8.1 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 3.5 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
The epic showdown between Goku and Frieza reaches its climax as planet Namek crumbles beneath their feet! In the aftermath of battle, neither fighter is anywhere to be found, but Earth’s few remaining heroes have much bigger problems. A mysterious and powerful stranger known only as Trunks arrives from the future with a warning: the Androids are coming, they take no prisoners, and even Goku – wherever he may be – is no match for their kind!
Starring: Masako Nozawa, Ryō Horikawa, Toshio Furukawa, Mayumi Tanaka, Hiromi TsuruAnime | 100% |
Foreign | 89% |
Action | 68% |
Fantasy | 51% |
Sci-Fi | 46% |
Adventure | 46% |
Comic book | 45% |
Martial arts | 38% |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.78:1, 1.33:1
English: Dolby TrueHD 5.1 (48kHz, 16-bit)
Japanese: Dolby TrueHD 2.0
English
50GB Blu-ray Disc
Two-disc set (2 BDs)
Slipcover in original pressing
Region A, B (locked)
Movie | 3.5 | |
Video | 3.5 | |
Audio | 4.0 | |
Extras | 1.5 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
My kids are old enough now that I can trace various timelines of their development by what shows they were watching. Sometime between their toddler love of Pokemon and their young adolescent love of Yu-Gi-Oh came a rather transitory fascination with Dragon Ball Z. My older son even went so far as to get some Dragon Ball action figures, something he wasn’t regularly fond of doing. Interestingly, this watching phase passed a lot more quickly than did either Pokemon or Yu-Gi-Oh, though my eldest son can still recite large swaths of Dragon Ball Z’s labyrinthine plot points and, perhaps even more incredibly, dialogue. That quick diminution in interest evidently wasn't unique to my son, as Z was a revision of the original Dragon Ball and Kai is a revision of Z, and the first to really make any waves in terms of mass market sensational appeal. This fifth edition of the redone Dragon Ball Z Kai finds us joining the goings-on at episode 53, so any chance of detailing the various interrelationships can’t easily be summed up in a brief line or two. Suffice it to say Dragon Ball in any of its incarnations, Z or Z Kai included, has always reminded me of a rather bizarre combination of elements of Superman and (no, I’m not joking) Flash Gordon. The Superman elements are perhaps a bit more recognizable, as Dragon Ball Z Kai’s hero, Goku, is, like Superman, an alien from another planet left on Earth to fend for himself. Of course Goku’s original mission was to conquer Earth, something he forgot about after a serious head injury. That injury seemed to also alter his personality, minimizing his native species’ bloodlust and making him more of a pacifist. The Flash Gordon connection is perhaps more tangential, and is more tonal than content driven. Dragon Ball Z Kai is one of the more kitsch-filled camptastic animes, one with a definite sense of humor, but one with such a deliberately outré approach and decidedly retro feel that for better or worse it reminds me of Buster Crabbe running around in jodhpurs trying to defeat the ruthless Emperor Ming.
As Dustin Somner has mentioned in all of his reviews of the previous volumes in this series, Dragon Ball Z Kai's 1080p AVC encoded 1.33:1 transfer isn't just a typical remaster, it's an actual "re-engineering," for wont of a better word. Many of the original source elements of Dragon Ball Z were evidently destroyed or badly damaged, requiring the series' creators to literally go back to the drawing board in many instances. What is presented in Kai is a frame by frame reconstruction and at times revision of elements, resulting in a new version which is blemish free. While the actual animation is not going to set anyone's heart on fire, it's solid and extremely colorful, with exceptional saturation and pleasing line detail. This "new, improved" version is dirt and scratch free and presents Dragon Ball Z in about as spiffed up a look as it's ever likely to have.
Accompanying the upgraded visuals are two newly recorded lossless audio tracks utilizing most of the original voice actors, a Dolby TrueHD 2.0 mix in the original Japanese, and a nice English surround dub in Dolby TrueHD 5.1. The English mix is the clear winner for those wanting surround activity, and it really is rather surprisingly spacious and well rendered, with a fair degree of sound effects populating the side and rear channels, especially in any of the many battle sequences. Fidelity in both tracks is superb, with crystal clarity and excellent dynamic range, though as seems to be the case, I could hear a noticeable, if negligible, compressed sound in terms of extreme highs and lows in the Japanese 2.0 offering. Otherwise there are two excellent choices here, one for original language aficionados and the other for those who want a bit of surround activity.
Watching these episodes again after so long (albeit in their altered Kai form) instantly took me back to my sons' relative youth and their love of anime. The truth is Dragon Ball Z is a fairly cheesy series, and its elevated kitsch and camp levels may not be to everyone's taste. I personally love its bizarre group of characters and most of all its crazy quilt humor which regularly populates any given episode with unexpected moments of semi-hilarity, intentional or otherwise. This fifth volume sees the momentum slowing considerably, but it still has a lot to offer Z fans, old and young. Recommended.
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2013
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鋼の錬金術師 FULLMETAL ALCHEMIST
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2015-2018
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