Video:

The only reason I couldn't give the video a perfect 5 is because of the minor pixelation that is barely noticable when fight scenes or fast animations arise. You will barely notice it, especially once your intent on watching the series. The colors and video are perfect on my TV... I love it!

Audio:

I think the audio is great. The original DBZ was in Mono and MI decided to make a semi-stereo sound for this set. I hear no echoing or anything like that. Obviously it's not true stereo like Dolby 5.0 surround, but it isn't supposed to be. It sounds great!

Subtitle:

This is one of the only semi-problems with the set. But if you have previous knowledge of the series you will know who is who when they mistranslate names. For example... Krillin aka Kuririn translates to Korin and Kurin. Later on he is named Krullin which is bareable. Yamcha is translated to Yimcha. Kamesennin aka Master Roshi is translated to Master Goten. Another annoying thing about the subs, that stays true through the MI sets, is Gohan always calling everyone Uncle in the subtitles. "Uncle Piccolo, Uncle Krullin, Uncle...." For some reason the subbers decided to label everyone he talks to with an "Uncle." The skills like kamehameha's are translated too. I think it was translated to something like "Roshi's Cannon." But other than all that you will be able to know what is going on.

Comment:

You really can't ask for more besides the sometimes messed up names in the subtitles. The colors and video are just so perfect in these MI sets... Thank you Dragon Box! These sets blow the walls off the R1 Funi dvd's. If you want to see what dragon ball should look like then get these, you won't be disappointed.

Video:

For an HK set, where all the episodes on the three discs were from 1989 or 1990, this video looks awesome! This really should have been my first HK set, because I would have used the video on these discs as the standard by which I judged all other HK sets. This looks better than Trigun Perfect from FX, Yu Yu Hakusho from MI, and G Gundam Perfect from FX, which I own. I noticed some pixelation during the opening, but remember, these episodes were made in 1989!! The colors are very distinct, the animation looks very fresh and clean. There can be pixelation at times during heavy fighting sequences, but these scenes move so fast that the pixelation is on screen from half a second to two or three seconds max. The animation and video is just awesome during still or low action scenes. Sometimes even during heavy action scenes, I looked for pixelation but it seemed to disappear! These fast action scenes without pixelation usually came right after a fast action scene with heavy pixelation. The video is just so vibrant, so clear, so wonderful for an HK set that from now on I will judge all other HK sets that I have bought by these sets unless something better comes along. I understand that these are the R2 rips of the $2000 Dragon Box set and they absolutely blow the R1s out of the water. This isn't the edited video either, neither does it claim to be unedited but still is edited. There is beer, people getting kicked through walls, blood, arms being ripped off, people being shot, trucks being destroyed (and that's just the first four episodes!!).

Audio:

Here's where the only problem I have with the set comes in. The soundtrack sounds fine, a little dated sounding, not because of the music, but because of when it was recorded. After all, I am used to Funimations poopy version where they've replaced the original music with amped up guitars for the sake of selling a few extra DVDs. The music isn't the problem, and I really enjoy the opening theme song, Cha-la-head-Cha la. The problem is with the dialogue. Maybe it is because I'm not used to it, but it sounds like the voices are being played too loud on really small speakers. This isn't just my problem either, I've read elsewhere this was a problem with these sets. I played it on my home theater system and then on my laptop and then just on my TV by itself. It sounded the same from all three sources.

Subtitle:

Well I don't know any Japanese so I can't vouch for how well or accurately this stuff is translated from Japanese. Let me say this, there is a huge problem when I can get better English in an HK sub(grammatically and spelling-wise) than I can off a message board where people speak English as their native language. I would say from what I saw that the spelling was right on almost 100% of the time, this is spelling, not the correct use of a word, the tense a word was used in, or word order. That got to be a tad strange at times. Like in the ending song when one of the lines was "An apple-colored freak approaches." I would say that there is a semi-Engrish line once for every ten or so lines on the screen. What I mean by semi-Engrish is something like "If there are dragons, I'll like to ride it" where the English is sketchy grammatically, but every thing is spelled correctly, it's just that the word order and tenses aren't correct, yet with great ease you can tell what is trying to be said. There was also the occasional line where I didn't understand why the character said what he said in the subtitles. There was one example in Chapter Four where Raditz said something to the effect of "Do not be complacent" and this was right when Raditz was kicking Goku. Maybe I missed something, but I couldn't figure out why some things were said when they were said, given the situation. There is also the name problem, being new to the Dragon Ball Z series I don't know everyone's name so I can't really comment on what was wrong and how many times it was incorrect but just to let you potential buyers know, it is there.

Comment:

Well to sum it all up, the saying "You haven't seen Dragon Ball Z until you've seen the Japanese version" is so true because of Funimation's "creative licenses". If you've only seen DBZ on Cartoon Network you really don't know what you're missing. This has blood, this has great fighting scenes, the translations from what I understand are far more accurate than Funimation's dub will ever be(which I've read actually changes the meaning and essence of the show in some places) and the video is left as is. Remember, this is a rip of the R2 DVDs that came from the DBZ box set that was released in Japan so you are getting DBZ as it should be, instead of the watered down American version. The video is awesome, the sound can be a tad sketchy, but it doesn't detract from the show by any means, and the subtitles are the best I've seen on as far as original subs go.

Video:

The only pixelation I noticed were the clouds when Goku was on Snake Road, or during fights, but during fights you hardly ever notice it! R2 Rips of the Dragon Box Z.

Audio:

MI changed it from it's original Mono to stereo. It sounds great but if you turn it up real loud during the opening song, you hear some small amount of static.

Subtitle:

If you have common sense, you'll definitely understand what's going on. But throughout the entire set, and future sets, whenever Gohan says sombody's name who isn't Oto-san(Daddy) it says Uncle in front of their name! Uncle Piccolo, Uncle Krullin, Uncle Goten(Muten Roshi), etc. Another thing wrong are some of the names. Muten Roshi becomes Master Goten. Kuririn or Kililyn, becomes Korin, Kurin and finally Krullin when the real Korin is introduced. Yamcha becomes Yincha That's about all the mess ups. Everything else is A-OK! Oh yeah, also the Episode titles are definitely screwed. All they had to do was search and they could've found ENDLESS sites with the real episode names! Also the OP song's lyrics are messed up. Just goto www.animelyrics.com for the real lyrics.

Comment:

It's Dragonball Z, what else do you need?! I love episodes 6-21 which contains some of the best filler of all time!

Video:

The remastered video in these Dragonbox ripped set really puts the R1 disks to shame. The colours are far more natural looking, there is no horrible red tint, the picture is not cropped round the edges, even the artwork looks finer and more detailed. MI logo watermarks appear from time to time but they are a rarity. Dragon Ball Z has never looked so good.

Audio:

MI seem to have created a kind of pseudo-stereo effect from the original mono sound. It isn't distracting and the sound is perfectly clear, but I would have preferred it in its original form.

Subtitle:

The subs for the first disk of set 1 are very average whereas there is a definite improvement for disks 2 and 3. They do convey what is going on quite well, if not with 100% accuracy, but they just can't seem to get character's names right. Yamcha becomes Yincha, Kuririn to Korin, Muten Roshi is often Master Goten, and King Enma is referred to as King Cold for a couple of lines. But since it's not exactly Shakespeare everything you need to follow the story is there.

Comment:

Overall this is an excellent set for an excellent series. The episodes each have an opening sequence, a re-cap, and an ending sequence, all that's missing are the next-episode previews which I never watched anyways. The average subs are more than compensated for by the awesome video quality. For DBZ fans this is an essential purchase.

Video:

Great video conversion since this show is so old.....There is some pixelization when to much things happen at the same time like battles and kamehamehas =P.

Audio:

i noticed some distortion during the first episodes...or maybe was only my TV. i dun know

Subtitle:

Ahem. Grammar and spelling errors during the 1st cd, but then it gets much better. i think this is normal for an hong kong dvd.

Comment:

Overall: Not as good as the 2nd box because of the subtitles and the audio of the first disc (i can't be sure if the audio distorion was cause by my TV), but still essential for dbz fans. the menus are awesome (same as the 2nd box). Unfortunatelly the package and covers for this show are really poor....i'd love if they used the same as the japanese R2 dragonbox...how well, nothings perfect.

Video:

The video is crisp, especially considering how old the episodes actually are. I can't remember a time there was pixilation in the whole set except when Raditz and Goku got killed, other than that it was great.

Audio:

The audio tracks are old, but great. I can hear every punch, every breath, every grunt.

Subtitle:

At first the subtitles suck. I mean bad. The names are all wrong, but you can figure out what is going on. I guess after the first 9 eps they hired someone else to translate it becasue they get a lot better on disc 2 and 3.

Video:

Video does indeed look pixelated, I would have preferred they cut away ending song... and put only 8 eps per dvd, oh well. the bitrate varies from 3-5 mbps. Dont know if its progressive or interlaced, looks like its progressive.

Audio:

Sound cant be any better, because the original is mono, if they would have set the sound in mono and not used exagerated bitrate for it, maybe they would have set the video bitrate higher.

Subtitle:

The english subs used in the translation has a lot of grammar error, and very often wrong translations, kinda like the one piece DVDs. Wish they had used fansubs, or the subs NGN created back in time. *note, this is a very harsh rate for being a HK dvd, this rate is actually vs good fansubs and FUNimation translations*

Comment:

*You can find a review with more details, at http://sangofe2.netfirms.com/dbzpart1mi.html * Go there to find more screencapturs as well. Ok, i got the set today, and the english used in the translation has a lot of grammar error, and very often wrong translations, kinda like the one piece DVDs. Wish they had used fansubs, or the subs NGN created back in time. For the previews there is only 1 preview per disc (on the last episode on the disc), however, all the title screens, teasers and reviews are there, even the ending song, too bad they cut away most previews, i love to watch these. For the video, it does indeed look pixelated, I would have preferred they cut away ending song... and put only 8 eps per dvd, oh well. the bitrate varies from 3-5 mbps. Dont know if its progressive or interlaced, looks like its progressive. And the sound, it cant be any better, because the original is mono, if they would have set the sound in mono and not used exagerated bitrate for it, maybe they would have set the video bitrate higher.