Dragon Ball Z Uncut: Frieza Saga 3: Box Set (1990)

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General		Extras
Category	Anime	Featurette-Clean Opening and Closing Trailer-Bonus Trailers Booklet-24-page booklet with episode summaries / character
Rating
Year Of Production	1990
Running Time	825
RSDL / Flipper	No/No Multi Disc Set (6)	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	4	Directed By	Daisuke Nishio
Studio Distributor	Madman Entertainment	Starring	None Given
Case	Amaray Variant
RPI	Rental	Music	Bruce Faulconer Shuki Levy Kussa Mahchi

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	Full Frame	English Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kb/s) English Dolby Digital 2.0 (224Kb/s) Japanese Dolby Digital 2.0 (224Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	1.78:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	1.33:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	English	Smoking	No
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

     The "third season" of Dragon Ball Z, which basically encompasses the entirety of the Frieza Saga, is the most contentious of the entire series. Representing the best and the worst that shonen anime has to offer, often simultaneously, the Frieza Saga basically created the blueprint that popular shonen series would follow for decades to come: Bleach, Naruto, One Piece, all owe a serious debt to Dragon Ball Z and all have failed to improve upon the storytelling conventions that this seminal anime created. At the same time, the Frieza Saga is one of the worst paced parts of the anime and is the most encumbered with filler; the fight between Son Goku and Frieza lasts much longer than it should, climaxing with the infamous "five minutes" that stretches over nearly 10 episodes. Despite this, it's still one of the best and most interesting parts of Dragon Ball Z and is essential for shonen fans.

     Following from the finish of the "second season", Goku has arrived on Planet Namek to find rival Vegeta in uneasy alliance with Krillan and Gohan against a much more brutal enemy, Frieza, a genocidal maniacal alien dictator who even the Kais fear. The rampant slaughter of the Namekians destroys the planet's Dragon Balls along with Frieza's wish for immortality, leaving him with nothing more than a bloodlust against the surviving Saiyans and their friends. The final battle ends over the corpses of both Namekians’ and Goku's friends with the destruction of the entire planet, with the fate of the universe hanging in the balance.

     What makes the Frieza Saga less than the later Cell and Buu Sagas is the unfortunate pacing, in which the fights are padded with unnecessary filler: we see events from the perspective of King Kai watching over and Goku's family on Earth preparing to make their own trip to Namek in the hope of saving them, and while neither are completely useless, with some dramatic effect emphasising and contrasting the apocalypse the protagonists are taking part in, it unnecessarily stretches out what is otherwise a tight and compelling narrative. Worse is the unnecessary use of flashbacks and the trope-creating preposterous ten episode "five minutes" that closes the fight (though it's worth noting that neither reach the lows of Bleach or One Piece with the nauseating "11-seconds-across-a-half-hour-episode" or flashbacks-within-flashbacks). Fortunately the saga is punctuated with excellent moments, such as the brutal murders of main characters (positioned shockingly after moments of hope and seeming resolution - Joss Whedon, eat your heart out) and the spectacular ending, which reduces the once-terrifying antagonist into something simply pathetic, ultimately undone by his own greed and ego. Frieza is built up as such as overpowered and evil monster that his clever deconstruction works spectacularly; similarly, flashbacks to Vegeta's life prior to the series paves the way for his uneasy truce with the protagonists and the future he builds later in the series - these characters grow realistically which makes watching ever-so-rewarding. The story is actually surprisingly well plotted (especially compared to other shonen anime series) with earlier events frequently coming back into play, building up to a triumphant and compelling climax and with a surprisingly amount of depth (again, especially compared to the empty-headed successors in shonen anime). Dragon Ball Z rejects over-reliance on technology alongside typically embraced concepts of honour, with its victors embracing compassion and survival to protect their nakama and thrive against over-powered foes.

     There's been a resurgence in popularity of this anime with the new Dragon Ball Z Kai, a much shorter and supposedly more refined remake of the series that eliminates most of the filler and tightens the pace of the nearly-300-episode series into an even hundred. Whether the series demanded a refinement is up to debate, but I'm pleased none-the-less to see this seminal anime getting the attention it deserves. This is again a fine DVD set that is one of the best ways to see the original series as it was originally aired.

Video

     The video is presented in a widescreen 1.78:1 aspect ratio. It is 16x9 enhanced.

     As I discussed in the first Dragon Ball Z box review, this aspect ratio is very controversial; to reiterate, the original anime was broadcast in 1.33:1, not widescreen. In creating this new version of the show for release, FUNimation went through a lengthy expensive remastering process in which the Japanese masters were converted to digital 1080p video and then cleaned up and cropped to create the transfer seen here, removing a part of the top and bottom and re-adding footage to the sides to create widescreen.

     As with the first set, this is a solid transfer; although there are still a lot of film artefacts in these releases, there is very little grain and the colours themselves are bright and powerful. The widescreen looks very good on a HD set, giving the show a more cinematic feel (which is particularly nifty during the large-scale epic fight sequences), but occasionally feels a bit off when it is clear that the cinematography is wrong for this aspect ratio, like when the tops of heads are cut off. This is, fortunately, rare and overall I am satisfied with the look of this set. There are some other minor issues, such as small lines appearing briefly due to the process used to clean up the sets, but this is rare and isn't going to drag anyone out of the viewing experience.

     This is an unusual case, I feel, in that reaction to the set will ultimately come down to personal opinion rather than actual quality. Although I am well aware that there are cleaner releases of the series available elsewhere, the set does look very good like this. Whether or not you will take to this is really personal preference, and the FUNimation site has plenty of previews showing off the new footage vs. the old footage to help you make up your mind.

     The English subtitles are nearly flawless in this set thankfully, as the first season suffered greatly from poor translation and some parts of the second were also disappointing. Fortunately we get a great set of subtitles here, which accurately and dramatically cover the original Japanese for best effect.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

     The audio is presented in English Dolby Digital 5.1 (FUNimation dubbing with Japanese music), English Dolby Digital 2.0 (FUNimation dubbing with FUNimation music), and Japanese Dolby Digital 2.0 (original Japanese soundtrack).

     Let's go over this bit by bit. To begin with, this is the very best English audio of the series that has been released. The 5.1 sound is very atmospheric, utilizing the full surround in the majority of scenes and then going crazy with the subwoofer during the fights and explosions (of which there are many). Fans who grew up with the original FUNimation dub will be pleased that all the original voice actors are here, and a lot of the dialogue has been redubbed to fit the newly uncensored cut of the show, while the addition of the Japanese soundtrack gives the show a more pure form. The mix is very well done, with all the lines syncing and everything perfectly audible, though the actual translation suffers somewhat across the second and third seasons. Fans will likely find themselves switching to the Japanese track more and more often to see what the characters are actually saying.

     The second soundtrack is the original FUNimation dubbing, complete with the awful soundtrack that the show was first broadcast with in English. For completion sake it's nice to have it here, and it's a pretty decent stereo mix but it pales in both quality and depth to the new 5.1 soundtrack. Fans who listen to the 5.1 with the far superior Japanese music will never ever want to go back to this.

     Finally we have the Japanese Dolby Digital 2.0 soundtrack, which is again a vast improvement on the first set - there's more depth, detail and clarity here than in the first box, with the characters and battles much more audible. Although not as engaging or atmospheric as the English 5.1 (switching between the two will blow you away) this makes the show much more fun to watch for its original soundtrack, especially if you've already seen this saga before in English.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

Animated Menus with Sound

     Music from the original FUNimation dub of the series plays behind a nice still shot of Goku (the same as the DVD cover).

Textless Songs - Opening Song (1:50), Closing Song (1:39)

     The cleaned up, textless opening and closing credits for Dragon Ball Z look very nice and will give fans an unobstructed viewing. In 1.78:1.

Trailers

     Several Madman trailers round out the collection, presented in 1.33:1 with a very nice video and sound transfer. Although none of these appeal to me, they mostly retain the original Japanese music and style (except One Piece, which features the awful Funimation rap garbage). It's worth noting that many of these are just the openings for various anime shows which give the viewer absolutely no information about that which lies within, making them borderline useless.

24-page booklet with episode summaries and character descriptions

     A full-colour booklet is contained within the DVD package; it's small, but a nice little summary of the episodes and major characters, as well as a small write up on the remastering.

     Dragon Ball Z: Season 3 is a great continuation of the excellent shonen anime even with its issues. Only occasionally dabbling in the childish content that established the original Dragon Ball series, it continues to mature with strong themes and ideas as well as potent violence and cruelty.

     The video and audio are both controversial, due to the big changes converting the original 1.33:1 to widescreen, as is the quality of the different audio choices. It is entirely personal preference as to how fans will feel about these.

     There are, again, pitifully few extras.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall