Wank: the way it was meant to be seen!
In case you haven't heard, Funimation is re-releasing Dragon Ball Z on DVD in season sets. Under the tagline "The way it was meant to be seen!", they're going all out; re-mastering the footage, re-dubbing the audio for consistent voices throughout, and making Dragon Ball Z widescreen for the very first time. You might say one of these was not a popular decision.

Over at AnimeOnDVD.com back in December, one of many threads is started on the topic, in this case by FUNiRepBlue, one of Funimation's official reps on the AoD boards. She posts an FAQ detailing what's going into the new season sets, including the decision to change the aspect ratio for the release.

Reactions are mixed, with most complaining about the change, some excited about the upcoming set, and pretty much everyone settling on a "wait and see" attitude. Fast forward to last week, when the first of the new box sets began to ship.

So that's what it looks like when a wank goes Super Saiyan.

Gersen: Yes in the end we might gain some "never seen before" footage, maybe even more than we lose, but in the end the resulting movie will just be a transvestite of the original. In the end it's no different than any other type censoring, no different than changing a "little too realistic" gun to a water/laser pistol like our 4Kids friends have done numerous times in the past.

KaidoYuji 8 Shinji-kun: Ugh so basically they are like the old credits in that only FUNimation is credited and then a LITTLE bit of Japanese crew are...
So that means we have the same director, music, original comics..etc that we had on every credits scroll since FUNimation/PIONEER. (even on the movies from Funi are the SAME credits!)

Screencaps are finally posted.

Dread Pirate J.T.: And for the record I was highly considering buying this set. The comparison images they posted a few weeks back didn't look that bad, but as I stated back then, they clearly used scenes that made the cropping look justified, skirted around the real issue and dodging all kinds of bullets fired at them as to what troublesome scenes would look like cropped. I appreciate the remastered video, revised audio, great episodes per disc ratio and low price point, but the cropping just looks so bad I can't buy this. Hopefully one of the little raving otaku "Japan is the motherland!" kiddies in my Japanese class buys it and I can check it out a little more in depth that way. Or someone will upload rips of the .ISO files.

Super Saiyajin Joshua: Well my cousin runs an anime club in Ohio with about 40 members all of which were planning on buying this till I forwarded the screen caps to them. I think Funi really shot themselves in the foot this time. I've bought every piece of crap that Funi has slapped the DBZ logo on and I'm refusing to buy this. I really hope they feel a sting from this one.

Amano07: i'm so angry i'm shaking ... i have never been so pissed off with a DVD release of a anime ever...i hate what FUNimation do with most of their releases (compression artefacts up the ass) but i can live with those.. this just so much worse ...i hope people lose their jobs for this crap. i know they wont... but i'd love to see it happen.

CrazyA$ano: Fear not, friends! I have written a nasty review and started a customer discussion on the subject. Please join in.

AbeChinchilla: Seriously though, DBZ in -Spanish- is the way it was meant to be seen.


So, who's up for season 2?