Dragon Ball has just received a brand new Blu-ray release in France that's got everyone talking. Here we breakdown the quality of its remaster and its audio quality! Twitter - / animeajay
Please be sure to watch this video on a reasonably large screen at the full resolution to better grasp the quality of the Blu-ray. TH-cam's compression on top of my own video compression will of course make 1:1 accuracy impossible, so please do keep that mind. Hope you enjoy!
can I ask you how does this compare to IKAOS version? Because it's been quite some time since I last watched OG Dragon Ball and I'd like to marathon it again some time next year. But I'd like to know wither or not this new Blu-ray Remaster can be considered to be visually better when compared to the fan project?
@@owithani It has much better colours and overall clarity as the iKaos version is essentially just the raw DBox. Could always wait for the SoM colour correction project, I guess?
The worst part is, that there’s always gonna be fans that will defend them and will *still* give them their money, as long as their shitty releases are “pretty” enough and come with a shitty Goku figure or half-assed artbook
@@JelloFluoride not to self: don't be friends for 10+ years with a woman, touch their hair and be invited into their hotel room by her cuck husband - you'll be fucked
Frfr and with them being acquired by Crunchyroll I feel they are even less inclined to put out a good quality release since they're so streaming focused now
Hopefully one day we can get THE definitive release of DB, DBZ and GT. Crazy how most other animes get it in one or two releases but DB has been this way for decades now.
Colors and image quality aside, it's amazing that they used the Broadcast audio after so many years of just seeing clips and nyaa uploads. Hope we can finally support the official release👏👏👏
@@antoniolopezbanderas subtitles are the easiest to add, considering there are many versions out there and it's a matter of adjusting the timings a bit
@@antoniolopezbanderas I yeet the subtitle files into subtitle edit and use the auto-translate feature with DeepL, a process of 1 minute per episode. Nothing hard.
I hope that we can get a release of this level of quality for all 3 classic series here in America. The colors just look so good and broadcast audio is a huge win
I literally said earlier today "I miss Ajay's videos, they had such an impact on my understanding of art, wish he was back" I really didn't expect this!!
Nothing makes me happier than seeing classic anime be given discotek media levels of love and attention, especially something like the original Dragon Ball. I was planning to watch OG Dragon Ball with a rip of the dragon box but the External Hard Drive I've been using crapped itself out about halfway through downloading the first 44 episodes so I settled on the manga. If Funimation actually does give us a Dragon Ball and Z release of this quality, I WILL support the official release.
It's kinda wild hearing "AB Groupe" and "good Dragon Ball release" in the same breath when I only really know their name from the Big Green dub. What a turn around. I can't wait for the footage to be available with English subs/audio, one way or another.
AB is way better than Funi tbh. And they know they cannot mess with it because of the french audience. In France Dragon ball may be the most iconic cartoon ever and french people are picky and wouldn't buy more than 1 release of the same thing.
@@mielthesquid6536 Actually, the french fanbase in general doesn't know as much about the bad releases compared to the English community. And AB didn't release anything with this much care put into it until now (they didn't even care about the french dub's quality when they produced it, hence, the awful script and production). In fact, it was arguably worse than FUNimation's treatment until 2022. The DVD collectors for the movies were mostly awful with the exceptions being the Trunks TV Special, Movie 7-11 and Movie 13, the DB and DBZ DVD collectors were badly compressed Dragon Box and for DBGT, it was french dub only (and we know how awful the french dub of GT is) with low quality masters. And on these releases (except the GT one), the audio quality for the french dub was worse than on the previous more censored DVDs. The Blu Rays fixed that (mostly, cause the french dubs of the DBZ TV Specials unfortunately have fight scenes re-edited with a much worse optical japanese audio than the previous one and it's overused in the Trunks special) but in the case of the movies, it wasn't anything to write home about, they just took the Japanese Blu Rays without any color correction and without adding the Broadcast Audio to the DBZ TV Specials. And as Ajay said in this video, they were gonna go with Selecta's version for DB originally until 2 months ago. Also, Fusion Reborn and Wrath of the Dragon are a pretty special case of how AB handled the dub over the years, the sound mixing has changed on the DVD collectors and then, it changed again on the Blu Rays. I feel like I'm the only one noticing that stuff but yes, the french dub of Fusion Reborn getting the original music (which I prefer) wasn't the only change from it on the newer releases. I'm not gonna list them but I'll say one important thing, in the case of Wrath of the Dragon (Fusion Reborn too but I don't count it because it wasn't with the same soundtrack), the VHS and Laserdisc releases had an authentic Stereo mix (similar to the japanese version) that both the DVD and Blu Rays lacked. I'm french but I'm not gonna praise the company handling Dragon Ball in my country for everything they ever did just because they did an awesome release a week ago.
@@joannaalmazan4508 Yeah, I know. The Mexican community (as well as the rest of Latin-America) seems to love Dragon Ball even more than both the English and French community combined in addition to having a better dub. And yet, they got the worst home release treatment (with Z not even having a complete home release from I read) and an audio preservation problem for their dub (similar to the japanese version).
This is the kind of detail and dedication I'm talking about. A company that genuinely cares about quality. As opposed to abusing a fan's loyalty for a popular franchise. 1 of the best companies I've seen do this here in the West is Discotek. When they bring us some awesome HD Remasters they take the initiative of doing it themselves. They work with the best studios to get the job done. This is why I wish FUNimation would take notes from them and AB Group. If DBZ was in Discotek's hands we would've been gotten proper remasters instead of the denoised trash we've gotten over the recent years. Its ironic that they've managed to pull this off with excellent bluray remasters of a good majority of the Lupin III tv specials. Projects that were once owned by FUNimation. I can't wait to see their remastered blurays of Digimon Adventures. We need more companies like Discotek Media and AB Group. Companies that take their time to deliver a solid product with little to no compromises.
Seeing this footage has me salivating to get my hands on this release, I really hope AB Group is able to re-release this in other countries so they can fund remasters of the same quality for the rest of the series
AB Groupe just need remaster to the rest of OG Dragon Ball, Z and GT even though I don't care about GT and I hoped they get more experienced as they keep remastering the series.
Damn, i've always loved your breakdown videos about animation through the series and your whole content in general. Glad to see you back Ajay. This french release is night and day in the diferences to Dragon Box, it doesnt even look the same anymore and that's good because OG Dragon Ball deserves better quality image. Glad you see back uploading videos, Ajay!
wow the timing.. I introduced my 12 year old younger brother to Dragon Ball last summer! we watched it all the way up to Super, and he's a big fan of the series now :) still, part of me regrets not waiting ahah. because in the 8 years i've been a fan of DB, never in my life did i expect ANYONE to give attention to the original series. great video! i love the exposure. i hope to see more videos in the future, even if they're not DB related :p i just like hearing you talk.
Whenever I see OG Dragonball clips, I've always come to expect those off-tones, so seeing it as it was meant to be is mindblowing, I had no idea that it was supposed to look that good
Holy crap. This release came out of nowhere and it’s amazing. I really hope this doesn’t suffer the same fate that the level sets did. I hope they finish Dragon Ball do Z and maybe even GT. And if this does get released internationally we will have an official legal way to watch the Dragon Ball series in HD with accurate colors and high quality Japanese audio that is easily accessible. If this release gets added to crunchyroll so streamers can watch it that would be the icing on the cake.
Glad to at least have something competent. I hope this will encourage other license holders, since they can see now what can be done. The audio in particular is the most important part for me.
Funimation/Crunchyroll literally have the perfect rerelease here, they would just need to slap their dub over it and that’s it. How have they not officially released this in the states yet???
Anime Ajay is the only guy who even when he doesn’t post a video in ages can still come and get almost 50k within a day , Thr guy is freaking super saiyan
4:13 I'd say it's far better than QTEC's color correction and so are the Level Sets. As much as I like Kai, the quality of the color correction was really inconsistent and just not as good as these 2 sets. Sometimes, it would be really good but some other times, it would be good but not enough (like the first fight between Goku and Vegeta that has corrected skin tones but still a green sky) and it would also some rarer times just be brighter Dragon Box (especially in the Cell arc). PS: I also feel the need to mention that no matter how good the color correction got in Kai, Bulma's hair was never restored to its proper blue color (at least, I can't recall even a single shot where it was). Even when she was drawn in the opening and the first ending, her hair was green.
One of the time it's good to be french lol. I'm living in America since 15 years but I order anything anime in France, even the the euro and shipping cost it is always cheaper and better. France comes right after Japan for manga business and same for anime, animes has been everywhere on TV back to the early 80s, so it's basically french cartoon culture and french people hate capitalism and are very picky which means there won't be 5 versions of the same thing like in America, so if we do it it got to be right on first try.
Just stumbled across this vid, and I gotta say this is super exciting. Even for me, 41 years old, who's lost HOPE of ever acquiring DB & DBZ in high quality audio... this has sparked a new flame inside. Thank you!
I only recently got into Dragon Ball and thought the blue boxes were pretty good, but seeing the side by side really shows how much better it could be. I hope they finish the whole series and it gets an English release.
I REALLY hope that for the 40th anniversary in 2024 we get something special. I would love something like "Kai' being done for Dragon Ball and Z TOGETHER, beginning to end. I think going back and remastering and editing the entire anime from the very beginning would give them an opportunity to really iron out a lot of little bumps and bruises with the series, making it gel more with Super, make the entire thing have a stronger pace and try to help push more viewers into going all the way back to original Dragon Ball and giving it a chance. A proper HD restoration of the whole thing would be cool, but I would also LOVE to see them sort of do a "Kai 2.0" with the entire anime from start of Dragon Ball to the end of Super.
Altering the content of the show, like going back and removing scenes/episodes is Iconoclasm of the vilest form. I say release what we all fell in love with, exactly how it's always been in original aspect ratio and great visual/audio quality.
@@Mr.Goodkat I'm all for that, I think that sort of thing should go without saying. But I also would love for the entire story, start to finish, to get that sort of "More true to the Manga" edit of the content. Again...they did it once for Kai. I want the full blown, all out original incarnation to be restored...but I would also like something like the Kai treatment to happen, and be handled consistently, for the series as a whole.
Honestly after watching this I'm excited to see how the rest of the series will fare. Hopefully for the next box set they'll have more time to polish and fine-tune the rest of the episodes since they had a little bit of a time crunch with the first one.
Damn why isn't this the norm. If they could make it look that good in a couple months think about what they could do with even more time and resources.
Just when I was about to be content with Selecta Vision's release you come out with this analysis and I wouldn't know how good this was in comparison, it still is an upscale but one woth more care put into it. Still, a reescan should be done not tomorrow but years ago, OG Dragon Ball is such a classic series and it deserves to be shown and preserved in the best way possible and not just through upscales, before the master materials get more deteriorated.
Finally a great release for DB. Crossing my fingers that the English side of things start to take notes and actually pay attention to what fans want from a home release. Dragon Ball is such an important franchise and for it have underwhelming release one after another, its refreshing to see a proper release.
Nice to see an AI upscale done well, seen a bunch on TH-cam that look like the smeary example you showed. Really great to get a new upload from you too!
As a french Dragon Ball fan, I didn't trust AB for this release one bit and I thought they would just take Selecta Vision's version like they just took the japanese movie remasters without any color corrections. Glad they didn't do that and I hope they continue that way.
Great video, it's amazing to see AI be used properly more and more as time goes on. If AB gets their hands on Z, or even other shows like Sailor Moon I'm sure I (along with plenty of others) would gladly support them. I'm all for piracy, but when companies put effort into their products I will gladly encourage that. This set is great, hell I imported it myself but I think people should remember this isn't the be all end all of releases. As slim as the chance is, Toei could still do an actual remaster from their film. This release is very well crafted, but this isn't a case of lost material.
AnimeAjay Is there a release date for the second set? - I would hate it if the DBZ Level Sets scenario (not releasing all episodes) would repeat. I hope they will release all Dragon Ball GT episodes in one set after the regular Dragon Ball.
I'd just like to point out: AB Groupe are the guys the gave us the Big Green dub! BIG GREEN GAVE US A MUCH BETTER RELEASE OF DRAGON BALL THAN EITHER FUNIMATION OR TOEI!!!!! How embarrassing.
Next year will be the Dragon Ball franchise's 40th anniversary. It would be the perfect time for Crunchyroll to make a Blu Ray set of the original series using the AB masters.
Funimation is being f*cking lazy. The Level Sets and Dragon Boxes were good versions of DBZ, but Funimation insists on pushing the crappy Orange Bricks. They don’t wanna do the work, like France did.
Seeing that on an OLED screen and the difference is night and day! Dark details and scene with a lot of deep blacks are awesome looking now, they achieved the sweet spot of contrast. I have to rewatch the series now. Hope that Z and GT (yeah, GT too, feelings are canonic) get a treatment like that!
I wonder if a rip exists out there, wouldn't be too hard to put on the desired English sub groups subtitles. I'll still buy a physical copy just to support the work they've done and hopefully they'll do this for the other half of Dragonball episodes out there. A collection of all the movies would be dope too.
Holy shit Ajay, I was just looking at your channel yesterday wondering if you'd return, and then this drops. Glad you're back man. I saw your twitter posts about ppl stealing the fun of this kind of content creation from you with their negativity. I'm glad that didnt keep you down, and I look forward to further content.
I've seen people using ai upscaling tech to remaster some scenes from the original kid Goku DB like the fight between Goku and King Piccolo and the results look FANTASTIC. Since then I've been looking for forums all over the internet to see if there are any fan groups dedicated in remastering the entire series in HD using ai upscale. There were some trails of it but unfortunately nothing came to be. I hope in the future that changes. Somebody had finished an amazing ai upscale project for the entire Ed, Edd, n Eddy cartoon series, so maybe someday hoepfully Dragon Ball could get the same treatment too.
Honestly amazing. Love to see og dragon ball getting some love. That part of dragon ball has a special place in my heart. While I do sort of like the yellowy look I have to agree this just objectively looks SO much better.
This looks great, and the broadcast audio is a fantastic inclusion! I will say i've never heard of the Kinako(?) fan release you mention and i'm curious about that, if you can provide more info? I'd also be curious about how this compares to the SOM one, but I assume since it uses DBox footage this is probably even better! Legitimately seems like the only notable downside is the contrast issues. Something I AM a bit curious about (on top of the Kinako thing) is come of your comments imply they artificially re-added or enhanced the grain after the AI upscaling? Based on the video footage it seems fine, but I don't really get the point of that: Grain removal can destroy detail, of course, but this seems like it avoided that and it's not like additional grain is gonna restore anything that was lost: it seems like an unnecessary step that just adds extra artefacting for the sake of nostalgia. But that's a nitpick, admittedly!
To be fair, I don’t think Topaz and similar products are really calibrated for animated footage, as it’s not something that represents a large portion of the workload for their target market (TV stations and other companies that have large volumes of live-action file footage).
I thought this was what geekdom has been sharing but to see that this is something some folks out there can buy is awesome. Are you going to review what I’m referring to at all? The new 1080p DBZ upscales have looked just as good as what you reviewed here.
If I were AB Groupe, I would delay the Blu-ray release to polish up the AI upscale. Also, I would use SoM’s encodes as they clean up the image of some compression. Or I would request Toei for the Dragon Box masters.
DB GT Complete Series has been at my local supermarket for years. DBZ complete series has shown up on bluray in 3 seasons per box set. I've not ever seen hide nor hair of OG DB since the Blue Bricks. And the Blue Bricks are getting kinda hard to find. We need a release like this, for the fans of Dragonball. OG DB is my preference anyways.
7:20 - I think they likely did use uncompressed masters. The thing you point there is the result of DNR which is sadly applied to masters rather to individual releases.
I never thought I would see the day where broadcast audio and a GOOD (although AI) remaster of the OG Dragon Ball get combined in a release so cheap for what it's offering. Incredible. I also love how this makes Funimation look like the dumbasses they are
![[LIVE] : ONE ลุมพินี 76 | คู่เอก "ผึ้งหลวง vs สมิงดำ"](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/9SBshmGQOIM/mqdefault.jpg)
![[Watch Party] RoV Pro League 2024 Winter | with Moowan ( Bacon Time Vs Talon )](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/CCEDhu6dPN8/mqdefault.jpg)
Please be sure to watch this video on a reasonably large screen at the full resolution to better grasp the quality of the Blu-ray. TH-cam's compression on top of my own video compression will of course make 1:1 accuracy impossible, so please do keep that mind. Hope you enjoy!
You're BAAAACKKK!!!! Watching on a 55in 4k quantum dot tv, i got you!
Crunchyroll aint listening its no use lulz
Yo where have you been man lol?
can I ask you how does this compare to IKAOS version? Because it's been quite some time since I last watched OG Dragon Ball and I'd like to marathon it again some time next year. But I'd like to know wither or not this new Blu-ray Remaster can be considered to be visually better when compared to the fan project?
@@owithani It has much better colours and overall clarity as the iKaos version is essentially just the raw DBox. Could always wait for the SoM colour correction project, I guess?
The fact that Funimation has the ability to provide a release like this but chooses not to is an insult to the fans and franchise.
Funimation has always been shit.
Oh they've been doing that for years now. Ask Vic Mignogna how he feels about them lol
The worst part is, that there’s always gonna be fans that will defend them and will *still* give them their money, as long as their shitty releases are “pretty” enough and come with a shitty Goku figure or half-assed artbook
@@JelloFluoride not to self: don't be friends for 10+ years with a woman, touch their hair and be invited into their hotel room by her cuck husband -
you'll be fucked
Frfr and with them being acquired by Crunchyroll I feel they are even less inclined to put out a good quality release since they're so streaming focused now
Hopefully one day we can get THE definitive release of DB, DBZ and GT. Crazy how most other animes get it in one or two releases but DB has been this way for decades now.
They already released a box set with all the movies.
@@awesomereviews1561 With censorship, that a no buy to me.
@@awesomereviews1561 With censorship and bad colours
@@henry7408 Uncensored was also released....
The issue is that ti's just old..... and it was done before the digital era.....
Which causes preservation issues...
When the world needed him the most he returned
AB Groupe?
@@Seven71987BIG GREEN!
I am hoping they do a proper remaster to honor Akira Toriyama. It’s time for a Worldwide proper release of both DB and Z
Colors and image quality aside, it's amazing that they used the Broadcast audio after so many years of just seeing clips and nyaa uploads. Hope we can finally support the official release👏👏👏
No English subtitles tho, so nah forget it
Even with the lack of English subs, we could always add them to episodes manually…Or learn French and Japanese that works too
@@antoniolopezbanderas subtitles are the easiest to add, considering there are many versions out there and it's a matter of adjusting the timings a bit
@@antoniolopezbanderas I yeet the subtitle files into subtitle edit and use the auto-translate feature with DeepL, a process of 1 minute per episode.
Nothing hard.
@@antoniolopezbanderasgit gud
Love that you're still around, and still giving great breakdowns.
What tf is that blue thing next to your comment😭
@@justsomedudewithnoneck8329 he donated a dollar
you can give more than that
@@dinogt8477 bruh why don't you then
@@turtato2155 GODDAMN! 💀
We need this for Z and GT next! As well as a proper release of all three in the U.S! This RULES!!
@Dr. Kujo Jotaro why not DBZ
@Dr. Kujo Jotaro because gt sucks only ssj4, ssj ape and ssj4 gogeta is best rest is trash
GT needs the help.
@@maanmahmoud4537 🤡
Considering how famous Z is in France, I feel like there is certainly a chance of it happening
I hope that we can get a release of this level of quality for all 3 classic series here in America. The colors just look so good and broadcast audio is a huge win
Don't get your hopes up, buddy...
@VegetaFan 99 oh I know we ain't getting shit here in the US, especially after the Crunchyroll acquisition
@@lssjgaming1599 CR is already doing more for the fans than FUNi has.
I’ll watch it in French
@@PhilipMarcYT crunch is a part of funimation now tho, not the other way around
Fantastic video, Ajay! Thanks so much for making it.
i didn't expect to find you here
I literally said earlier today "I miss Ajay's videos, they had such an impact on my understanding of art, wish he was back"
I really didn't expect this!!
Nothing makes me happier than seeing classic anime be given discotek media levels of love and attention, especially something like the original Dragon Ball. I was planning to watch OG Dragon Ball with a rip of the dragon box but the External Hard Drive I've been using crapped itself out about halfway through downloading the first 44 episodes so I settled on the manga. If Funimation actually does give us a Dragon Ball and Z release of this quality, I WILL support the official release.
Well, Crunchyroll now.
It's kinda wild hearing "AB Groupe" and "good Dragon Ball release" in the same breath when I only really know their name from the Big Green dub. What a turn around. I can't wait for the footage to be available with English subs/audio, one way or another.
AB is way better than Funi tbh. And they know they cannot mess with it because of the french audience. In France Dragon ball may be the most iconic cartoon ever and french people are picky and wouldn't buy more than 1 release of the same thing.
They did good Dragon Ball Super releases and Dragon Ball movie releases.
also in Mexico too db is loved it's no surprise really just wanted to include that
@@mielthesquid6536 Actually, the french fanbase in general doesn't know as much about the bad releases compared to the English community. And AB didn't release anything with this much care put into it until now (they didn't even care about the french dub's quality when they produced it, hence, the awful script and production).
In fact, it was arguably worse than FUNimation's treatment until 2022. The DVD collectors for the movies were mostly awful with the exceptions being the Trunks TV Special, Movie 7-11 and Movie 13, the DB and DBZ DVD collectors were badly compressed Dragon Box and for DBGT, it was french dub only (and we know how awful the french dub of GT is) with low quality masters. And on these releases (except the GT one), the audio quality for the french dub was worse than on the previous more censored DVDs. The Blu Rays fixed that (mostly, cause the french dubs of the DBZ TV Specials unfortunately have fight scenes re-edited with a much worse optical japanese audio than the previous one and it's overused in the Trunks special) but in the case of the movies, it wasn't anything to write home about, they just took the Japanese Blu Rays without any color correction and without adding the Broadcast Audio to the DBZ TV Specials. And as Ajay said in this video, they were gonna go with Selecta's version for DB originally until 2 months ago. Also, Fusion Reborn and Wrath of the Dragon are a pretty special case of how AB handled the dub over the years, the sound mixing has changed on the DVD collectors and then, it changed again on the Blu Rays. I feel like I'm the only one noticing that stuff but yes, the french dub of Fusion Reborn getting the original music (which I prefer) wasn't the only change from it on the newer releases. I'm not gonna list them but I'll say one important thing, in the case of Wrath of the Dragon (Fusion Reborn too but I don't count it because it wasn't with the same soundtrack), the VHS and Laserdisc releases had an authentic Stereo mix (similar to the japanese version) that both the DVD and Blu Rays lacked.
I'm french but I'm not gonna praise the company handling Dragon Ball in my country for everything they ever did just because they did an awesome release a week ago.
@@joannaalmazan4508 Yeah, I know. The Mexican community (as well as the rest of Latin-America) seems to love Dragon Ball even more than both the English and French community combined in addition to having a better dub. And yet, they got the worst home release treatment (with Z not even having a complete home release from I read) and an audio preservation problem for their dub (similar to the japanese version).
This is the kind of detail and dedication I'm talking about. A company that genuinely cares about quality. As opposed to abusing a fan's loyalty for a popular franchise. 1 of the best companies I've seen do this here in the West is Discotek. When they bring us some awesome HD Remasters they take the initiative of doing it themselves. They work with the best studios to get the job done. This is why I wish FUNimation would take notes from them and AB Group. If DBZ was in Discotek's hands we would've been gotten proper remasters instead of the denoised trash we've gotten over the recent years. Its ironic that they've managed to pull this off with excellent bluray remasters of a good majority of the Lupin III tv specials. Projects that were once owned by FUNimation. I can't wait to see their remastered blurays of Digimon Adventures. We need more companies like Discotek Media and AB Group. Companies that take their time to deliver a solid product with little to no compromises.
It’s Crunchyroll now rather than Funimation, but yes.
Your enthusiasm for this is so infectious. I'm now so excited. I want it so bad! Come on, Funimation!
Great review Ajay! Looking forward to what kinds of Dragon Ball releases fans might enjoy in the future.
So blessed to see the broadcast audio be utilized officially
Seeing this footage has me salivating to get my hands on this release, I really hope AB Group is able to re-release this in other countries so they can fund remasters of the same quality for the rest of the series
Crunchyroll could literally just source out this release, slap some English subtitles on it and then stream it.
AB Groupe just need remaster to the rest of OG Dragon Ball, Z and GT even though I don't care about GT and I hoped they get more experienced as they keep remastering the series.
@@Seven71987 Do they have plans to remaster the rest of the series?
@@gamestation2690 I'm not sure but it's just the first third of OG Dragon Ball.
@@Seven71987 The Dragon Box transfers are still okay until that happens, right?
Damn, i've always loved your breakdown videos about animation through the series and your whole content in general. Glad to see you back Ajay. This french release is night and day in the diferences to Dragon Box, it doesnt even look the same anymore and that's good because OG Dragon Ball deserves better quality image. Glad you see back uploading videos, Ajay!
It’s France after all , Dragon Ball in the world outside Japan was Born in France and then got shared everywhere else
I want a collection of the whole show. I wanna watch it all the way through in both sub and dub
wow the timing.. I introduced my 12 year old younger brother to Dragon Ball last summer! we watched it all the way up to Super, and he's a big fan of the series now :) still, part of me regrets not waiting ahah. because in the 8 years i've been a fan of DB, never in my life did i expect ANYONE to give attention to the original series. great video! i love the exposure. i hope to see more videos in the future, even if they're not DB related :p i just like hearing you talk.
Whenever I see OG Dragonball clips, I've always come to expect those off-tones, so seeing it as it was meant to be is mindblowing, I had no idea that it was supposed to look that good
Funimation has failed this fandom! The French company that remastered Dragon Ball is beautiful!
AB Groupe is the same company that made the Big Green Dub in the 2000s.
Holy crap. This release came out of nowhere and it’s amazing. I really hope this doesn’t suffer the same fate that the level sets did. I hope they finish Dragon Ball do Z and maybe even GT. And if this does get released internationally we will have an official legal way to watch the Dragon Ball series in HD with accurate colors and high quality Japanese audio that is easily accessible. If this release gets added to crunchyroll so streamers can watch it that would be the icing on the cake.
The quality of this french release speaks volumes if it motivates Ajay to do a TH-cam video lmao
Glad to at least have something competent. I hope this will encourage other license holders, since they can see now what can be done. The audio in particular is the most important part for me.
Always nice to see an upload!
Funimation/Crunchyroll literally have the perfect rerelease here, they would just need to slap their dub over it and that’s it. How have they not officially released this in the states yet???
Anime Ajay is the only guy who even when he doesn’t post a video in ages can still come and get almost 50k within a day , Thr guy is freaking super saiyan
AMAZING video. Thank you! I live in France and I'm so excited to get my hands on this release 😄✨✌🏻
4:13 I'd say it's far better than QTEC's color correction and so are the Level Sets. As much as I like Kai, the quality of the color correction was really inconsistent and just not as good as these 2 sets. Sometimes, it would be really good but some other times, it would be good but not enough (like the first fight between Goku and Vegeta that has corrected skin tones but still a green sky) and it would also some rarer times just be brighter Dragon Box (especially in the Cell arc).
PS: I also feel the need to mention that no matter how good the color correction got in Kai, Bulma's hair was never restored to its proper blue color (at least, I can't recall even a single shot where it was). Even when she was drawn in the opening and the first ending, her hair was green.
One of the time it's good to be french lol. I'm living in America since 15 years but I order anything anime in France, even the the euro and shipping cost it is always cheaper and better. France comes right after Japan for manga business and same for anime, animes has been everywhere on TV back to the early 80s, so it's basically french cartoon culture and french people hate capitalism and are very picky which means there won't be 5 versions of the same thing like in America, so if we do it it got to be right on first try.
RIP Toriyama Sensei
Just stumbled across this vid, and I gotta say this is super exciting. Even for me, 41 years old, who's lost HOPE of ever acquiring DB & DBZ in high quality audio... this has sparked a new flame inside. Thank you!
DBZ has been on blu ray for years my man. I’ve had all 9 seasons for like 8 years now
As a French, ngl I'm proud af right now
I only recently got into Dragon Ball and thought the blue boxes were pretty good, but seeing the side by side really shows how much better it could be. I hope they finish the whole series and it gets an English release.
I REALLY hope that for the 40th anniversary in 2024 we get something special. I would love something like "Kai' being done for Dragon Ball and Z TOGETHER, beginning to end.
I think going back and remastering and editing the entire anime from the very beginning would give them an opportunity to really iron out a lot of little bumps and bruises with the series, making it gel more with Super, make the entire thing have a stronger pace and try to help push more viewers into going all the way back to original Dragon Ball and giving it a chance.
A proper HD restoration of the whole thing would be cool, but I would also LOVE to see them sort of do a "Kai 2.0" with the entire anime from start of Dragon Ball to the end of Super.
Altering the content of the show, like going back and removing scenes/episodes is Iconoclasm of the vilest form. I say release what we all fell in love with, exactly how it's always been in original aspect ratio and great visual/audio quality.
@@Mr.Goodkat I'm all for that, I think that sort of thing should go without saying.
But I also would love for the entire story, start to finish, to get that sort of "More true to the Manga" edit of the content.
Again...they did it once for Kai. I want the full blown, all out original incarnation to be restored...but I would also like something like the Kai treatment to happen, and be handled consistently, for the series as a whole.
Not gonna happen, no need for it either.
We need you back Ajay. The community wants a new video. Do more of these please.
Honestly after watching this I'm excited to see how the rest of the series will fare. Hopefully for the next box set they'll have more time to polish and fine-tune the rest of the episodes since they had a little bit of a time crunch with the first one.
So if we all buy the French blu-ray and the sales are unusually high… will that send a strong enough message to the rights holders??
Definitely
Well atleast i have nyaa will get this version with the broadcast audio. Piracy is the result of poor policies.
You wouldn’t happen to have a nyaa link for this with English subs would you? 👀
Damn why isn't this the norm. If they could make it look that good in a couple months think about what they could do with even more time and resources.
“The Takeo Ide video is long overdue at this point”
Wait, you’re telling me this remaster was made by the same guys who made the BIG GREEN dub?? Wow, they’ve come a long way.
Just when I was about to be content with Selecta Vision's release you come out with this analysis and I wouldn't know how good this was in comparison, it still is an upscale but one woth more care put into it.
Still, a reescan should be done not tomorrow but years ago, OG Dragon Ball is such a classic series and it deserves to be shown and preserved in the best way possible and not just through upscales, before the master materials get more deteriorated.
Finally a great release for DB. Crossing my fingers that the English side of things start to take notes and actually pay attention to what fans want from a home release. Dragon Ball is such an important franchise and for it have underwhelming release one after another, its refreshing to see a proper release.
Nice to see an AI upscale done well, seen a bunch on TH-cam that look like the smeary example you showed. Really great to get a new upload from you too!
As a french Dragon Ball fan, I didn't trust AB for this release one bit and I thought they would just take Selecta Vision's version like they just took the japanese movie remasters without any color corrections. Glad they didn't do that and I hope they continue that way.
I know u
What is so bad about selecta vision?
The fact that the Big Green company has done the job that other couldn't!!! Is just too awesome.
WHERE THE FUCK IS IT
Thank you so much for sharing this. I hope Crunchyroll can get wind of this and use these masters at the least to release new HD Blu-Rays of the show.
12:24 That one guy on Twitter REALLY rubbed you the wrong way and I LOVE seeing angry Ajay 😂😂
AB also released a bluray compilation with nearly all movies and oav with the same method and it's gorgeous
Now I feel like I’ve never really seen dragonball. You’re right, the color shifts really made it feel older than it was.
Great video, it's amazing to see AI be used properly more and more as time goes on. If AB gets their hands on Z, or even other shows like Sailor Moon I'm sure I (along with plenty of others) would gladly support them. I'm all for piracy, but when companies put effort into their products I will gladly encourage that. This set is great, hell I imported it myself but I think people should remember this isn't the be all end all of releases. As slim as the chance is, Toei could still do an actual remaster from their film. This release is very well crafted, but this isn't a case of lost material.
AnimeAjay Is there a release date for the second set? - I would hate it if the DBZ Level Sets scenario (not releasing all episodes) would repeat. I hope they will release all Dragon Ball GT episodes in one set after the regular Dragon Ball.
Im gonna have to buy this now and edit in some English sub and audio. definitely worth it!
I plan to do the same thing. I just can't give my trust to Funimation/Crunchyroll, after so many crappy home releases.
DO IT KING!
This really does give me hope that we will see an actual dragon box remaster and re-release Thanks to the audio we now have.
I'd just like to point out: AB Groupe are the guys the gave us the Big Green dub!
BIG GREEN GAVE US A MUCH BETTER RELEASE OF DRAGON BALL THAN EITHER FUNIMATION OR TOEI!!!!! How embarrassing.
Proof positive that the franchise is cursed.
Let's hope it won't die an untimely death like the Level sets.
Next year will be the Dragon Ball franchise's 40th anniversary. It would be the perfect time for Crunchyroll to make a Blu Ray set of the original series using the AB masters.
Funimation is being f*cking lazy. The Level Sets and Dragon Boxes were good versions of DBZ, but Funimation insists on pushing the crappy Orange Bricks. They don’t wanna do the work, like France did.
I would appreciate a Blu-ray release like this for Dragon Ball GT
This Blu-ray set needs to be released worldwide. It would be an instant buy for me.
So long as Funiroll doesn’t get any profit for it.
Seeing that on an OLED screen and the difference is night and day! Dark details and scene with a lot of deep blacks are awesome looking now, they achieved the sweet spot of contrast.
I have to rewatch the series now. Hope that Z and GT (yeah, GT too, feelings are canonic) get a treatment like that!
DAD'S BACK WITH THE MILK!!!
RETURN OF THE KING 👑
When will the rest of the show come out? And will they do Z as well?
I wonder if a rip exists out there, wouldn't be too hard to put on the desired English sub groups subtitles.
I'll still buy a physical copy just to support the work they've done and hopefully they'll do this for the other half of Dragonball episodes out there. A collection of all the movies would be dope too.
Holy shit Ajay, I was just looking at your channel yesterday wondering if you'd return, and then this drops. Glad you're back man.
I saw your twitter posts about ppl stealing the fun of this kind of content creation from you with their negativity. I'm glad that didnt keep you down, and I look forward to further content.
I've seen people using ai upscaling tech to remaster some scenes from the original kid Goku DB like the fight between Goku and King Piccolo and the results look FANTASTIC. Since then I've been looking for forums all over the internet to see if there are any fan groups dedicated in remastering the entire series in HD using ai upscale. There were some trails of it but unfortunately nothing came to be. I hope in the future that changes. Somebody had finished an amazing ai upscale project for the entire Ed, Edd, n Eddy cartoon series, so maybe someday hoepfully Dragon Ball could get the same treatment too.
Wait so they used pirated audio for this remaster? That's insane!
Shocking. I knew everything else in this video but never heard about that.
Honestly amazing. Love to see og dragon ball getting some love. That part of dragon ball has a special place in my heart. While I do sort of like the yellowy look I have to agree this just objectively looks SO much better.
Good to see Ajay back with another dragonball breakdown vid :)
This looks great, and the broadcast audio is a fantastic inclusion! I will say i've never heard of the Kinako(?) fan release you mention and i'm curious about that, if you can provide more info? I'd also be curious about how this compares to the SOM one, but I assume since it uses DBox footage this is probably even better! Legitimately seems like the only notable downside is the contrast issues. Something I AM a bit curious about (on top of the Kinako thing) is come of your comments imply they artificially re-added or enhanced the grain after the AI upscaling? Based on the video footage it seems fine, but I don't really get the point of that: Grain removal can destroy detail, of course, but this seems like it avoided that and it's not like additional grain is gonna restore anything that was lost: it seems like an unnecessary step that just adds extra artefacting for the sake of nostalgia. But that's a nitpick, admittedly!
th-cam.com/video/WypdUObDab0/w-d-xo.html
@@stefanoaquino5158 Ah, thanks, seems like it's the FemboyFilms rebrand, that makes sense!
Had to do a double take, Ajay posting no way!
Right??
I forgot that CrunchyRoll owns FunnyMation now.
I miss when the FunnyMation Z-Store used to be lit, from the Early to Mid 2000's.
didn’t know how much i missed your insight until just now, please keep uplaoding man😭
12:24 caught me so off guard 😂
You could've convinced me this was a proper remaster and not AI upscaling and I'd probably believe you! AB Groupe did a great job
To be fair, I don’t think Topaz and similar products are really calibrated for animated footage, as it’s not something that represents a large portion of the workload for their target market (TV stations and other companies that have large volumes of live-action file footage).
I thought this was what geekdom has been sharing but to see that this is something some folks out there can buy is awesome. Are you going to review what I’m referring to at all? The new 1080p DBZ upscales have looked just as good as what you reviewed here.
If I were AB Groupe, I would delay the Blu-ray release to polish up the AI upscale.
Also, I would use SoM’s encodes as they clean up the image of some compression. Or I would request Toei for the Dragon Box masters.
I know paintings in museums over the years start turning more yellow/bleached
Didnt know film was effected
DB GT Complete Series has been at my local supermarket for years. DBZ complete series has shown up on bluray in 3 seasons per box set. I've not ever seen hide nor hair of OG DB since the Blue Bricks. And the Blue Bricks are getting kinda hard to find. We need a release like this, for the fans of Dragonball. OG DB is my preference anyways.
WTF I just watched those videos of you tearing into the anniversary set and suddenly this pops up!? What form of Ultra Instinct is this!?
Just got my blu ray copy today it’s stunning this is a really good release everyone needs to yell at crunchy roll forever till they distribute this
Where can I order?
Thanks so much with pointing this out to me
Damn hope we get it
The AB group sure has come a long way since making the Big Green dub.
and the Westwood Dub of Z... people tend to forget their involvement with Ocean Studios from Androids to Buu.
7:20 - I think they likely did use uncompressed masters. The thing you point there is the result of DNR which is sadly applied to masters rather to individual releases.
You'd think so but Selecta Vision's release doesn't have it and they 100% used the masters.
So where's the link to buy it?
Always love your uploads, Ajay! Would love to see more of anything you do on youtube!
I couldn’t imagine the French being so based
I never thought I would see the day where broadcast audio and a GOOD (although AI) remaster of the OG Dragon Ball get combined in a release so cheap for what it's offering. Incredible.
I also love how this makes Funimation look like the dumbasses they are
They also released all the OAV in a box set.
Feels great to have a good dragon ball blu ray and a video from you ajay
Really great stuff
#db_oui If Crunchyroll doesn't bring this over the pond hopefully the fans will make it available through alternate means.
Where do I get this release?