Final thoughts on FUNimation's DBZ DVDs
by "GreatSaiyaman777"

Originally Posted: 1 March 2003

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A lot has been said about FUNimation's DVDs over the years. Some of it good but most of it overwhelmingly bad. So what exactly is so bad? Since most of are probably already very familiar with it, I'll just sum up everything about them without getting too preachy.

1. Lack of original cover art.
Pioneer's DVD's beforehand, featuring only dub episodes from Seasons 1 and 2, had some amazing cover art. FUNimation's cover art afterward, however, has just been copied and scanned screen shots, the absolute cheapest kind of cover art to put on a DVD. Some of it's not even from the episodes contained on the actual DVD! Not exactly collector's item quality.

2. Lack of inserts.
Ah, the inserts. Little folders on the inside that don't do much but that do look pretty. Pioneer's all had em and so do all of FUNimation's Blue Gender DVD's. But any of FUNimation DBZ DVDs? Nope, nada.

A. Censored cursing for the first few DVD's.
Man, this was really bad in the Ginyu: Assult DVD. Gen Fukunaga didn't want it there so he censored Steven J. Simmons' translations for curse words to stuff like "dang" and "darn." However, fan outcry about this cop-out was about enormous as one of Goku's super Genki Damas and -for the most- part it stopped after the first 2 or so (prob. more) DVDs. However, there are still a couple negligible cesnored bits afterwards.

As for the dub-version cursing... I know most DVD collectors don't get the DVD's for these (usually the VH instead) but I'll cover it briefly. Anyway the first 5 FUNimation dubbed movies used about 40 pseudo-curse words and absolutely no real curse words. I'm not sure how many dubbed "uncut" episodes used any, but overall there's virtually no cursing at all even in this version. Recently the word "ass" was used two times in the Movie 7 dub. However, the DBZ DVDs are long since done with, and nobody made as big an issue about cursing in the "uncut" dub, so there's not to much cursing in these Z episodes, sorry.

B. Wrong openings.
Seeing SSJ Vegeta and Trunks slicing up Freeza while, meanwhile, Vegeta is terrified of Freeza is pretty lame and sloppy. The first 3 DVD's (English episode 67 - 77) have this problem but I don't think any of the others do.

3. No extras.
Commericals... are not extras. The "World of Dragon Ball" feature that summarizes the story... a semi-extra, but re-used way too much. The only "real" extras are the FUNimation interviews on the DVD of Movie 6. The last English preview does NOT count as an "extra" and should not be put in the extras section. So basically, there are pretty much no extras whatsoever on the episodes DVDs.

4. The price tag.
3-4 episodes for anywhere between $15 (if you're lucky) to $25 (if you're unlucky or are just buying from a redundantly expensive place like Suncoast)... is a redundant ripoff, especially considering that DBZ has 291 episodes. And there are currently about 70 non-Pioneer DVDs out. With luck, you could currently buy them all for around $1,000, but who has that much to spend on DBZ. FUNimation's releasing boxed sets to offset this, but I'll get into that later.

C. No closing and ending sequence for the first few DVD's.
As far as I know, everything except for the first two Ginyu DVDs doesn't have this problem. Man, those two DVDs really sucked. As such, I'm not really bothering with assigning numbers to them since their problems don't apply to the vast majority of the DVDs.

5. No kanji writing during the Head Cha La opening song or the ending song credits.
Nope, nothing, nada. (Again, that dreaded -first- DVD had them, though they were inaccurate ones. One of the Trunks DVDs had some too, but I don't remember which and it was probably just a negligible fluke not worth getting into.) But the first 3 DBZ movies by Pioneer had them and they were even translated! And the International Channel episodes had them too. But for some reason they're just not included on the DVDs. From rumors I've heard, Toei's actually sending them creditless episodes for some reason. However, as for the movies, I think they may be cutting the kanji writing out just to "maintain continuity" but, who knows? I really wish FUNimation would do more to get this kind of stuff.

6. No Japanese previews and only one English preview at the end of each DVD.
There's a lot of reason to think that it's FUNimation's fault for this not being here. After all, all of the International Channel episodes had them. And the International Channel has not made Toei prob. over $100,000,000 dollars or opened up a humongous market for them like FUNimation has. So doesn't that mean FUNimation could easily use some of their clout and influence with Toei to just get the damn previews?

It... does not. Believe me, I've researched and debated the hell out of the previews (especially with VegettoEX whom I learned about the truth about previews issue from) and I've learned that it really isn't FUNimation's fault at all. In fact, that's because Toei has refused to let FUNimation have the Japanese previews. Hell, they even send them only audioless master tapes to use and have Steve translate. But why?

Simple. So far no DBZ episodes have legally been released for sale in Japan yet. So, when FUNimation asked Toei to let them sell the original Japanese episodes it worried Toei. Toei was afraid that Japanese fans might import them (hah!) and that it'd damage the inevitable market for Toei's DBZ when it got released eventually. Plus, Toei wanted to be able to advertise that they were the only ones with "100% uncut Japanese episodes" when they'd finally release them (which they'll be doing this year). As a concession for obtaining them, FUNimation was denied the right to include Japanese previews to discourage importing from glutting the inevitable Japanese DBZ episodes market.

So in conclusion- Toei are the bad guys here, not FUNimation. However, FUNimation really should have just come out and said it themselves rather than leaving us in the dark this whole time. It would have saved them a lot of undeserved criticism and perhaps had at least a slightly positive effect on the DVD sales.

As for the one English preview at the end of each DVD- FUNimation could put in all English previews on each DVD if they chose to. Other non-DB anime series by them don't have this problem.

7. No eyecatchers for most DVD's.
For some reason all the eyecatchers prior to "World Tournament: The Draw" (213-215/198-200) are missing. After massive fan outcry (and Jon Allen also complaining to Chris Sabat and Carly Hunter for two straight weeks about this) FUNimation finally decidied to start putting these back in. From here on out the DVD's are as uncut as they can possibly get, minus the lack of kanji writing and the failure to provide a translated list of members of the Japanese cast.

D. No remastered stereo for any of the Japanese episodes.
DBZ has 291 episodes. Not all the music from each episode is on stereoized CD. And it'd be very, VERY expensive and probably cost-prohibive to remaster all of the music. Toei will probably be remastering the mono to better-sounding mono (they aren't remastering it to stereo) but it's completely understandable that FUNimation hasn't remastered this music yet. As such, I didn't really assign a number to this problem since, in addition to not being FUNimation's fault, it's also something that's not really an issue in this case.

8. No fully remastered graphics.
FUNimation tends to leave many megabytes of free space on their DVDs which, if compressed, would lead to significantly better-looking quality animation quality. However, what they have is better than all fansubs and what's shown on TV, so this is the best quality that's currently out there.

So what do I think about the DVDs? Personally, I don't really like them. FUNimation has always put in just the bare minimum amount work on them and they charge an arm and a leg for them. If they'd just put in 6-7 episodes per DVD then I wouldn't mind their quality so much. Even worse, FUNimation doesn't want to go back in put in material they chose to cut simply because "it'd screw up the time-coding." The DB DVD multiple-episodes sets- those are definitely worth buying. As for the new DBZ DVD sets... my best advice would be to just wait it out until they come up with a complete DVD set with every single episode like what Toei is doing. Even FUNimation's boxed sets are expensive and, as the special DB DVD has shown, FUNimation is capable of putting in at least 15 English and Japanese episodes on one single DVD for a low, low price ($20).

Maybe if we're lucky they'll hook up with Toei and their DVD set and give fans the real deal 100%. IF we're lucky. Either way, just hold on to your money, be patient and wait it out. It may take a long time but FUNimation will eventually put out an affordable DBZ DVD set.

Contact: GreatSaiyaman777@hotmail.com