Customer Reviews

Dragon Ball Z Double Feature: The History of Trunks / Bardock [Blu-ray]

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I can remember when "THE HISTORY OF TRUNKS" was shown on TV in Japan back in 1993 the buzz on the anime BBS at the time was just message after message of excitement and shock by "DRAGON BALL Z" fans. That excitement was followed by the large attended screenings at anime fan clubs for "THE HISTORY OF TRUNKS", the second special of "DRAGON BALL Z". Seeing the shocked faces of everyone who watched it will always be a lasting memory and this special would become a favorite of mine.

Now nearly two decades later, the first two specials have been released together on Blu-ray Disc courtesy of FUNimation Entertainment.

VIDEO:

If there is one thing that is important to remind everyone is that these two animated specials are twenty years old. It's a general known fact that a lot of older anime films, specials and even TV series have not been preserved well. There is only so much that can be done with the original master source, so let's start with the good and the bad. The good is that this is probably the best we are ever going to see "Dragon Ball Z". It's on Blu-ray, hi-def and the picture quality was great for that time and the colors are nice and sharp with it's 1080p transfer. The video was remastered in High Definition and digitally restored and you get a nice wide screen 16×9 transfer. Colors look good for two anime films that are twenty years old.

With that being said, the good news is that the specials fared quite well in its translation to Blu-ray. Because these two were shown on television, you don't get as much scratches or dust. In fact, I saw very little of any scratches or dust which was great considering how old these two specials were. Also, the colors were quite vibrant and was very pleased with the video transfer.

AUDIO:

Like the treatment they have given to their TV season box sets of "DRAGON BALL Z", this Blu-ray disc features Dolby TrueHD, English 5.1 with Japanese or U.S. Music and the original 2.0 Japanese track. I love having been given the choice and although I grew up watching "DRAGON BALL Z" with its original Japanese language, I have to say that the English dubbing for the US "DRAGON BALL Z" is terrific and perfectly cast.

The Dolby TrueHD English 5.1 track is where you are going to hear the difference because of the utilization of the rear channels during the battle scenes. So, it's great to have FUNimation really work the 5.1 track for the Blu-ray release.

SPECIAL FEATURES:

Surprisingly there are no special features included on the Blu-ray but there are a good number trailers for a lot of the recent FUNimation DVD and Blu-ray releases.

I may sound a bit biased towards these two specials because I was there to see the excitement by anime fans not long after the special was shown in Japan and to see the anime club viewings in the US so packed with people watching it in Japanese (without understanding what is going on) and to see anime BBS message boards with long threads from "DRAGON BALL Z" fans just discussing their shock after watching the special. It was one of those rare times I can remember so many fans coming together to watch a film that was not subtitled in English (the other was the first "Street Fighter" animated film) and no one really knew what was going on but because the special featured so much action, it was just worth watching.

I've purchased many incarnations of "THE HISTORY OF TRUNKS" and to watch it on Blu-ray and to see how vibrant the colors were and how good it looked for an anime 16-years old, was quite nice.

The same can be said in regards to "BARDOCK, THE FATHER OF GOKU". A special that I watched nearly two decades ago and again, to really enjoy because rarely do the "Dragon Ball Z" storyline go outside of main core of characters and focus on another group.

Not much was known about Bardock but it was great to watch this special again. And again, for something that came out so old, and in this case 19 years ago to look so vibrant in colors and looking so great in Blu-ray is a major plus.

FUNimation Entertainment did another fantastic job on this Blu-ray and it may have a bit of the dust and scratches but it was very minimal. But as a longtime "DRAGON BALL Z" fan, "THE HISTORY OF TRUNKS" is one of those must-own releases. For DBZ fans, these two specials would be a fantastic addition to your anime collection and for a Blu-ray, the price for both one Blu-ray disc is great.

Overall, another action-packed release that is definitely recommended!

I bought this item and found it a total disappointment. The reasons being, it's not HD Quality. Let me explain. I bought this expecting the same refining and color conversion as the previous 2 blu-ray releases. When I watched the "History of Trunks" there was a plethora of grain clouding the picture. The colors were not vivid. It did not even look as good as Season releases of Dragonball Z on Remastered Dvd. Keep in mind this is blu-ray, it's suppose to take it a step higher!


Now the second Movie feature "Bardock: Father of Goku" looked a lot better a ton of grain was removed but is not up to specks as the last 2 releases, but I can call it HD. Unfortunatly what dissappointed me the most was what the Blu-ray box said. If you have a chance to go to the store and look on the back cover of Blu-Ray box, you will see information on sound quality. You will see these selections:

*Dolby TruHD English 5.1 with Japanese Music

*Dolby TruHD Enigish 5.1 with U.S. Music

*Original Japanese

When you go to the see the setup menu The dolby TruHD with U.S. Music is not there instead you will see Stereo 2.0 . Also known as false advertisement.

How do you go from TruHD to Stereo that's like getting 10 cents instead of a dollar or a bike instead of a car. Come on! Yeah Japanese film masters (whatever!)

Overall they slacked off on this last prodject and if they keep it up I will boycott it.

Please your better off getting the Dvd Version and have an upconverter do the work for you.

If you don't believe me rent it!!!

If by some reason I got a bad copy somebody tell me Please!

Any die hard DBZ fan will buy this movie; both features have a great back story and is nice to add to your collection... however:

This review is pretty much copy/paste on my review of: Dragon Ball Z - Return of the Cooler / Cooler's Revenge (Double Feature) [Blu-ray]

"Unless you're upgrading it from VHS then don't worry about buying a blu-ray version if you already have the DVD.

Having watched the original DragonballZ on DVDs and despite their best attempts at restoring the original films, the blu-ray version doesn't seem to offer any real advantage to the DVD versions.

You will still notice the film grain throughout the film.
Another issue is given that the original version was made for 4:3 the up scaling to 16:9 didn't really do anything for the film and feels like a cropped/stretched version of the original."

Something I'll add to this review that I didn't mention in the other is as with the picture quality the audio does sound better, but like the picture quality it really isn't that noticeable.

This is a fairly old anime, so you can't always get picture quality up to current HD quality, that being said, it is still better than the DVD version. Better video and sound quality, and personally I think these are the best two DBZ movies (except Bojack and when Goku saves Gohan and motivates him to SSJ2 for only the second time as a kid). Both films show tremendous loss that stimulates such deep emotional rage that epic moments come about, and that is what DBZ is all about. Bottom line, if you are still a DBZ fan, sell your DVD copy and buy this one.

This product is not high quality but it is something that is a memory to myself. There is something about these 2 dragonball z movies that makes me love them. I purchased this knowing they were not bluray because you cannot take something and make it better quality. I was impressed however with the way the show looked and I am very pleased with this purchase. I also paid like 10 dollars new which is well worth it. I recommend this to any dragonball z fan with a bluray player and a couple extra dollars

The 4 star rating comes from just the movies themselves - both are great. It seems like all Funimation did to transfer any of the DBZ movies to HD was increase the default brightness. When the explanation of how the Broly movie was transferred to HD came on, it compared the new footage to the original Japanese footage, and the original Footage looked better. In my opinion, the movies are just better off bought on DVD(at least so far - The Tree of Might may be different). If you want anime on blu-ray save it for Jin-Roh or Akira.

The story of Trunks and Bardock are two great side episodes. If you are a fan of Dragon Ball Z and you haven't watched this, you must get this. However do not watch this before Dragon Ball Z Season 4 Boxset. People who never watched Dragon Ball should start out with Dragon Ball Z Season 1 Boxset. In terms of format I can't say that there is an advantage between blu ray version over the dvd version. I didn't get a feeling I was watching blu ray but I guess I can't expect too much since this is a classic.

Both are most see movies of DBZ. Now the picture on the BD version is a tiny bit better than the dvd at the most. The only really reason to get the BD insted of the DVD is the audio is a little better and/or if you are a very sirius Dragonball fan. The reason I give it 5 stars is that it is the best version their is, unless they re animated it which is very unlikly.

It's literally exactly like the first guy said on this review page. The U.S. music is falsely advertised as being Dolby TrueHD 5.1 when it is really just regular 2.0. Most especially did I notice, even though I was most upset about the lack of 5.1, was the terrible video quality for The History of Trunks. It really does not look very good and I can definitely say that I've seen it some of the best quality equipment you can get. It really doesn't look or sound very great. Other then that it's great. Both movies are still as awesome as they always have been, but the serious and obvious lack of effort by Funimation and whoever else is kind of disturbing.