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Welcome to the awesome Dragon Ball fan site, Dragon Ball Z Universe! It is a fan site that explores through all parts of the Dragon World! Dragon Ball Z Universe! was created by me, DBZfan_29, on January 26, 2008,
and since then it has grown from one update a month to many updates a week! Information is being updated daily, so stay awhile and check tons of info out on the latest news, episodes, movies, and more! Enjoy!

News & Updates


Cover Art for Dragon Ball, Season 3 & Dragon Box Z, Vol. 2 Revealed!
Posted by DBZfan_29 on November 25, 2009

Amazon has updated their listings for the third re-mastered set of Dragon Ball and the second "Dragon Box Z" with cover art. Take a look:


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FUNimation's "Dragon Box" - Early Look & Unboxing!
Posted by DBZfan_29 on November 6, 2009

Over the weekend, I picked up the first American "Dragon Box." The set is really amazing, and I would recommend it to any Dragon Ball fan!

FUNimation's "Dragon Box, Vol. 1"

I am pretty much speechless and don't have much to say. Everything you may have heard about the set is basically what I think. As a treat for all you Dragon Ball Z Universe! fans, here is a review of the set from an original Dragon Box owner's perspective:

Introduction

After five long years of owning the Japanese Dragon Boxes, I've decided to give FUNimation's one a chance. This will most likely be the only set I'll pick up because we only go to America [for our college study trip] once a year, but since I own both now this comparison should enlighten you.

Box Art Design

The North American release of the Dragon Box is a lot smaller than the R2 one, and the box isn't as durable as the Japanese set either. The box is covered with separate pieces of wrapping all in a shiny neat package compared to the R2 one. It sort of looks good with the Japanese Dragon Box which is also shiny.

Due to size issues, the spine art of the DVD books has been cropped resulting in seeing only the beginning part of Son Goku's arm. The writing is squished at the bottom going over his hand!

Picture

This box set has a regular 4:3 transfer that is clear and sharp throughout. As with my R2 set there are some minor compression artifacts that are only really noticeable during freeze frame due to the grain. As you would expect from compression the quality of the episodes seems slightly brighter than my R2's, but doesen't make any colours bleed or stand out but is noticable alot sometimes. Dragon Ball Z was and always will be is certainly more sophisticated than most anime released today, the character designs are simpler drawn using Cels and looked good in their day, and backgrounds are nicely hand drawn without any CGI treatment. Though animes now-a-days may be better animated than this, in terms of quality, the animation is very effective, and certainly goes a step beyond newer long running shows like Naruto or Bleach and even One Piece.

Sound & Playback

The 5.1 English and 96kb/s Japanese stereo is more than adequate in recreating the original experience, which isn't as good as my R2 set mostly due to the compression of the disks. The start up of the disks of this season offers some new theme tunes, unlike my R2 set they are memorable and suit the menus well, while the incidental music is a little more generic, it gives Dragon Ball Z its own musical identity. The North American release of the Dragonbox also has a very closly done menu system like my own with just the images being non moving unlike my R2 set which had them... it's a really nice feature indeed.

The disks seem to have different designs on them as well but only a few do. All episodes have the Openings, Closings and EP Previews that my R2 set did and there is grain in them... pleases me just fine.

They also are defaulted to Japanese with subs so if I needed to change it to english I have to do it from the menu, but since I am a Japanese fan it pleases me just fine the way it is.

I sampled the English dub and found it acceptable if unspectacular. It certainly isnt the worst I have heard, but some of the actors dont seem particularly suited to the characters and would have been better if they made a accurate script from the Tenkaichi or Burstlimit games in it. As with all releaces the Diamo translated subtitles are provided, which I expected and it's really a good point to me.

Extras

My North American release Dragon Book is almost a complete translation of pages from my
R2 Dragon Book but is cut in half with proper name descriptions such as Kuririn, Freeza, Yamucha, Genki-dama and Kienzan. There are some dub translations used such as World Tournament otherwise always written as Tenkaichi Tournament instead of Tenkaichi Budokai and one Vegeta Saga otherwise written as Saiyan Saga instead of Saiya-jin Saga.

And my North American release of Dragon Book has a few typos. They spelt Raditz's name wrong in one of the paragraphs as well as a few other things, also the pictures are entirely different than my R2 Dragonbook especially the "Profile Of Goku Family" section and the "Early Days" which has had some screen caps changed around and the layout is different aswell.

As for the disks extras there is no extras on them unlike my R2 set which had lots of them on them, maybe it's because my NA DBox set only has 42 episodes?

With great features comes great responsibility but even with great features such as there there must be flaws too it... well I found some real bad ones and one which I can't understand read below to see what's wrong with this set...

Problems

I do have a few problems with my North American release of the Dragonbox and one very unusual one that I hope someone can tell me if it's just my imagination or not.

Ok firstly the scene selection doesn't separate the recap from part one of the actual episodes like my R2 set did. Those are aspects that I was used to that now hinder my enjoyment, and are thus flaws in my mind.

Secondly as I mentioned before it seems that due to the conversion the images seem slightly brighter than my R2 set, but doesen't make any colours bleed or stand out but is noticable alot sometimes especially in the Son Goku VS Vegeta beam battle.

And lastly due to some sort of conversion process in the NA releace it seems that Funi's masters seem to be lower down in the screen than my R2's are...

As you can see there is a small black line in the NA releace causing the image to go down more than it should causing the lower part to be cut off but gives the viewer the ability to see the top of the film which the R2's did not cause they were fixated in the centre, I dunno if this happens on your set if you own it now but you should let others who own this set to find out. It's noticable since my TV isn't black it's silver and the line really gets on my nerves.

Conclusion

Okay, that's it. This box set is roughly based on the manga storyline and goes through the entire Saiyan arc (with quite a bit of filler in between) and then all the way to the fake Namek episodes. The last few discs of this set do offer both the best and the worst of Dragon Ball Z, even if the anime creators weren't frantically making up stories to fill a schedule before arriving on Namek just yet. I wouldn't call it bad filler, but you get the most of Son Gohan's training, the battle with the Saiyans, and eventually when the Namek arc releases, a long and bumpy ride!

Overall Score 8/10

Special thanks to narunleashed, formally known as gokuden553, for giving his thoughts on the Dragon Box! Check back for more later this week!
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"Dragon Ball Kai: Original Soundtrack 2" Track-listing (Translated) & New Insert Song!
Posted by DBZfan_29 on November 16, 2009

I'm back ten days after my last post on the Dragon Box, and yet I still don't own it. If it becomes available from Target and it goes for the same online price of $47.59, I'll be sure to pick it up tomorrow.

Anyway, I have the track-listing of the second original soundtrack of Dragon Ball Kai. Thanks to a forum member on Daizenshuu EX, we also have a translation of all thirty-four tracks. Check it out:

01. Dragon Ball Kai: Title TV Version
02. Premonition of a Grand Adventure
03. Dragon Soul
(TV Size)
04. Dragon Ball Kai:
Subtitle
05. The War Breaks Out!
06. An Isolated Warrior
07. Training-Time
08. A Battle of Rivalry
09. Whuhh?
10. An Elegant Noontime
11. Presentiment
12. A Menace Unfamiliar
13. An Eerie Stillness
14. The Battle's Dance Music
15. Clouds of War
16. The Braveheart's Triumphant Return
17. Off to a New Adventure
18. Dragon Ball Kai:
Eyecatch A
19. CHASER!!:
Synth Version
20. CURE ~I'll Be Here:
Synth Version
21. Dragon Ball Kai:
Eyecatch B
22. A Divine Allure
23. The Days on Planet Namek
24. Kinto'un---!
25. Good Fortune Endowed By the Heavens
26. Relief Concerto
27. A Disastrous Spectacle
28. An Agonizing Choice
29. The Road to Tomorrow
30. Tears of Grief
31. At the Battle's End
32. The Gods' Bolero
33. Yeah! Break! Care! Break!
(TV Size)
34. Dragon Ball Kai:
Next Episode Preview


The soundtrack will be available this Wednesday. For more information, please check out this month's release on the right. In addition to this soundtrack, the Dragon Ball Kai song collection was released on November 4, 2009, and it includes a new image song featuring Ryou Horikawa as Vegeta. "Saiyan Blood" has been translated and played to a cute little video by MsDBZbabe:

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FUNimation
's "Dragon Box" - Early Look & Unboxing!
Posted by DBZfan_29 on November 6, 2009

I am sorry for the lack of updates this week, but I feel this one will cover for the long absence!

FUNimation's "Dragon Box, Vol. 1"

Some very lucky fans have already received their FUNimation "Dragon Box" via their online store, RightStuf. As a treat to us all, they have even shared some photos of the beauty, too! Take a look:

Dragon Box Contents - Courtesy of Haseowolf

Well... photo.

In addition to those photos, FUNimation has also uploaded a "Hey! Nice Package" video on their YouTube channel showcasing the set. Be sure to check that out below also:



The Dragon Book (48-page hardcover book inside box set) contains accurately translated info from the original book like character profiles (using names like Freeza and Kuririn), episode summaries (using original episode titles), as well as other cool features. This was much to my surprise. Anyway, I'll be pre-ordering the set this week. Hopefully Amazon will ship my copy early! Whenever I get it in, expect to see a huge review and more to revive the site!

Recent Site Updates


I have currently been paying a lot of attention to the site's some-what new "Releases" page. Just in case you didn't know or haven't checked it out, the page contains a huge listing of 2009 and 2010 US/Japan releases, and is updated every time something new is reported!


The page is currently being re-formatted to include more details on the releases, an image of each product listed (if there is one), and even a link to the product on sites like Amazon, CDJapan, and more. Because of this massive change, the page will probably no longer include information on events once I'm actually done with it!

Video-of-the-Week: September 27, 2009


I apologize for not have a video up last week. I was working on this little clip but got busy. Anyway, while watching episode 201 of CSI:NY ("Summer in the City"), I noticed Son Goku was on a truck in the background of a crime scene. I took the scene and slowed it down for everyone to see. Enjoy!



This Month's Releases


Don't miss Dragon Ball Kai, airing every Sunday at 9:00 AM, on Fuji TV in Japan!
Can't watch the show because you're not in Japan? No problem! Learn how to watch it live here.

DB Chapter Book 5
Dragon Ball: One Enemy, One Goal -
Chapter Books (Volume 5)

Released: November 3, 2009
Retail Price: $4.99
Publisher: Viz Media, LLC (US)
Description: Fifth installment of the chapter book adaption of Dragon Ball

Kai Song Collection
Dragon Ball Kai Song Collection (CD)

Released: November 4, 2009
Retail Price: ¥2,940
Label: Columbia Music Entertainment (Japan)
Description: Collection of the opening and ending themes, insert songs, and image songs from Dragon Ball Kai

DB Season 2
Dragon Ball
(Season 2) [DVD]

Released: November 10, 2009
Retail Price: $49.98
Manufacturer: FUNimation Entertainment (US)
Description: "Remastered" release of episodes 32-61


DBZ Attack of the Saiyans
"Dragon Ball Z: Attack of the Saiyans"
(Nintendo DS) [Rated Everyone 10+]

Released: November 10, 2009
Retail Price: $29.99
Publisher: Namco Bandai (US)
Description: Video game for the Nintendo DS based on Dragon Ball Z (known as "Saiyan Invasion" in Japan)
DB Raging Blast (XBOX 360)

DB Raging Blast (PS3)
"Dragon Ball: Raging Blast"
(XBOX 360 & PlayStation 3) [Rated Teen]

Released: November 10, 2009
Retail Price: $59.99
Publisher: Namco Bandai (US)
Description: Fighting game for the XBOX 360 and PlayStation 3 based on Dragon Ball

Released also on November 12, 2009
in Japan for
¥5,807 and
¥5,863
FUNimation's "Dragon Box, Vol. 1"
Dragon Ball Z -
Dragon Box One

Released: November 17, 2009
Retail Price: $79.98
Manufacturer: FUNimation Entertainment (US)
Description: First US release of the Japanese "Dragon Box Z," containing episodes 1-42

Kai OST 2
Dragon Ball Kai:
Original Soundtrack 2 (CD)

Released: November 18, 2009
Retail Price: ¥2,940
Label: Columbia Music Entertainment (Japan)
Description: Second Japanese release of the music score from Dragon Ball Kai
Kai DVD 3
Dragon Ball Kai
(Volume 3) [DVD]

Released:
November 20, 2009
Retail Price: ¥2,940
Manufacturer: Happinet Corporation (Japan)
Description: Release of episodes 7-9 (cropped broadcast version)

"Progression" CD Single
Hironobu Kageyama's
Progression (CD Single)

Released: November 25, 2009
Retail Price: ¥3,000
Label: Bandai (Japan)
Description: CD single of "Progression," the theme song of "Dragon Ball: Raging Blast"

Check out other releases of the year as they are announced on the "Releases" page!



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