Forum - View topicREVIEW: Dragon Ball Z DVD Season 6
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Monster in a box
Posts: 671 |
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Are you kidding me? Hercule was the best part about this arc.
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theoriginalbilis
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Definitely a decent and somewhat thoughtful review. It notes the good and bad about DragonBall, while acknowledging it's place in anime history. I'd say this is one of the few professional reviews that actually complement DBZ, and considering I'm a huge fan of the show (and am well aware of it's massive flaws), that's a good thing.
Sure, it's got it's problems (like most shows), but there's a reason why the DragonBall has been consistently popular worldwide for 20-some years, even after it's ended. The characters, the scale and scope of the story and the battles, Toriyama's attention-grabbing designs. And the Cell Games is probably the last solid arc of the series sadly, the Majin Boo arc was even more inconsistent (I started to like it more once spoiler[Vegeta and Goku came back to the Earth Realm to fight Boo].) Let's not speak of certain parts of GT... shall we? 
One possible problem: I think the reviewer doesn't realize these season sets have removed parts of the video, that is to say, the 4:3 fullscreen ratio has been cropped to a 16:9 widescreen ratio. To people are cautious of buying DVDs that have been cropped or edited, this is kind of an important thing to point out. Personally, it doesn't bother me too much, as long as I can watch the episodes. But like I said, there are anime fans who don't want a cropped/edited DVD release. The only other problem I could see with the review is tends to be primarily focusing on the English dubbing. With most other anime reviews, this wouldn't be a problem. But, the original Japanese cast was barely mentioned in this review. And considering that the reviewer went out of his way to point out that the dub is vastly different from the original VA performances, it seems like a big point to leave out. The review points out notable VAs like Sean Schemmel, Eric Vale, and the like, but talented seiyuu like Takeshi Kusao, Norio Wakamoto, and Masako Nozawa and their performances weren't even mentioned. I think this should have been brought up, especially in terms of discussing how different the 2 casts voiced the series. It probably would have served useful for those reading this review to learn more about the original language. Especially since the dub for DBZ is known for it's blatant over-acting, while the seiyuu cast performances feel a little more understated and grounded. Sometimes the DBZ dub sounds like a 4Kids dub without the edits, other times it sounds just fine. I'd say if the script wasn't so up-and-down in terms of accuracy, the DBZ dub would be less ridiculed by sub fans, and would stand the test of time better. And this is coming from me, a big fan of anime dubs. Still, a decent review that shows the positives of DBZ that many anime fans refuse to acknowledge. Hopefully, we'll see more reviews of the future sets/movies/what have you, and hopefully they will be less dub-centric and focus on both language tracks more. (And for the record, the name "Hercule" was added into the American versions, his name is supposed to only be Mr. Satan. And believe me, his character becomes far more developed and entertaining during the Boo arc.) |
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504NOSON2
 Subscriber Posts: 647 Location: Body:Santa Barbara, CA ~ Heart:New Orleans, LA |
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Yes!!! Finally someone else has said it. Naruto,Bleach and YYH(which ran during DBZ's original run)all were basically shonen spawn of the wonderful DB/Z/GT meta-series. And,as much as I love them all,you already know what series has that eternal Anime/Manga thrown in My heart.
Now,as far as the arc/saga's go,the Cell game's sage was significant because it introduced ascended levels of the Super Saiya-jin transformation,especially Gohan(the last to achieve even level 1)to become the first to reach SSJ 2. And,for Bejita to finally acknowledge his son(s). Oh,almost forgot... and for Goten to be conceived. 
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saiyajedi
 Posts: 104 Location: Osaka |
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Are they really calling him Hercule Satan, and not Mister? I thought they had gotten over such shenanigans.
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rizuchan
 Posts: 980 Location: Kansas |
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Seconded. I was really annoyed with Mr. Satan back when DBZ was broadcast on TV, but since I've been rewatching the series I've found him to be one of the most entertaining characters.
No, they call him nothing except for Mr. Satan in these remastered versions. The reviewer was mistaken and thought that "Hercule" was his first name in the original Japanese version. |
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LordPrometheus
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Agreed. Watching Gohan go SS2 for the first time was epic. I unfortunately missed DBZ's initial run in the US, so I'm experiencing them all for the first time via these remastered box sets. I absolutely love this show, even with it's myriad flaws.
In the remastered versions, they predominately call him Mr. Satan, but they throw Hercule in there on occasion as his first name. I thought it made more sense than changing his name completely like they had before.
Sorry, but you're wrong. I own the Season Six boxset, and they do indeed call him Hercule at varying points during the show. |
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_Earthwyrm_
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That Marathon feature sounds absolutely brilliant.
Is this feature on the other boxsets as well? I must go check. |
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braves
 Posts: 2309 Location: Puerto Rico (but living in Texas) |
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Wow, I can't believe that I just read a review that was praising the "re-mastering" process that FUNi did. FUNi essentially cut 20% of the footage on the top and bottom, while "adding" 5% to the sides. I'm not sure if it's gotten better over the sets, but the first 2 box sets of this series were atrocious in regards to the re-mastering. Not worth my money to keep on buying. Though, I would buy it if it had the Mexican dub on it, but noooo. FUNi had to add the English w/ JP music and English w/ English music. It's kinda a few years too late to add the JP music. Probably most people who cared about listening to the English track with JP music have either gotten used to the JP track or praise the English track music and don't care about it anymore.
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LordPrometheus
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Yes, it's on all the season boxsets. Enjoy. 
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Key
Moderator
 Posts: 18460 Location: Indianapolis, IN (formerly Mimiho Valley) |
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This is the only one of the remastered box sets that I have, so I can't do a comparison to the (infamous) cropping in the first couple of sets, but if this set was cropped, it sure wasn't apparent to me. I watched this series all the time when it was still a feature series on CN, and don't remember it looking any different then than it does now. (Except for having been cleaned up a bit.)
Simple explanation: I'm a dub specialist. With a few exceptions, I only watch Japanese dubs if I have to or for comparison's sake, so I don't know Japanese casts a quarter as well as I know English casts. (Besides, there are plenty enough people around who comment deeply on the Japanese casts and really don't seem to know much of anything about English casts, so I'm just balancing them out.) If I had commented more in this case, it would have mostly been negative, since to my ear the Japanese cast made too many of the characters sound too girly. Last edited by Key on Tue Nov 25, 2008 4:30 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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asimpson2006
 Posts: 3151 Location: USA |
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I was thinking about getting the Dragon Ball Z Season sets in the near future. The overall problem that I have with DBZ is that the show takes way to long to get arcs completed. I mean do we need to spend a handful of episodes just on training or just on fighting one enemy. The show could have been trimmed of a lot of the training episodes and still have a great series and just cut in some of the training in the episodes via a flashback.
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LordPrometheus
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I agree. I tried watching the Japanese version, but I just couldn't take Goku's voice anymore. They make him sound like a freaking 12 year old girl, when he's a 20-something dude. |
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TranceLimit174
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I must be one of the select few who actually enjoys training segments. Seeing the characters train helps you appreciate how far they've come. As the reviewer said, basically all of shounen owes DBZ. Only 2 things I want to note about that are Dragonball's formula owes Hokuto no Ken in many respects and while Yu Yu Hakusho uses the formula it's a masterpiece. If you think training is long in DBZ, would you compare that to 50+ someodd fillers from more recent series? After the recent happenings in Naruto and Bleach...fans of both can't really complain about DBZ dragging (ahem* Naruto's bridge fight). The best thing you can say about DBZ is it's consistenst. I even found their filler to be entertaining (bringing back General Tao was great).
Mr. Satan gets on the nerves a bit during the arc because after his initial showing all he's reduced to is "It's a trick!" Fortunatley his character goes much further in the Buu arc (and funnier) so going back I find him much more entertaining. Let's not forget that by our standards Mr. Satan actually is a great martial artist. But as we know he's out of his league and the comparison is hilarious. All I would note is the Japanese audio is much better (with the English track) than the music used with the US broadcast. I found most of the music to be overblown, overstating, moments that should be silent (goofy xylophone?) and there were very few pieces that worked. Also I personally prefer the Japanese cast of the show over the English voices but this go round the dub actors have done a much better job and kudos to them on great work. I think the Japanese audio helps bring out their performances. And lastly it should be noted that for some reason the they couldn't get the insert song for spoiler[Gohan's Super Saiyan 2 transformation] in the English version with the Japanese. audio. A shame, but at least it's perserved in Japanese. The marathon feature is arguably the best part (DBZ innovates once again) and hopefully FUNi and other companies are taking note for the future. Overall a great review that took a fair look at "the greatest action cartoon ever made." |
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Zalis116
Moderator
 Posts: 6901 Location: Kazune City |
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asimpson2006
Posts: 3151 Location: USA |
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I'm not against training in anime shows. I think they are important for character development and to some extent plot progression,. but do not need to be so long. I wouldn't say that all training episodes are filler episodes. If in the midst of a bunch of training episodes, an episode comes with the main character picking flowers in a field, then that's filler. YYK does training well with keeping it short and to the point. Two prime examples of this include spoiler[The first training period with Yusuke and Genkai. It's kept short and goes over it not all at once or as a whole flashback episode. It gives a bunch of it at first, then in the episodes following it goes back to some of it, which is a great way to do it.] The other example is from a later episode where spoiler[The main cast trains for the Dark Tournament and while it spends a good part of an episode with the training aspects it doesn't spend 2 episodes going over everybody's training sessions.] DBZ pretty much rewrote the rules for how a Shounen show is done as Love Hina pretty much rewrote the rules for harem anime/manga. |
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