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Episode 54-56 Review The first time I watched the American version of Dragonball Z in 1996, I had positive feelings about the series. The music was ok, the voices were bearable (well almost) and the overall quality of the translation was good. As the series progressed however, it was painfully obvious that nothing can replace the Japanese version. Still, if you never saw the Japanese original, it didn't matter to you. You loved it anyway. Now in 1999, the first tape of the new episodes has been released. I was optimistic of how it would turn out. I put the tape in the machine and then the horror began. First the good news: The quality of the video output is one of the best. Try to obtain fan-subs with this quality. International Channel reruns can't hold a candle to the video output. Each episode has been remastered and cleaned up. The video is also uncensored so it is relatively untouched from the Japanese version. The translation is done a little better than the past seasons. We still get to hear things like "the next dimension" and "darn him" in the dialog. But the whole idea of the story is never compromised. Now the bad news: The audio is terrible! Bad enough some of the voices have been changed, leaving you feeling weird listening to Vegita and Krillin. The real madness is in the music. Its really bad! I used to do reviews for videogames back in the day and I would always comment that the music of a game is 50% of the presentation. The same rule applies to anime videos. The music sound cheap and distant, and the voices sound too loud (even worst when you can't stand Gohan's hoarse voice). When I first watched the original Japanese version of Dragonball, the music sounded weird. But after a while I started to like it. I watched the first Dragonball movie dub released by Pioneer, and it had the original Japanese music track on it. Comparing the new from the old, the quality of the music of the movie tape is 10,000 times better than music in the new video! I mean it: ten thousand times better. Overall: I hope this is not a sign of things to come. I can bear the changes in the voices but not in the music. That must be changed! As a whole, the work put in to this video seems lacking and hurts the DB franchise. Compare any of the old dub videos to the new one and you will see the difference. Go ahead, do it! My only hope is that Pioneer will subtitle the series. Fans of the Cartoon Network version might be able to bear this version, but any real DB fan won't. If you discovered Dragonball Z on Cartoon Network, you might like this. If not, approach with extreme caution!
GRADE: C- |
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