Customer Rating:  
Summary: Another excellent season set
Comment: Dragon Ball Z is the one greatest anime series ever created. With its action-packed universe and compelling storylines, Akira Toriyama's magnum opus has never failed to please. This is the latest season set FUNimation has released of the series.
This set picks up where the last one left off. The Z-Fighters have attempted to do battle with the Androids, but find themselves outnumbered. As if things aren't already bad enough, Goku is bedridden with a heart virus. The Z-Fighters plot different ways to train as the threat grows. And just when it looks like things couldn't get much worse, a new villain is thrown into the fray. His name is Cell, and he is composed of cells from various Z-Fighters and villains. He begins absorbing human beings to become more powerful, and seeks to absorb the Androids, so he can gain further power and ascend to a stronger form. The Z-Fighters now face their greatest challenge.
The DVD set is divided amongst six discs, and contains the Imperfect Cell, Second Form Cell, and Perfect Cell sagas (the Cell Games Saga is NOT included, it takes up the entire next set.) The picture has been subjected to digital noise reduction, and the set includes a booklet of character profiles and episode listings.
Obviously, if you're new to the Dragon Ball franchise, you'll want to start with the Season One box set, but if you're already a fan, you'll enjoy these episodes. The previous set contained some good fight scenes, and you get plenty more of them here, including Android 17 vs. Piccolo, Android 16 vs. Imperfect Cell, and Trunks and Vegeta vs. Second Form Cell. This set scores major points for being one of the most "filler-free" sets yet. Throughout this set, filler is kept to a minimum - just about everything that happens is vital to the story.
One of my personal favorite features of the set is the Marathon feature. FUNimation includes a feature in these sets that allows you to view all of the episodes on each disc from start to end with no interruptions from intros/outros/recaps/etc. This is an extremely handy feature I wish more TV shows on DVD had.
Like earlier Dragon Ball Z season sets, the picture has been cropped at the top and bottom (this was done due to excessive grain and damage to the original source), and it has been subjected to the digital noise reduction process. Obviously a lot of fans, myself included, were disappointed to see the picture get cropped. While the digital noise reduction doesn't do as thorough a job cleaning up the image as you'd hope, it IS the best these episodes have ever looked. In other words, it's a "give and take" scenario. You lose some of the picture you could see on earlier full-frame DVDs (and there ARE a few gaping moments that will really make you question FUNimation's decision), but on the good side, you gain some picture on the sides, and the image quality is superior to all earlier DVD releases.
Sound quality is similar to the earlier sets. English audio quality is fantastic, but the dub is still translated poorly and the voice cast is hit and miss. On the other hand, the Japanese audio quality is poor, showing its age, but it does feature a well-translated subtitle track from Steven J. Simmons that lets you experience the series as originally intended. Is Dragon Ball Z EVER going to get its Japanese audio remastered?
Additionally, like the earlier sets, you have the option of watching the English voice cast played against the original Japanese audio.
Disappointingly, the next episode previews aren't included. But they weren't in any earlier season set, so it's no big surprise.
No special features are included here unless you count the trailers and the same textless opening/closing sequence all other sets like this have had. On the good side, the set does include a booklet similar to the earlier sets, with character profiles and an episode guide, making it handy to go right where you need to go on the DVDs.
It's another great Dragon Ball Z season set, enough said. Easily some of the best material in the entire series. If you're a fan of the series and don't already have these episodes, you can get them all here for one low price. Cropping issues aside, this is a great set, and a good value, especially compared to the older DVD releases.
Highly recommended to any fan of Dragon Ball Z.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Here comes Cell!
Comment: Another addition to my growing DBZ collection. Great as always. I do find that 3 discs with 3 episodes is pretty lame, they could've just saved some resources and made 1-2 less discs. This is just in comparison to the road they tread with these DBZ sets. In a wider prespective, think about other anime dvds, most of their dvds are about 3 eps/disc! And their season sets are typically 26 eps! Not THAT big a deal alright guys :)
(Also Final flash remastered = super awesome!)
Customer Rating:
Summary: Content = 5 stars, Presentation quality = 2 stars
Comment: DBZ is absolutely amazing (in Japanese), if you're here reading this review you don't need me to tell you that. I bought Vol. 1-5 remastered... I can honestly say I won't buy any more of these sets. I really don't like the cropping or the supposed remastering. While the visual quality isn't necessarily HORRIBLE to the naked eye, it is nowhere near as pretty as it's supposed to be (as seen on the official Japanese DVDs). The Japanese audio is also improved on those releases, I really recommend buying some of those if you can afford it. You will NOT be sorry.
One of the main reasons I love the Imperfect/Perfect Cell saga is because it glorifies a very strong Vegeta in all his stubbornly snooty insufferable greatness before he once again sets himself up to be torn down. [SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER] The Final Flash is probably my favorite attack in the entire series, words can't describe the power behind it, it's cool-looking and scary. I've noticed that Vegeta has the best ki attacks of anyone when he thinks it's his last resort (the HUGE red-hot energy ball on Namek that Freeza deflected, the Final Flash, and Final Explosion.) Vegeta/Trunks vs. Cell is the main focus of Perfect Cell saga, if you like any one of them you will be more than satisfied with this batch of episodes--if you don't mind the cropping, that is :/
Customer Rating:
Summary: Tired of being robbed
Comment: My son and I are fans of the series. We have the newer DBZ series (seasons 1 thru 5), DBZ and DBZ GT. I am getting tired of paying more and getting less. Why are their discs with 3 episodes on them? As fans, I expect each disc series to finish the saga. This is utter BS and I'm tired of it. The producers of this series need to stop taking their fans for granted.
Signed,
Season 5 may be the last DBZ product I buy.
Customer Rating:
Summary: A whole disc with 3 episodes
Comment: There are at least 2 discs that contain only 3 episodes, and another with only 4. This box set cost the most and had the least content.
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