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• 25Nov 09

  Moving Day

  Well, y'all (like, all one of you) shoulda seen this coming. With the way recent changes on TV.com have been, I just don't think I could continue blogging on this here site until things just become more usable in general. Don't trip, I'll still be doing the minimum effort as editorship over my current guides, but you just won't be seeing much of anything in the blogging category until TV.com gets their act together.
  
  Until then, I've set up a wordpress account, so...
  
  
  
  ^^Clicky!
  
  • Posted Nov 25, 2009 3:59 pm PT
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• 7Nov 09

  FUNimation: Dragon Box Z

  The Dragon Ball series, at least in terms of how things played off in America, is one of those franchises that has always been somewhat prominent in our culture, whether it be from the actual episodes themselves being aired, to parodies and online memes of the series being created. And while such may not be a bad thing, it does prevent most American fans, or even just average joes that have heard of the series, to not be attached to it in a nostalgic value. On one occasion, I actually remember a cIassmate of mine being surprised that the series ended once I brought it up to him last year. I guess in the public eye, Dragon Ball has just always been around and as such could never really be considered as something old-school at all.
  
  Enter the Dragon Box.
  
  In a nutshell, American distributors of the Dragon Ball series, Funimation, has made multiple releases of the series, one of the latest being in the form of orange brick-styIe "Season Sets."However, upon finding that the release had the episodes cropped from the original fullscreen to a widescreen format, many people (myself included) put a boycott of sorts, refusing to purchase any of these latest releases. Regardless of such, though, many casual fans were willing to pick up the sets, not really caring for how they watch the episodes as long as they were well... the episodes in one form or another. But with the older releases becoming harder to pick up and with such a crappy alternative, I felt like it would be at least 10 more years until a respectable release came around.
  
  Nevermind.
  
  

  

  
  Early this year, Funimation announces that they were able to get their hands on the Dragon Box masters of the series. What's a Dragon Box, you ask? Imagine those fancy remastered 50 year anniversary special collector's edition releases that Disney does with their older movies... but for DBZ. Yeah, it's kind of a big deal. Almost immediately after the announcement (and checking around to make sure Funimation didn't screw around with anything), I pre-ordered the darn thing. Finally, a Dragon Ball release I can be proud of when I look at it up on my bookshelf. Now all that's left is to wait... for three months.
  
  Well as of approximately three hours ago, that wait is finally over.
  
  

  

  
  Just the thought of having something that was originally meant for a limited release in Japan just astonishes me.
  
  One thing I wanna get out of the way when dissecting this beast of a release is that I can totally understand why people who gave in and bought each and every one of the previous releases is ticked about this release even existing in the first place. But honestly, this is Funimation we're talking about—the same people that did three releases of Yu Yu Hakusho even though they really could have stopped at two. It's always been about a waiting game when it comes to their releases. Is it my fault you pulled out too soon?
  
  Another I should bring up is who the release is really aimed at: the "hardcore fans." Funi even goes as far as using the term in their unveiling of the release as well as on the packaging itself. But what do they really mean by this? Well, it's simple enough when you go through the makeup of this particular release. The attached guide book refers to characters and attack names using the Japanese versions of the names. Voice actors mentioned are only from the Japanese cast. Heck, even the default setting is to the Japanese track with English subtitles. So yeah, sorry hardcore dubbies-with-dub-music-track fans, this ain't for you.
  
  I've only had the set for a couple hours, but flipping through the basic stuff, this release was everything I expected it to be. It's like an early Christmas gift... or an early birthday gift, in my case. Geez, I was so pumped to give a thorough dissection of everything, too, but I'm just all excite-ified out. I would be sad about that, but c'mon... I've finally got my mitts on a Dragon Box.
  
  Related Links:
  DaizEX: Funimation Dragon Boxes Feature
  DaizEX Forum Discussion: FUNimation Dragon Box Z #1 (In-Hands) Discussion
  My Photobucket
  FUNi's YouTube Teaser Video

  • Posted Nov 7, 2009 3:34 pm PT
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• 2Nov 09

  No School Like the Old-School

  

  (woot!)

  • Posted Nov 2, 2009 5:12 pm PT
  • Category: Games
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