In spite of seven dragon pearls As one of the most popular anime series in the world, Funimation failed to release a purchasable version that wasn’t full of obvious problems. YouTuber Completely unmarked recently released a video exploring each of the DBZ box sets that have been released over the years. While the video doesn’t break down what each version includes, it instead shows a lot of the pitfalls each series covers. Poor sound, garbled images, and questionable color correction have changed Dragon Ball Z from its original purpose of enjoyment.
Dragon Ball Z has been packaged and sold in a variety of ways since it first debuted in the United States in the late 1990s. The series has been released on VHS, DVD, and Blu-Ray, with each release. There are significant differences in video and audio quality. However, regardless of which version fans decide to buy, the episodes they watch will likely sound and look different from how viewers remember watching the series when it aired on television. This would be a big deal for any series, but for one of the most iconic anime series of all time, it’s especially frustrating.
There is currently no good version of Dragon Ball Z to buy
YouTuber Totally Not Mark and his team of talented editors revealed an issue with the home release of Dragon Ball Z. Each box set has been categorized by Image Fidelity, Color, Sound and Availability. More than a few releases contain both English and Japanese audio tracks with and without an electric guitar-heavy English dub by Bruce Faulconer. However, the image of the beloved series is the hardest to faithfully adapt.
DBZ’s orange bricks are the best-selling but the worst looking
Original copy of the DBZ series made on film in 4:3 aspect ratio for the TV for which the show was originally designed. To fit the picture on newer 16:9 widescreen TVs, cropping is done by enlarging the image and effectively cutting off the top and bottom of the anime image. Very few home releases include the original 4:3 format, which is unfortunate because viewers miss out on almost 20% of the images the show’s creators wanted to show.
Another visual problem faced by the aging DBZ main copy is that film degrades over time. Attempts to correct color for faded images have been made in recent releases to combat the muted colors of the series’ original film copies. High contrast levels have been used to combat color fading, but increasing the contrast levels too high often results in images that are overblown or overexposed. However, not changing the original version of the series is enough to demonstrate how degraded the film stock is. Colors and details are blurred, resulting in degraded scenes that no longer match the original intended color direction.
Mark and his team insist that the beloved Dragon Ball Z series needs a home release that is more in line with what the show’s original creators intended. While the series is 291 episodes long, the fanbase has grown significantly, with Dragon Ball Super helping to revive the franchise and attract new fans. Viewers new and old deserve a home release of DBZ that matches the way it was originally released with 4:3 aspect ratio, no cropping or excessive saturation. Hope Funimation will accept these suggestions Completely unmarked sent to the heart and released a worthy box set seven dragon pearlsits popularity and reputation.
Source: Totally Unmarked / YouTube
