Tag: dragonball

Starring: Sean Schemmel, Stephanie Nadolny, Christopher Sabat, Daisuke Gōri, Mayumi Tanaka, Kenji Utsumi
Director: Daisuke Nishio
Number of discs: 4
Rated: Unrated
Studio: Funimation
Release Date: December 31, 2013
Run Time: 925 minutes

Season: 5 out of 5 stars
Blu-ray: 4 out of 5 stars
Extras: 1 out of 5 stars

Funimation Entertaiment has been pushing “Dragon Ball Z” series for quite some time. Last year, they completed releasing “Dragon Ball Z Kai”, which is the new restructure version of this show but they never have completed released the original “Dragon Ball Z” series on Blu-ray to date. They started back in late November 2011 with “Dragon Ball Z: Level 1.1” and “Dragon Ball Z: Level 1.2”, which got us to episode 34 out of 291 but future releases were cancelled and series was never completed. So that has left fans quite up in arms about this show but it looks like this release starts us back in the right track since we are already through the first season including 39 episodes. So hopefully they complete what they started this time. Dragonball Z: Season 2 Blu-ray is already slated to street on Feb 18, 2014, so I expected them to fly through season 9 by early 2015 at the latest.

Official Premise: The Saiyans, the last survivors of a cruel, warrior race, have carved a path of destruction across the galaxy. Now they have set their sights on Earth and will stop at nothing to obtain the wish-granting powers of the seven magic Dragon Balls for their very own. With the fate of his family, friends, and the entire human race hanging in the balance, Goku, the Earths greatest hero, must rise to meet the approaching threat. As he prepares for the fight of his life, Goku embarks on n epic journey that will take him to other worlds, pit him against new and old enemies alike, and force him to confront the dark secrets of his own past. At the end of this path, the most powerful opponent he has ever faced awaits: the evil Saiyan prince, Vegeta.

Funimation has really delivered quite an impressive Blu-ray presentation with this season by working a frame-by-frame restoration process to remove any blemishes, tape marks, and foreign bodies. The series has also been reframed and presented with an 1.78:1 aspect ratio and it looks great seeing this show with its new HD widescreen presentation. Colors are extremely sharp and the line detail is crisp. There are three audio tracks included, which also have been re-mastered and have never sounded better. The English dub comes with an Dolby TrueHD 5.1 with the original Japanese music. The original English language broadcast version with the broadcast version music is presented with an Dolby TrueHD 2.0 track. Lastly the original Japanese track with the Japanese music, of course is delivered with a Dolby TrueHD Mono track.

In terms of special features, there is nothing here to get excited over since there is nothing here. I would have loved to seen a featurette on focusing on the restoration process for this series or a new commentary track from the voice cast even on just a single episode. What we get instead is an Upcoming Special Feature Sneak Peek included. There are also the Textless Opening Song and Textless Closing Song included, as well as the U.S. Trailer. One feature that I did really liked, not really special feature but still very cool, is the “Marathon Feature”. This allows you to view the episodes continuously without the credits each episode. This really adds a lot and makes it very easy to enjoy a great binge viewing experience of this amazing series.