Review for Dragon Ball Z: Battle Of Gods Collector's Edition

Introduction

They do it just to spite me! If you’ve read my reviews, you’ll know that I’m not really a fan of the Dragon Ball franchise, having come to it far too late in my anime fandom to appreciate. For most anime fans of my generation it was their gateway drug. I saw it for the first time a couple of years ago. While I initially saw the appeal of Dragon Ball Z, it quickly degenerated into increasingly ridiculous, season spanning, universe threatening battles. By the time the Majin Buu arc arrived, I had tuned out. Then there was Dragon Ball GT, which was the straw that broke the Saiyan’s back. It’s only this year, with the advent of the original Dragon Ball series, that I see what was at first so special about this franchise, but even with the most recent instalment of Dragon Ball, it’s started heading the way of DBZ. I thought as a whole, the franchise was dead and buried, that beyond these titles, we’d never see any more Dragon Ball. It had been seventeen years since the last Dragon Ball produced in Japan... They only went and made another movie. Like I said, they do it to spite me.


As I also said, by the end of Dragon Ball Z, the whole thing was getting ridiculous, with fighters powered up to such a degree that the very fabric of reality was strained with each punch that they threw. I likened the end of that series to a battle between warring gods. It’s no surprise then that this movie, set a little while after the end of Dragon Ball Z (No GT exists in this universe) is called Battle of Gods. Manga Entertainment are releasing it on Blu-ray, DVD, and Collector’s Edition Blu-ray DVD combo. I’m taking a look at the discs of the Collector’s Edition for this review, although primarily the Blu-ray disc.

Majin Buu has been defeated, and the universe is at peace. Goku’s off training with Kaio in the next realm, and he’s totally forgotten that it’s Bulma’s birthday party. Everyone else has gathered at Bulma’s place for a bash. But elsewhere, the destroyer god Beerus has just woken up from a 39-year snooze, and true to his nature, he’s in the mood to destroy something. And since he had a prophetic dream about battling a Super Saiyan God, that’s what he wants to destroy. The only problem is that there is no such thing as a Super Saiyan God. There’s only a handful of Saiyans left for that matter, having had their world destroyed by Frieza. So Beerus begins by tracking down the Saiyan that defeated Frieza, Goku. Goku’s always itching for a fight, but it turns out that even at Super Saiyan level 3, he’s no match for the god. So Beerus decides to try the other Saiyans. He gatecrashes Bulma’s party looking for Vegeta and the others, and if they don’t satisfy his bloodlust, if he’s not entertained, then he’ll blow up the Earth out of pique. Goku better become a god fast.

There are two versions of the film on the Blu-ray, the Theatrical Cut and the Director’s Cut.

Picture

On this Blu-ray, Battle of Gods is presented at 1.85:1 widescreen 1080p. I’ve often heard, and read of how companies like Funimation rework the materials they get from Japan for the US market, beginning with altering the gamma levels to increase the brightness. That’s one of the reasons so many anime Blu-rays are plagued with digital banding. I didn’t think that it would make that much difference until I saw the Twentieth Century Fox logo on this disc (they licensed the film in the US), which is oversaturated and over-exposed to such a degree that it looks as much a cartoon as the film.

As for the film, I haven’t seen the Japanese release to compare it with, but Dragon Ball has always been a simple and colourful animation, and even when it comes to the big screen, the characters are instantly recognisable from the show, as is the world design, and the style of the animation. The theatrical level quality comes through in the use of CG to add a little dimension, such as for Kaio’s little world, some of the cityscapes near Bulma’s home, and of course the animation quality of the fight sequences. Beerus is a nice new character, owing much to Egyptian mythology for his look and costume. The image is clear and sharp throughout, digital banding is absent and the animation is smooth. The difference between the two versions aside from length is that the Theatrical version has Japanese credits, while the Director’s Cut has translated English credits.

The images in this review are sourced from the PR, and aren't necessarily representative of the final retail release.

Sound

You have the choice of DTS-HD MA 5.1 Surround English and PCM 2.0 Stereo Japanese, with optional translated subtitles and a signs only track. This is a Manga authored disc, but the only real issue would be the occasionally random placement of subtitles, popping to the top of the screen for no discernible reason. It’s also worth noting that the US release from Funimation has 5.1 Japanese audio for the Theatrical Cut of the movie, the UK disc only has the stereo. I watched the director’s cut, and in Japanese, and was quite happy with the experience, as the dialogue is clear, the action comes across well, and the stereo gives the film a little room to breathe. I gave the dub a quick try and it’s a solid Funimation effort, living up to the standards of the original DBZ series. The subtitles are accurately timed, and aside from one typo that I noticed, free of error. There’s no issue here with signs clashing with dialogue translations, or more than one conversation at once. It’s all clear and easy to read.

Extras

A Manga authored disc indeed. Everything is on the US disc. Manga Entertainment have stripped the Blu-ray of extras, and put them onto one of the DVDs, and called it a Collector’s Edition. If you buy the DVD, you get the Theatrical Cut, plus extras on one disc; the Director’s Cut on another. If you buy the Blu-ray, you get just both versions of the movie. If you want extras with your Blu-ray, you’ll have to shell out for the Collector’s Edition, where you get that first DVD bunged in as well, so you can watch the extras in glorious SD, whereas US fans get everything in HD. The US disc is locked to Region A, but the forthcoming Australian disc will be Region B.


The Blu-ray presents its content with an animated menu. Note that the scene select on the main screen refers to the theatrical version alone, for navigating within the director’s cut, you can use the scene select via the pop-up menu. The theatrical version runs to 81:39, while the DC runs to 105:00 mins.

It’s not as if there’s a lot in the way of extras to shift, the first DVD with the Theatrical Cut has the film with DD 5.1 English, and DD 2.0 Japanese, subs and signs, and running to a PAL sped-up 81:59.

The extras amount to The Voices of Dragon Ball Z: Unveiled (18:36), which introduces the cast, and shows them at work, and goofing off in the recording booth.

Behind the Scenes: Battle of Voice Actors! (9:31) offers a picture in picture presentation of the climax of the film, once again showing the voice actors as they recorded the finale of the film.

Finally there is the US Trailer and the Textless Ending of the film.

This disc will be in the Collector’s Edition.

The other DVD that I received for review simply contains the director’s cut of the film running to a PAL sped-up 100:43, and has no extra features, and it is my understanding that this won’t be in the Collector’s Edition.

Conclusion

That’s the most fun I’ve ever had with anything with the words Dragon Ball in the title. It had been a long day, and it was the middle of a long night too, the final in a set of review discs to peruse, following one anime title which shall remain nameless at this juncture, but which had managed to put me to sleep, twice. My last disc, it was past midnight, and I was wholly expecting bad things from Dragon Ball Z: Battle of the Gods, something even worse than the Majin Buu nadir that the series had sunk to before its conclusion. Instead this turns out to be the best of Dragon Ball, better than any of the series I have seen so far, better even than the first Dragon Ball series that I actually enjoyed.

Battle of Gods does this by distilling all that is good about Dragon Ball, and jettisoning the bad. It’s the pure essence of the show and the characters in one handy 2 hour chunk, and once you have seen the movie, you don’t even need the series. The good things about the show were the characters and their interactions, the comedy, and those moments of action where you were drawn in, rooting for the characters, and pumping your fists in triumph when they managed to turn a bad situation around. For me, one of the bad things which this film loses is the obviously tendency to stretch a battle over several episodes, which by its nature a movie cannot do in the first place. It also loses what DBZ relied on too much in the end, establishing a villain by sheer destructive nastiness. The bad guys were recognised as such by the people they killed, the stakes were raised by the cities they destroyed, and there was always the crutch that the Dragon Balls could be wished upon to bring them all back.


Beerus is one of the ‘good’ villains, just like Yamucha, Tenshinhan, Piccolo, and Vegeta, who after you’d beat them down, would become your best bud. In fact, as a Destroyer God, Beerus has the personality of a capricious child, and he’s as much fun in this movie as he is threat, and he’s a mean break-dancer too. The film also makes the wise decision of not concentrating on Goku as he tries training up for a rematch, but instead focuses on Bulma’s party instead, where Vegeta is the only one who knows who Beerus is, and to comic effect tries to avoid anyone else at the party from irritating him too much into destroying the world. And we get to see almost everyone from the Dragon Ball universe, and most have their moment in the sun. Roshi acts perverted, Bulma slaps him down, Gohan does his Super Saiyaman thing, and the highlight is when Pilaf and his minions show up (rejuvenated by a previous wish), looking to steal the Dragon Balls again for world domination once more. All that’s missing is Lunch.

Of course the end boils down to a universe shattering showdown between Beerus and Goku, and another key selling point of Dragon Ball that has to be here is the levelling up and Earth shattering battle. Once again, the movie benefits from keeping it short and sweet, while the animation is fluid and epic enough to be worthy of a feature film presentation.


The best thing about this movie is that it has one more blast with the characters that we know so well from Dragon Ball Z, the show that was the fan favourite of the franchise, but approaches it with the lightness and sense of humour that I liked so much about the early Dragon Ball series. It’s the best of both worlds, and great fun to watch. The Blu-ray is watchable enough, but Manga really need to stop this 'stripping out the extras and bunging them on a DVD to create a Collector’s Edition’ nonsense. It’s a telling indictment when your Collector’s Edition is of lower intrinsic value than the overseas standard edition.