Dragonball Z:Reanimated

http://daizex.com/

http://db.schuby.org/daizex/viewtopic.php?t=9719

Apparently Toei has renewed the series using new animation techniques, it shall air in Japan on April 5 (Akira Toriyama's birthday). The entire Japanese cast shall return sans Hirotaka Suzuoki and others (have passed away). The 291 episodes shall be cut into about 100 in 16:9 HD Widescreen, they did not cut the picture, they've extended it by drawing more and it appears both the OPs and EDs are getting this treatment. I hope that if Dragonball:Evolution does well in theatres it might be renewed in the US aswell. This puts into question if that Funimation will stop the sales of the new uncut boxsets and focus on this renewed series, the Buu saga and on I believe have not been released yet. I personally find this really exciting after seeing the newest move Yo! Son Goku and his Friends Return and seeing how the series could be animated like that. Since everything is to be redone it might be possible they will cut the movies to fit canonically within the series but that would only be icing on the cake for me. I pray that Funimation picks this up. Your thoughts anyone?

EDIT: This has been confirmed in Shonen Jump

Confirmed: Entire series redone with new animation, 16:9 HD Widescreen, about 100 episodes total. Japanese cast is back, (except deceased). First episodes air in Japan starting April 5.

Unconfirmed (basically wish list, lol): Whether or not FUNimation picks this up for English dubbing is not known. Neither is how they will handle the movie releases whether or not to make them canonical.

Also here's part 1 of the recent DBZ movie and the animation style I believe (and hope) they will use

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eqMhQnxmh0s

And here's what Dragonball Z in HD looks like:

Goku vs Broly 720p HD

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x9e-6AiYKAQ&fmt=18

Being a big fan of DaizenshuuEX myself and having heard about it from over there, I do want to clarify a bit.  I haven't checked the forum thread, but based on the podcast, a lot of what you've said is speculation.  If more confirmed details have come out since then, then I apologize.  The picture is going to be extended to 16:9, but it hasn't been confirmed that they're redrawing the backgrounds.  While this is the most likely route, it doesn't necessarily mean it's true (but I will say that I agree that it's probably the case).  As far as I know, FUNimation has said nothing about this, so there is no precedence other than fan wishing that this will ever see the light of day in America.  Not saying it won't, but there hasn't been any official word.  To clarify for those who don't know, Return of Son Goku and Friends isn't a movie, per se.  It's not a movie like the other official movies with theatrical releases made as an extension to the TV show.  This was an animated special promoting the anniversary of Jump, the publication that originally presented the manga.  But, yes, it was certainly great!  ^_^  And as a minor nitpick, Hirotaka Suzuoki isn't the only seiyuu who has passed on since the show ended.  Jheese's voice actor died a few years ago, and you can't forget that Kohei Miyauchi (Kamesennin) died before the show even originally ended.  So there are going to be more replacements than just for Tenshinhan.

As for the premise... I'm mostly apathetic about it.  I don't really care about "refreshing" DBZ.  And I really don't see the need to re-record the dialogue.  It doesn't bother me they're doing it, as long as it's an alternative to the real DBZ, but I just don't see the point.  Granted, it's a better idea than the live-action movie, but that's not necessarily saying much...  The only thing about it that interests me is the length, trimming it down to a third of its episode count.  That leads me to assume that they're removing the filler.  That piques my curiosity.  While there is some filler I enjoy, it would be nice to see the show more accurately portray the manga and also have a version where people can't complain it drags on for too long.  So we'll just have to see how it goes!  Thanks for posting this over here.

Gaffer Tape said:

Being a big fan of DaizenshuuEX myself and having heard about it from over there, I do want to clarify a bit.  I haven't checked the forum thread, but based on the podcast, a lot of what you've said is speculation.  If more confirmed details have come out since then, then I apologize.  The picture is going to be extended to 16:9, but it hasn't been confirmed that they're redrawing the backgrounds.  While this is the most likely route, it doesn't necessarily mean it's true (but I will say that I agree that it's probably the case).  As far as I know, FUNimation has said nothing about this, so there is no precedence other than fan wishing that this will ever see the light of day in America.  Not saying it won't, but there hasn't been any official word.  To clarify for those who don't know, Return of Son Goku and Friends isn't a movie, per se.  It's not a movie like the other official movies with theatrical releases made as an extension to the TV show.  This was an animated special promoting the anniversary of Jump, the publication that originally presented the manga.  But, yes, it was certainly great!  ^_^  And as a minor nitpick, Hirotaka Suzuoki isn't the only seiyuu who has passed on since the show ended.  Jheese's voice actor died a few years ago, and you can't forget that Kohei Miyauchi (Kamesennin) died before the show even originally ended.  So there are going to be more replacements than just for Tenshinhan.

As for the premise... I'm mostly apathetic about it.  I don't really care about "refreshing" DBZ.  And I really don't see the need to re-record the dialogue.  It doesn't bother me they're doing it, as long as it's an alternative to the real DBZ, but I just don't see the point.  Granted, it's a better idea than the live-action movie, but that's not necessarily saying much...  The only thing about it that interests me is the length, trimming it down to a third of its episode count.  That leads me to assume that they're removing the filler.  That piques my curiosity.  While there is some filler I enjoy, it would be nice to see the show more accurately portray the manga and also have a version where people can't complain it drags on for too long.  So we'll just have to see how it goes!  Thanks for posting this over here.

No need to apologize thanks for clearing some things up, yes I know Yo! Son Goku... is an anniversary special. The removing of filler is something I've always thought about, that is taking all the episodes (which I have stored on my pc hard drive, I've been watching Dragonball - GT since December, I'm on Cell Games) and cutting them together because there's been many a time where I would just skip whole episodes because its all basically a rehash of previous ones. Well I'll make a little list of confirmed and speculation in order to not confuse people, because I will most certainly be following this and hopefully will get my hands on some episodes to send to those who ask.

If the part about trimming down the episodes to aproximately 100 is true, then this might be the best thing to happen to Dragon Ball Z since they started making decent video games of the series.

I love the cast and the world of DBZ, but it's tendency to drag on and on means that it's never held up to repeat viewings (or in some cases, the first viewing). Though I'm apathetic about the redrawn backgrounds and 16:9 display, cutting out a lot of the extra fat and bringing it down to fewer, more concise episodes is something I've been hoping they'd do for a while now, and I'm glad to hear it's actually happening.

And, here's hoping, that if it does come stateside, they get a better voice cast than FUNimation's.

Yeah, it's so funny that FUNimation is now great at dubbing... but still screw up everything DB-related.  It's so funny I could punch someone.

Darth Chaltab said:

If the part about trimming down the episodes to aproximately 100 is true, then this might be the best thing to happen to Dragon Ball Z since they started making decent video games of the series.

I love the cast and the world of DBZ, but it's tendency to drag on and on means that it's never held up to repeat viewings (or in some cases, the first viewing). Though I'm apathetic about the redrawn backgrounds and 16:9 display, cutting out a lot of the extra fat and bringing it down to fewer, more concise episodes is something I've been hoping they'd do for a while now, and I'm glad to hear it's actually happening.

And, here's hoping, that if it does come stateside, they get a better voice cast than FUNimation's.

I never understood what everybody hates about the voice cast. I've grown up on Sean Schemmel and Christopher Sabat, I noticed that I dont have redubbed Saiyan and Namek sagas so after I wrapped up Dragonball all happy it ending with the characters all grown up and sounding good the Ocean Dub rears in. What's wrong with FUNimations actors? I've always liked the voices, the FUNimation music is what I never liked.

The voices themselves don't bother me, but the acting is quite bad in many cases. I'd just like to see some consistency.

Darth Chaltab said:

The voices themselves don't bother me, but the acting is quite bad in many cases. I'd just like to see some consistency.

 Yes cheesiness is quite widespread, but Goku's pureness is something that should always remain, but by all means get rid of the earthly sayings from characters such as Nappa and Frieza, that always pissed me off. I get you, if only they'd be as serious as Super Android 16 was to Goku "I'm gonna kill your ass" not necessarily the cursing but damn be more serious in crunch time!

I don't really like dubs in general.  I much prefer watching anything in its original language, but DB has been a particularly painful experience, although over the past several years, the voice actors are the least of its problems.  For the most part, the Ocean cast was great.  They were good actors, and a lot of them fit the characters.  The problem then was Saban's censorship standards, the heavy cutting, and the extreme deviation from the script. 

Then season 3 happened, and, even at 13 years old, I was shocked.  The voice actors were completely horrible.  The censoring was much less, but the script was even more inaccurate, and the music was complete and utter shit.  It was because of season 3 that I finally set out to find the Japanese version.  Season 4 was a bit better but not by much.  By season 5, I had quit watching the dub entirely just because it was so not what DBZ is supposed to be. 

Their DB dub was much better.  By that time, the actors had gotten better at their roles, and that actually had the sense to keep the original music, so I did watch that on occasion, but, like I said, by that point I'd given up on dubs entirely. 

And then there was the travesty that was DBGT.  That show's bad enough on its own, but the dub was a complete joke.  I've never even seen a complete episode of it.  They lost me at their original trailer where they mocked the original version and showed their new hardcore version with the idiotic rap song.  They've taken steps now to improve it with the new boxset, but, like I said, I don't care about the dub, so while I'm impressed, I'd still rather watch the original.

So my biggest problem with dubbed Dragon Ball isn't the acting, which, except for Chris Sabat's Vegeta, isn't that bad.  My biggest problem is with the script, followed closely by the music.

But my biggest beef with FUNi in recent years is those craptacular "season" boxsets.  Since they don't even correspond with the English version seasons, I think they should have just called them "volume"s, but that's not my problem with them.  That is, of course, the cropping, followed by the lying about the cropping.  They seemed to finally come to their senses with the new DBGT boxset, but since they no longer use alternate angles for some reason, they've screwed that up as well, only having the English song and title cards and no longer having the previews.  The old single discs were better!

So no matter what they do, they always screw something up, and it just baffles me why they can't just get their act together!

EDIT: And I should also mention their mispronounciation of words like Kamehameha, Saiyan, and Kaio-ken as well as messed up names like Tenshinhan-->Tien.

Well considering the long out of print dragon box in japan is the way the remastered series should look, and not the funi one.  I don't have funimation but they changed the colors and cropped the image.

Now this re-animation stinks to me as a toriyama fan as much as the live action movie.  They will probably add in a bunch of useless cgi like oshii did on ghost in the shell and he also destroyed the colors of the original.

He basically pulled a Lucas.  Since the original Blu RAY of Ghost in the Shell is not restored, and is out of print.  and The 2.0 has gone back to the oneg and been cleaned up.  Why they can't be on dvd and blu ray in the same quality is anybodys guess.

To me the definitive dragon ball is the original unflopped manga by Toriyama and uncensored.  None of this Z shit. And the anime is totally ludicrous and he had little involvement on the anime later on as far as i can understand.  His last project was the animated version of Blue Dragon which was cut and censored and butchered by only being dubbed in english and released that way and not available and uncut in japanese.

I mean could'nt they just have kept the same cast as the Xbox game that was a dual language release, no instead they did a kiddie dub and ruined what was already a kiddie series to begin with.

To me the single biggest affront Funimation has ever done to American Anime fans is Not hold on to Burchard as Ryoko in Tenchi OVA 3.  Though considering ova 3 animation style was crap and the storyline left a lot to be desired, i guess having the original english ryoko would have been like putting whip cream on a turd pie.

Oh, and while I think Sean Schemmel makes an admirable Goku, he makes a vomit-inducing Kaio-sama.  Easily the worst voice in the entire series, and that's saying something.  Unlike constipated Goku or surfer-dude Yamucha, that's one voice that never got better, even after nearly ten years.

skyjedi2005 said:

To me the definitive dragon ball is the original unflopped manga by Toriyama and uncensored.  None of this Z shit. And the anime is totally ludicrous and he had little involvement on the anime later on as far as i can understand.  His last project was the animated version of Blue Dragon which was cut and censored and butchered by only being dubbed in english and released that way and not available and uncut in japanese.

While I agree with everything else you said, Toriyama had quite a bit of influence into the anime, even into GT.  I don't consider filler (or GT, which is nothing but filler) to be canon, but Toriyama did contribute character designs.  And while I dislike the Z suffix as well, it is rumored to be Toriyama's idea.  I do wish the VIZ manga was uncensored and left off the Z, which doesn't belong there.  I do, however, understand why they did it, and while the quality of the VIZ stuff went greatly downhill in its last few years, it still did a much better job than FUNi.

skyjedi2005 said:

Well considering the long out of print dragon box in japan is the way the remastered series should look, and not the funi one.  I don't have funimation but they changed the colors and cropped the image.

Now this re-animation stinks to me as a toriyama fan as much as the live action movie.  They will probably add in a bunch of useless cgi like oshii did on ghost in the shell and he also destroyed the colors of the original.

He basically pulled a Lucas.  Since the original Blu RAY of Ghost in the Shell is not restored, and is out of print.  and The 2.0 has gone back to the oneg and been cleaned up.  Why they can't be on dvd and blu ray in the same quality is anybodys guess.

To me the definitive dragon ball is the original unflopped manga by Toriyama and uncensored.  None of this Z shit. And the anime is totally ludicrous and he had little involvement on the anime later on as far as i can understand.  His last project was the animated version of Blue Dragon which was cut and censored and butchered by only being dubbed in english and released that way and not available and uncut in japanese.

I mean could'nt they just have kept the same cast as the Xbox game that was a dual language release, no instead they did a kiddie dub and ruined what was already a kiddie series to begin with.

 Have you heard of the new funi season dvds that feature both english and Jap audio, allowing you to mix and match, say english dub with japanese music and sound effects, that's what I'm talking about!

If you think the well known english dubbing on Dragonball is bad you should track down the harmony gold dub, lol.  It was really stupid, but in a kind of fun way if you like those voice actors. 

Yeah, at least FUNi was quite a bit more correct with their names, rather than Zero and Zedaki!

skyjedi2005 said:

If you think the well known english dubbing on Dragonball is bad you should track down the harmony gold dub, lol.  It was really stupid, but in a kind of fun way if you like those voice actors. 

 I love the FUNI actors, they're just who I grew up on, besides they're the ones who did Dragonball so the Ocean Dub feels out of place good thing they redubbed the early eps, it makes since if you watch em in order, like ive been doing. Now hopefully this DBall movie will be enough just to spark some interest in US again. Not tryinh to spark a debate but actually if you see this the movie doesn't lookn half bad, just the same story told from a different perspective, its the same thing in essence really. It shows what the movie truly uses from the anime

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ju3akabRu4Y

You do know that the Ocean Cast did come first, and that they voiced the original DB series long before FUNimation started doing it in-house, right?  They didn't just do Z.

And since you are a fan of the FUNi voice cast, I have to wonder, doesn't it bother you that they've since re-dubbed some of their own work?  If you're nostalgic toward, say, season 3, doesn't that annoy you that that recording doesn't exist anymore?

(Geez, being a fan of dub DB is like being a fan of Star Wars.  Constant reversioning to be consistent with a newer version rather than the older version as well as production/chronology disputes.)

Gaffer Tape said:

You do know that the Ocean Cast did come first, and that they voiced the original DB series long before FUNimation started doing it in-house, right?  They didn't just do Z.

And since you are a fan of the FUNi voice cast, I have to wonder, doesn't it bother you that they've since re-dubbed some of their own work?  If you're nostalgic toward, say, season 3, doesn't that annoy you that that recording doesn't exist anymore?

(Geez, being a fan of dub DB is like being a fan of Star Wars.  Constant reversioning to be consistent with a newer version rather than the older version as well as production/chronology disputes.)

Yes I know, I'm just partial because thats who I grew up with, no different than a kid growing up watching star wars prequels, or someone watching Mighty Morphin Power Rangers compared to whatever they have now. The best one on the Ocean cast was Brian D. who did Vegeta, he was very good, I have to admit the way Vegeta's voice transitioned from ocean to FUNi was very smooth, only noticeable when comparing next to eachother. It took me until Trunks saga to realize that Chris Sabat had taken over. Yes it does bother me but not as much since I have the original dub for every episode, but I can see some heartbroken fans.

Update: Weekly Shonen Jump has confirmed a new title, it will be called Dragonball Kai, replacing Z with Kai. Pretty odd choice isn't it?

Click to enlarge

The truth:

-occasional touch-ups, faster pace based more on the manga.

-The series will be called Dragonball KAI.

The rumors: widescreen (I would LOL so hard).

100 episodes (condensing is unknown atm)

That's about it on this news.  And also, Gaff, get an account already there! >_>

Okay, so I'm not quite sure that this is the right thread for this kind of post, but since you guys all seem fairly knowledgable, I figured I might as well.

I don't know the first thing about Dragon Ball, or anything related to it. If I wanted to watch it, where would I start? What is the difference between Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z? Did one come before the other?

I know some of you reading this post may have just cringed at the extreme noob-ness, but I promise it's motivated purely by a thirst for knowledge. :P

I know pretty much nothing about DB, but have listened to a younger cousin go on about it enough to be able to tell you that Dragonball came first, and is about the main character as a kid trying to collect dragonballs at great peril, I also know enough to say that dragonballs, contrary to popular belief among the non initiate, are not actually dragon's testicles. :)

DragonballZ features the main character all grown up and with a wife and family of his own.

So, Dragonball came first, followed by DragonballZ, followed by DragonballGT.

Sounds like a line of automobiles, doesn't it?

Dragon Ball is a comedy/action manga starring a 12 year old boy named Goku.

Dragon Ball Z is an action manga (with hints of comedy) staring Goku as an adult. Dragon Ball and Z were made into anime.

Dragon Ball GT is an anime series in which Goku, who is now around 50, is magically transformed back into a child and forced to travel the galaxy with his granddaughter or else the world will explode.

Darth Chaltab said:

Dragon Ball GT is an anime series in which Goku, who is now around 50, is magically transformed back into a child and forced to travel the galaxy with his granddaughter or else the world will explode.

Wow, that is one of the most amazing plots I have ever heard. Seriously.