announced that a short spin-off manga by Naho Ooishi was being drawn to be the backstory of the VG-only transformation. It was serialized in 2011 in three parts in V-Jump initially. Toriyama was the one who designed the Freeza ancestor in the story, Chilled. This spin-off manga got an animated adaptation by Toei that premiered in the Jump Festa of that year. Episode of Bardock was written as a sequel to the Bardock TV special from the 90s, but it is so standalone that it can be ignored completely.
Hand-to-Hand, God-to-God
In mid-2012, Weekly Jump announced that a new Dragon Ball Z movie was being produced with Akira Toriyama playing a big role in its creation, similar to Eiichiro Oda’s involvement in One Piece: Strong World and One Piece: Film Z. It was announced to take place in-between Majin Boo’s defeat and Goku flying off with Oob 10 years later. The movie was later announced to premiere in Japanese theaters on March 30th, 2013. Once the poster for the movie was released, the movie’s official title was shown: Dragon Ball Z: Battle of Gods or Kami to Kami. The composer for the movie’s score was announced to be Norihito Sumitomo. The hype cycle for the movie was absolute insanity as trailers and new info came out at a rapid and sometimes slow pace. The movie came out to much critical praise as an excellent return to the series, but much of the fanbase was divided over if they liked this new direction for Dragon Ball. Toriyama had been a part of a number of interviews around this time, making up many retcon-like answers that involved Beerus being behind a lot of the happenings in Dragon World. The retcons wouldn’t just stop there as Toriyama was preparing for something quite unexpected.
A Quiet Prequel
In 2013, Weekly Jump announced that Akira Toriyama would very soon serialize a manga named Jaco the Galactic Patrolman in its magazine. Many fans initially saw it as just another Toriyama one-shot like Sandland or Cowa!. Weekly Jump shortly spilled the beans that it would be a tie-in to Dragon Ball by Toriyama. Jaco was serialized for 11 chapters from July to October, which were later compiled into 1 volume. When the last chapter was serialized, everyone’s theories were confirmed as Jaco was a prequel to Dragon Ball. A special chapter called Dragon Ball Minus was included with the Jaco volume, which revealed Toriyama’s version of the Bardock character. The chapter also introduced Gine, Goku’s biological mother. Fans see Minus as a misstep by Toriyama that sullied Bardock’s character more than Episode of Bardock.
A Return to Kai
Shortly after Kai prematurely ended with the Cell arc in 2011, international distributors demanded that Kai continued on with the Boo arc. Toei slowly produced a Kai version of the Boo arc lasting 69 episodes that would be premiered in international markets. What Toei didn’t see coming is Fuji TV wanting something to put in the TV slot where Toriko was finishing. Toei decided to air the Boo arc of Kai, but they would have to cut down on episodes to fit in a year’s broadcasting time for the Japanese version. The Japanese version got a different opening compared to the International version. Norihito Sumitomo fully enters his role as the new composer for the Dragon Ball franchise and composed new music for Boo Kai. The Japanese version of the Boo arc of Kai aired from April 6th 2014 to June 28th, 2015. The international version, branded as “Dragon Ball Z Kai: The Final Chapters”, started airing in other countries in June 2014. North America is not one of those countries.
Revival of FREEZA FREEZA FREEZA
A sequel to Battle of Gods was announced in July 2015! It was originally teased as a movie featuring “the worst wish in history.” What we got was the return of「F」reeza. Akira Toriyama returned as a consultant for the movie with some upgraded roles. He was in charge of the original concepts of the movie, writing its script, and he provided all of the movie’s initial character designs too! He stated that he deliberately increased the amount of fighting because of complaints from fans about the relative lack of action in Battle of Gods. The final movie was not 1:1 to the script, but Toei managed to make a 90+ minute movie out of Toriyama’s vague notes on the fighting sections. The movie’s title, Revival of ‘F’, was stated by Toriyama to be based on Maximum the Hormone’s infamous “‘F’” song. The movie premiered in Japan on April 18th, 2015 with a red carpet premiere in Los Angeles earlier, which was the first time a Dragon Ball movie was shown in its original Japanese version in an American theater. FUNimation later premiered the English dub in a limited release in theaters around North America in August 2015.
The Present
Shortly after Revival of F premiered in Japan, a new Dragon Ball TV anime was announced on April 29th, 2015. For details on the new series, check out the Dragon Ball Super thread!
.....
F.A.Q.
Q: Where can I buy the manga?
A: Viz Media is the North American distributor of the DB manga. Check your country’s manga distributors to see if they have a DB manga release in your language. Otherwise, if you know English, Viz’s multitude of DB manga releases is excellent.
Q: There’re so many versions to choose from! Which one?
A: Individual volumes- Viz decided to artificially divide the 42 volumes of the manga in two, Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z, to match the anime for branding purposes. There are sixteen volumes corresponding to Dragon Ball and 26 volumes corresponding to Viz’s “Dragon Ball Z”. Each volume is of average print quality with some inconsistencies in terms of censorship. There’s nothing necessarily wrong with the translation, but there are some weird decisions Viz did in it that are outdated by today’s current manga translation standards. For example, Piccolo Jr. talks like he’s from Shakespeare in the first 3-5 volumes he is in. “Vegerot” instead of “Vegetto” because Viz wanted to keep the Saiyan name combo.
VizBigs- Re-release of the volumes that packaged them in 3-in-1 omnibuses with the exception of DB VizBig Vol. 5 (DB Vols. 13-16) and “DBZ” VizBig Vol. 9 (“DBZ” Vols. 25-26 AKA Vols. 41-42). This release has the highest print quality of Viz’s current B&W versions of DB with its one flaw being more consistent censorship found throughout. One interesting addition to note is that Viz put back in a fair percentage of the original color pages as they were in Weekly Jump and the Kanzenbans. No digital version. Still in print!
(Mostly) Uncensored 3-in-1s- Similar to the VizBigs, this release is the individual volumes collected into 3-in-1 omnibuses. One of the big differences is that Viz has finally abolished the DB/DBZ divide! This means that the 42 volumes can easily be divided into 13 omnibuses. Also, censorship to the art is mostly gone. The covers are also taken from the Kanzenban covers. Sounds like the perfect B&W release right? The two problems with it is that the print quality is even worse than the individual volumes, and that Viz still hasn’t done a new translation even though the current translation is over 15 years old. No digital version.
Full Color DB- Viz has only released the Saiyan arc of the full color version of Dragon Ball made by Shueisha in 2013. Very high paper quality with dimensions similar to an American comic book. Old translation is still here. Unlike previous releases, the sound effects aren’t translated. Visual censorship is basically gone as well. Viz plans to release the Namek arc and onwards in 2016 with no plans to release arcs that occurred before the Saiyan arc. It’s available in both print and digital.
Q: How about the anime?
A: FUNimation is the official distributor of any animated Dragon Ball material in North America. Here are your options:
Dragon Ball- Five season sets, the “Blue Bricks”, containing the uncut and uncensored 153 episodes of the show remastered and kept in its original 4:3 aspect ratio. Movies can be found in the 4-pack. Both releases have both the English dub and the original Japanese version with English subtitles.
Dragon Ball Z- Hooooo boy.
DVD=Nine season sets, the infamous “Orange Bricks”, containing the uncut and uncensored 291 episodes of the show “remastered” and cropped from its original 4:3 ratio to a widescreen 16:9. Some people are okay with the lost picture and the very lazy remaster, but that’s their opinion. The Dragon Boxes were released here in North America shortly after the Orange Bricks, but they sadly went out-of-print shortly after the last volume released. The movies and TV specials are available in DVD in collections. All releases have the English dub with both the US replacement score and the original score and the original Japanese version with English subtitles. The Dragon Boxes do not contain the US score.
Blu-ray=Remember the Level sets? Those short-lived sets with an excellent HD transfer with the video being kept in its original 4:3 aspect ratio? Those sets became bargain bin material because they were released around the same time as the Kai Blu-rays. Also, the frame-by-frame HD transfer was very costly. FUNimation decided to release new Blu-rays around a year ago that used a lazy remastering process similar to the OBs. The picture was put into 16:9 again with FUNi saying that it was selectively cropped. Sometimes it looks fine, but the crop is really obvious in stuff like the first ED of DBZ. In terms of the movies, they were put into double-features or even triple-features. These are not as widely available as the DVD movie collections. All releases have the English dub with both US replacement score and the original score and the original Japanese version with English subtitles.
Dragon Ball GT- This is much easier. Two season sets, the “Yellow Bricks”, containing the uncut and uncensored 64 episodes of the show remastered and kept in its original 4:3 aspect ratio. There is also a complete series box set that combines the two sets into one, and it is probably more widely available. All releases have both the English dub with the US replacement score and the original score and the original Japanese version with English subtitles.
Dragon Ball Z Kai- 4 season sets available in both Blu-ray and DVD containing the uncut and uncensored 98 episodes of the show, obviously kept in 4:3. All 4 season sets contain both the English dub and the original Japanese version with English subtitles. The score is the Kikuchi replacement score for all of them. The Buu arc of Kai has still not been released.
Q: What is the best website for Dragon Ball news, general info, and interview translations?
A: Kanzenshuu! It’s where I got most of my info.
--
Phew, I think that’s everything. Thank you Kagari for giving me this opportunity! Big shout out to Kanzenshuu again.
What is Dragon Ball?
Dragon Ball is a manga series created by Akira Toriyama. It was serialized in Weekly Shonen Jump from 1984 to 1995, spanning 519 chapters which were compiled into 42 volumes along the way. It’s a series that started similarly to a previous Toriyama work, Dr. Slump (which is also awesome, go read it!). However, as the foes appearing got more and more powerful with higher stakes, Dragon Ball became more and more serious. The manga has gone on to sell millions of copies worldwide, becoming an international hit.
The anime
In 1986, Toei Animation premiered the first episode of an animated adaptation of Dragon Ball on Fuji TV. New episodes aired weekly, adapting the manga into an animated format with some bits and “filler” added in and changed by Toei. The music was composed by Shunsuke Kikuchi. The anime aired 153 episodes from 1986 to 1989, covering the first 195 chapters. Three movies were produced and premiered along the way.
In 1989, Toei Animation wanted to differentiate their anime adaptation of the Saiyan arc and what would eventually come as a separate series in name. Since Toriyama thought he was nearing the end of the manga at the time (lol), the anime’s version of the Saiyan arc was named Dragon Ball Z because Z is the last letter in the alphabet (I’m not kidding. That was his reasoning. Look it up.)Shunsuke Kikuchi continued his role as the series composer. The first episode of Z immediately aired the week after the last episode of Dragon Ball. Dragon Ball Z aired for 291 episodes from 1989 to 1996, covering chapter 196 to chapter 519, the last chapter of the manga. Thirteen movies and two TV specials were produced and premiered along the way.
Aren’t you forgetting something?
Oh yes, Dragon Ball GT. Toei Animation wanted to keep the DB train rolling, so they decided to start producing their own anime-only continuation of the Dragon Ball manga. Toriyama drew them a few concepts and character designs, and Toei went wild with it from there. A new composer, Akihito Tokunaga, was brought along to do the music for GT. GT aired for 64 episodes from 1996 to 1997. It’s good to note that the first episode of GT aired the week right after the last episode of Z. In 1996, a movie celebrating the 10th anniversary of the Dragon Ball anime was made. This is the movie that we know as Path to Power. In 1997, a TV special was aired that covered the story of Goku Jr. and Pan, one hundred years after GT.
Slumber and Resurrection
Excitement and promotion of the Dragon Ball franchise died in Japan during and afterwards GT. It wasn’t until 2002 that Dragon Ball experienced a revival in Japan. New video games, guidebooks, interviews, merchandise, etc, were being produced at a rapid pace. The Kanzenban, a premium release of the original manga, re-compiled the 519 chapters into 34 volumes. Finally, a home video release for the 3 TV anime and 17 movies was created for Japan, the Dragon Boxes!
Reunion
In 2008, Toei Animation premiered a 34 minute Dragon Ball OVA at Jump Festa as part of a celebration of Weekly Shonen Jump’s 40th anniversary. "Yo! Son Goku and Friends Return!" featured new characters like Tarble and his wife. There was also the appearance of new Freeza minions, Abo and Cado. The idea of a reunion for the DB characters where family and friends catch up and the tone of the OVA can be seen as a precursor to Battle of Gods. The OVA was seen as technically canon when Tarble was mentioned in Battle of Gods. However, Dragon Ball Super did not include the line mentioning him, which begs the question if this OVA can be seen as canon to the “Super” timeline anymore. This OVA has not been released outside of Japan.
Renewal
In 2009, Toei Animation announced that they were producing a high definition “refreshed” version of Dragon Ball Z to be called Dragon Ball Kai. It was re-named Dragon Ball Z Kai in international markets. The stated goal of the series was to cut down on filler in order to follow the manga more closely. The first episode aired on Akira Toriyama’s birthday, April 5th, 2009. Kai initially aired for 97 episodes from 2009 to 2011, covering the Saiyan arc to the Cell arc. The 98th episode, covering Trunks’ visit to the future, remains unaired in Japan and is included in the last BD/DVD home video release. Kenji Yamamoto, the music composer for the first 95 episodes of Kai, was no stranger to the series as he did the music for many DBZ games, including the popular Budokai trilogy. Due to allegations of musical infringement directed towards Yamamoto, the 96th and 97th episodes of Kai aired with a replacement score comprised of BGM Shunsuke Kikuchi scored for DB and Z. The score for all previous episodes of Kai was also immediately replaced with lazy placement of a limited selection of Kikuchi BGM.
A Return to a Beloved Character
As part of a promotion of Super Saiyan Bardock in the card-based arcade game Dragon Ball Heroes, it was announced that a short spin-off manga by Naho Ooishi was being drawn to be the backstory of the VG-only transformation. It was serialized in 2011 in three parts in V-Jump initially. Toriyama was the one who designed the Freeza ancestor in the story, Chilled. This spin-off manga got an animated adaptation by Toei that premiered in the Jump Festa of that year. Episode of Bardock was written as a sequel to the Bardock TV special from the 90s, but it is so standalone that it can be ignored completely.
Hand-to-Hand, God-to-God
In mid-2012, Weekly Jump announced that a new Dragon Ball Z movie was being produced with Akira Toriyama playing a big role in its creation, similar to Eiichiro Oda’s involvement in One Piece: Strong World and One Piece: Film Z. It was announced to take place in-between Majin Boo’s defeat and Goku flying off with Oob 10 years later. The movie was later announced to premiere in Japanese theaters on March 30th, 2013. Once the poster for the movie was released, the movie’s official title was shown: Dragon Ball Z: Battle of Gods or Kami to Kami. The composer for the movie’s score was announced to be Norihito Sumitomo. The hype cycle for the movie was absolute insanity as trailers and new info came out at a rapid and sometimes slow pace. The movie came out to much critical praise as an excellent return to the series, but much of the fanbase was divided over if they liked this new direction for Dragon Ball. Toriyama had been a part of a number of interviews around this time, making up many retcon-like answers that involved Beerus being behind a lot of the happenings in Dragon World. The retcons wouldn’t just stop there as Toriyama was preparing for something quite unexpected.
A Quiet Prequel
In 2013, Weekly Jump announced that Akira Toriyama would very soon serialize a manga named Jaco the Galactic Patrolman in its magazine. Many fans initially saw it as just another Toriyama one-shot like Sandland or Cowa!. Weekly Jump shortly spilled the beans that it would be a tie-in to Dragon Ball by Toriyama. Jaco was serialized for 11 chapters from July to October, which were later compiled into 1 volume. When the last chapter was serialized, everyone’s theories were confirmed as Jaco was a prequel to Dragon Ball. A special chapter called Dragon Ball Minus was included with the Jaco volume, which revealed Toriyama’s version of the Bardock character. The chapter also introduced Gine, Goku’s biological mother. Fans see Minus as a misstep by Toriyama that sullied Bardock’s character more than Episode of Bardock.
A Return to Kai
Shortly after Kai prematurely ended with the Cell arc in 2011, international distributors demanded that Kai continued on with the Boo arc. Toei slowly produced a Kai version of the Boo arc lasting 69 episodes that would be premiered in international markets. What Toei didn’t see coming is Fuji TV wanting something to put in the TV slot where Toriko was finishing. Toei decided to air the Boo arc of Kai, but they would have to cut down on episodes to fit in a year’s broadcasting time for the Japanese version. The Japanese version got a different opening compared to the International version. Norihito Sumitomo fully enters his role as the new composer for the Dragon Ball franchise and composed new music for Boo Kai. The Japanese version of the Boo arc of Kai aired from April 6th 2014 to June 28th, 2015. The international version, branded as “Dragon Ball Z Kai: The Final Chapters”, started airing in other countries in June 2014. North America is not one of those countries.
Revival of FREEZA FREEZA FREEZA
A sequel to Battle of Gods was announced in July 2015! It was originally teased as a movie featuring “the worst wish in history.” What we got was the return of「F」reeza. Akira Toriyama returned as a consultant for the movie with some upgraded roles. He was in charge of the original concepts of the movie, writing its script, and he provided all of the movie’s initial character designs too! He stated that he deliberately increased the amount of fighting because of complaints from fans about the relative lack of action in Battle of Gods. The final movie was not 1:1 to the script, but Toei managed to make a 90+ minute movie out of Toriyama’s vague notes on the fighting sections. The movie’s title, Revival of ‘F’, was stated by Toriyama to be based on Maximum the Hormone’s infamous “‘F’” song. The movie premiered in Japan on April 18th, 2015 with a red carpet premiere in Los Angeles earlier, which was the first time a Dragon Ball movie was shown in its original Japanese version in an American theater. FUNimation later premiered the English dub in a limited release in theaters around North America in August 2015.
The Present
Shortly after Revival of F premiered in Japan, a new Dragon Ball TV anime was announced on April 29th, 2015. For details on the new series, check out the Dragon Ball Super thread!
.....
F.A.Q.
Q: Where can I buy the manga?
A: Viz Media is the North American distributor of the DB manga. Check your country’s manga distributors to see if they have a DB manga release in your language. Otherwise, if you know English, Viz’s multitude of DB manga releases is excellent.
Q: There’re so many versions to choose from! Which one?
A: Individual volumes- Viz decided to artificially divide the 42 volumes of the manga in two, Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z, to match the anime for branding purposes. There are sixteen volumes corresponding to Dragon Ball and 26 volumes corresponding to Viz’s “Dragon Ball Z”. Each volume is of average print quality with some inconsistencies in terms of censorship. There’s nothing necessarily wrong with the translation, but there are some weird decisions Viz did in it that are outdated by today’s current manga translation standards. For example, Piccolo Jr. talks like he’s from Shakespeare in the first 3-5 volumes he is in. “Vegerot” instead of “Vegetto” because Viz wanted to keep the Saiyan name combo.
VizBigs- Re-release of the volumes that packaged them in 3-in-1 omnibuses with the exception of DB VizBig Vol. 5 (DB Vols. 13-16) and “DBZ” VizBig Vol. 9 (“DBZ” Vols. 25-26 AKA Vols. 41-42). This release has the highest print quality of Viz’s current B&W versions of DB with its one flaw being more consistent censorship found throughout. One interesting addition to note is that Viz put back in a fair percentage of the original color pages as they were in Weekly Jump and the Kanzenbans. No digital version. Still in print!
(Mostly) Uncensored 3-in-1s- Similar to the VizBigs, this release is the individual volumes collected into 3-in-1 omnibuses. One of the big differences is that Viz has finally abolished the DB/DBZ divide! This means that the 42 volumes can easily be divided into 13 omnibuses. Also, censorship to the art is mostly gone. The covers are also taken from the Kanzenban covers. Sounds like the perfect B&W release right? The two problems with it is that the print quality is even worse than the individual volumes, and that Viz still hasn’t done a new translation even though the current translation is over 15 years old. No digital version.
Full Color DB- Viz has only released the Saiyan arc of the full color version of Dragon Ball made by Shueisha in 2013. Very high paper quality with dimensions similar to an American comic book. Old translation is still here. Unlike previous releases, the sound effects aren’t translated. Visual censorship is basically gone as well. Viz plans to release the Namek arc and onwards in 2016 with no plans to release arcs that occurred before the Saiyan arc. It’s available in both print and digital.
Q: How about the anime?
A: FUNimation is the official distributor of any animated Dragon Ball material in North America. Here are your options:
Dragon Ball- Five season sets, the “Blue Bricks”, containing the uncut and uncensored 153 episodes of the show remastered and kept in its original 4:3 aspect ratio. Movies can be found in the 4-pack. Both releases have both the English dub and the original Japanese version with English subtitles.
Dragon Ball Z- Hooooo boy.
DVD=Nine season sets, the infamous “Orange Bricks”, containing the uncut and uncensored 291 episodes of the show “remastered” and cropped from its original 4:3 ratio to a widescreen 16:9. Some people are okay with the lost picture and the very lazy remaster, but that’s their opinion. The Dragon Boxes were released here in North America shortly after the Orange Bricks, but they sadly went out-of-print shortly after the last volume released. The movies and TV specials are available in DVD in collections. All releases have the English dub with both the US replacement score and the original score and the original Japanese version with English subtitles. The Dragon Boxes do not contain the US score.
Blu-ray=Remember the Level sets? Those short-lived sets with an excellent HD transfer with the video being kept in its original 4:3 aspect ratio? Those sets became bargain bin material because they were released around the same time as the Kai Blu-rays. Also, the frame-by-frame HD transfer was very costly. FUNimation decided to release new Blu-rays around a year ago that used a lazy remastering process similar to the OBs. The picture was put into 16:9 again with FUNi saying that it was selectively cropped. Sometimes it looks fine, but the crop is really obvious in stuff like the first ED of DBZ. In terms of the movies, they were put into double-features or even triple-features. These are not as widely available as the DVD movie collections. All releases have the English dub with both US replacement score and the original score and the original Japanese version with English subtitles.
Dragon Ball GT- This is much easier. Two season sets, the “Yellow Bricks”, containing the uncut and uncensored 64 episodes of the show remastered and kept in its original 4:3 aspect ratio. There is also a complete series box set that combines the two sets into one, and it is probably more widely available. All releases have both the English dub with the US replacement score and the original score and the original Japanese version with English subtitles.
Dragon Ball Z Kai- 4 season sets available in both Blu-ray and DVD containing the uncut and uncensored 98 episodes of the show, obviously kept in 4:3. All 4 season sets contain both the English dub and the original Japanese version with English subtitles. The score is the Kikuchi replacement score for all of them. The Buu arc of Kai has still not been released.
Q: What is the best website for Dragon Ball news, general info, and interview translations?
A: Kanzenshuu! It’s where I got most of my info.
--
Phew, I think that’s everything. Thank you Kagari for giving me this opportunity! Big shout out to Kanzenshuu again.
