Review of Dragon Ball Z: Super Battle In The World

Introduction

Although I’m a little too old now – by almost 10 years – to fully enjoy Dragonball Z, I still remember this Japanese anime series from my youth…and what a series it was. Perhaps the ultimate boy’s fantasy program: men with unbelievable powers, a good range of extra-terrestrial foes, and battle that span across multiple episodes.

This feature length episode, not aired on UK TV as far as I know, has Goku and his friend Krilin fighting alien intruders from a giant asteroid which has crashed to earth. As with many Dragonball episodes, Goku is having a hard time against powerful enemies, and needs to call upon his Super Saiyan strength in order to stand a chance of victory.

Video

As we shall see is the common theme for this disc, we get what is expected, but no effort is put into providing us with any more. The picture is in its originally televised aspect ratio of 4:3, and seems to be of decent quality: the colours are as vibrant and picture as sharp as broadcasted episodes.

Audio

This is where the disc fall down the most notches for me…I realise that Dragonball is shown in English language on UK TV, but I find the voice actors and dubbing tremendously annoying! Considering the original Japanese language track should be readily available with minimal effort, wouldn’t it make sense to have included it on this DVD too, and not alienate viewers who (like me!) who would prefer that? The answer seems, from this example, to be ‘No’…!

Features

A very poor set of extras here, rather irritatingly dressed up to look as if some effort was put in, when in fact none was. A menu option of going to ‘weblinks’ and seeing ‘trading cards’ – which are, believe it or not, even less exciting than they sound – comprise the features on this DVD.

Conclusion

Unfortunately this is a very poor example of anime on DVD, which is a shame as Dragonball Z (although this is quite a weak episode) is perhaps the most accessible and widely known anime in the UK, apart from the Miyazaki films and Pokemon. Major gripes are that the original Japanese language track wasn’t included, the dearth of any interesting extras on the disc, and the appallingly bad use of DVD space – the disc only runs for 50mins – mean that you would be better off catching this great series on TV.