As a new reviewer for the site, I just wanted to quickly introduce myself to readers. My name is Jonathan R. Lack, and I’ve been writing film and TV reviews for eight years now, much of that time spent at Denver Post subsidiary YourHub.com where I publish most of my work. Anime isn’t an interest of that reader base, however, which is why I’m excited to write for The Fanboy Review and share my interest in anime with fellow ‘fanboys.’ Enjoy!
 

 
Has any anime ever been released so out of order in North America? Collecting the original Dragon Ball series has always been an exercise in frustration, going back to the jumbled release of the 2-disc ‘saga’ sets and culminating in the overdue but welcome blue-brick season set releases. The release of the films made just as little sense. When FUNimation began releasing the movies on DVD, we got uncut releases in the extremely strange order of film 3, Mystical Adventure, film 4, The Path to Power, and finally film 2, Sleeping Princess in Devil’s Castle, which was simultaneously released in a “Movie Box” alongside the other two. Meanwhile, movie 1, Curse of the Blood Rubies, had actually been released much earlier in an edited-and-dubbed only release as part of the material FUNimation (teaming up with various other companies) released in an earlier, failed attempt to bring Dragon Ball to young American audiences prior to their release of Dragon Ball Z. Rights issues related to this period in the franchise’s history meant an uncut release failed to see the light of day on DVD until just recently, just as the first thirteen TV episodes didn’t get an uncut release until the season sets. But the DVD is finally here, completing the long, complicated, and largely jumbled release of the series in North America. That alone may be cause for celebration. Continue reading →

After doing the review of Dragon Ball Z Kai on Blu-ray I decided to check the DVD.  Very quickly I noticed a difference in colors in the remastered Z footage.  When I showed some screen shots to a friend to find out about the Japanese Kai Blu-ray, he actually ran it over right then so I could take a screen shot for a comparison.
 
I’ll let the image and my notes on it speak for themselves.  Feel free to share.  I didn’t include the Japanese DVD because I don’t know anyone who has it.  Click on it for full size.
 

 
Each version has its own odd quirks and I’m quite sure arguments over which of the three has superior colors will go on for years.  It’d also be interesting to find out who tweaked each version and why any tweaks were made (did Funi tweak their versions or did Toei? If so, why the Blu-ray and not the DVD?)
 
After doing that image comparison, I decided to check the intro, which has entirely new animation. Each one is different in the intro also, but in different ways than in the episode itself, which suggests each intro was tweaked separately from the episode. (Click to see full size)
 

 
For the remastered footage you could argue any of them could be better based on how you feel about color in general, but for the brand new animation, the American Blu-ray clearly seems superior.
 
It’s worth mentioning that a slight difference in brightness between an American disk and a Japanese disk is normal. Japanese and American TVs have different black levels, so tweaking of the brightness is normally done to make them match when being viewed, but this doesn’t appear to be the tweaking that caused these differences (especially since there are three clearly different examples instead of two.)
 
Think I should update the first image with other DVD versions of Dragon Ball Z for comparisons sake?
 
 
Update- I chose to leave the original comparisons up as they are more relevant seeing as they all have the same and proper aspect ratio, but I’ve made an updated version that adds the Japanese DVD into the mix.
 
Thanks to Hujio from Kanzentai for the lossless captures of the proper frames.
 

 
The show content itself is interesting in that there is a slight addition of footage on the side and that (once again) the colors are different.
 
Although frankly the shot of the intro is a bit crazier
 

 
Yeah… it’s pretty terrible. It is definitely the worst of the four in this case. It definitely makes it appear that DVDs from Toei were a late addition to the plan for Kai in Japan, as no care seemed to have been taken with the encode at all.
 
If you’d like to read a review of the Blu-ray of Dragon Ball Z Kai, we actually have one (it is actually what ended up leading to this article.) Feel free to have a read: Dragon Ball Z Kai: Part One (Blu-ray), Early Review
 

 

The franchise that will never die returns, but on Blu-ray in a new ‘refreshed’ version.
 

 
Yes, Dragon Ball Z returns as Dragon Ball Z Kai.  After stacks of releases in the USA, including the Dragon Boxes, is the modern refresh of Z on Blu-ray the new high bar for the series in the USA? Continue reading →

It appears Seifer misread.  Thanks to A PR rep from Funimation who checked the trailer frame by frame Digimon Frontier definately does not appear in it.  Fanboy Review regrets the error, and Seifer is currently getting his 12 lashings.
 
It appears when ShoDojo launches it will launch with a few new shows (or it’s possible they will show up slightly after launch.)
 

 
A recent convention apparently had a new ShoDojo trailer that showed Digimon Frontier as one of these new series (Digimon Frontier was the only show that was recognized.)  There had previously been no news from either Toei USA or Funimation about Digimon Frontier streaming.  It’s also possible this may be the beginning of a new wave of Toei On-Demand titles.  No news on Digimon Adventure or Digimon Tamers. Hopefully the trailer will be put online and we will find out more about this soon.
 
ShoDojo is Funimation’s new Anime video and community website that will be launching soon.
 
Thanks to Seifer for seeing the trailer and bringing it to my attention (at least I can thank him for something, he’s supposed to be staff…. get to work lazy!)
 

 

Digimon in the USA has always had an odd history.  Never quite getting a real release for any of it’s seasons on DVD (minus a single DVD for the first season released nearly a decade ago that had over 10 episodes stuffed onto it and the first three films in their ‘edited into one film for the USA’ version on a different DVD) Well Go USA has teamed up with Toei USA to bring boxsets of the newest season to the USA.
 

 
After some lackluster online streaming and video on demand offerings recently, let’s see if this is finally a Digimon release fans can get behind and enjoy.
 
Continue reading →

As everyone knows Toei started doing stuff OnDemand via Direct2Drive.

After getting a few of these, and being underwhelmed by the horrid video quality, I now need to ask this very serious question.

Is Toei USA committing fraud?

I show you this screenshot that is on the Pretty Cure sales page.  This is supposed to be a screenshot from the show, to be used as a gauge on the video quality, to help you decide if you want to buy it or not.

Relatively nice picture quality isn’t it?

So what is the problem?

Well… here is the same picture, taken by me, from the first episode of the series, as it is available to buy.

Ignore the credits, afterall, it would be fair for them to use a scene from the opening, but remove the credits to help people gauge the video quality.

Compare the actual picture quality.  The resolution is bigger, but let’s ignore that.  The screenshot they have as an example has bright vivid colors and is very clean.  The episode itself has rainbowing, artifacing issues, is pixelated, and may have very well been copied from a VHS tape.  Compare stuff like the girls’ hair, the sunlight, the pipe in the bottom left.

This is dishonest advertising at it’s worst.  This is an unacceptable way to do business, especially when you are trying to sell a show with an extremely niche audience anyways.  The video quality for Toei OnDemand’s other three shows: Digimon Adventure 02, Slam Dunk, and Fist of the North Star, is also very poor, but the screenshots from those shows are at least accurate in showing that.

I suggest fans of Pretty Cure and anime in general vote with their wallets and not purchase episodes of the series to show this isn’t acceptable.

So what do you think?  Is Toei USA committing fraud by being dishonest like this?

A few shows have been updated in the last few days on Toei OnDemand on Direct2Drive. Continue reading →

In February Toon Disney will be rebranded as Disney XD (which is the same name as Disney’s online video viewer service).  The new channel will have a general focus on the 6-14 year old boy market.

It will continue to have a good majority of the current shows it has now, like Batman the Animated Series and likely Power Rangers.

One show that will be joining Disney XD is RoboDz, a CGI anime that Disney co-produced with Toei and airs on Toon Disney’s Japanese counterpart.  RoboDz is a short form story where each episode is 5 minutes long.

Disney to target boys with rebranded cable channel {LA Times}