Forum - View topicAnswerman - Why Are Anime Discs Re-released So Much?
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Angel M Cazares
 Posts: 5424 Location: Iscandar |
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The question should be "Why Are Anime Dragon Ball Z Discs Re-released So Much"? I am not really bothered by anime rereleases, but I am annoyed that Funimation keeps milking their DBZ cow.
I know that I am not required to buy rereleases of shows I already own, but I rather see publishers release stuff for the first time, like the Tatami Galaxy or do a full release of Monster. |
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EricJ2
 Posts: 4016 |
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Asking why Funi re-releases DBZ so much is like asking why Warner re-releases Harry Potter, the Dark Knight and The Hobbit so often-- It's not just a matter of being their "core" iconic house franchise that we associate with the company--But with studios all stroking each other's fear buttons that "Physical disks are dying!" (which, btw, a recent study last spring found out they're not: http://www.gfk.com/fileadmin/user_upload/dyna_content/US/documents/GfK_Physical-Digital_Video_Report_2016_Infographic.pdf), the big companies have begun circling the wagons more and more, taking fewer and fewer risks on selling wide mainstream titles, moving away from niche collector editions (focusing on Amazon, Discotek or private MOD-archive releases for the collector titles), and concentrating on the few House Franchises that mass-retail customers "actually buy". And double that for Funi surviving the 00's Anime Bubble. If they're convinced that the few remaining retail Best Buys will sell no anime on their dwindling DVD shelves but DBZ, then here's the next new repackaged DBZ set. And when Warner put out that $800 Tolkien set (http://www.theonering.net/torwp/2016/08/22/101604-outraged-or-bemused-the-uce-blu-ray-galvanizes-fans/), it became the camel's straw for companies' neurotic love-fear-hate relationship with the current retail disk industry. Disks aren't "dying" just because the studios want to kill them, blame us for it, and then kiss up to their defensively-paranoid image of us. |
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Tenchi
 Posts: 4469 Location: Ottawa... now I'm an ex-Anglo Montrealer. |
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I'm not sure if I agree with the basic premise of the question; there are still several anime I didn't get around to buying the first time that I can only pray will eventually get a North American re-release, above all Kimagure Orange Road, plus, to a lesser degree, Marmalade Boy, and there's also Kamichu!, which I do own on DVD but would happily re-buy on domestic Blu-Ray.
Although I know the problem is that the rights for all three of those lapsed a long time ago and the Japanese licensors might be asking too much for the rights for anime that wouldn't likely sell well in today's market. But it has happened before, I can't say I was expecting Strawberry Marshmallow to ever get a re-release (plus a release of the OVAs for the first time, which were one of my most wished-for licenses, although I haven't bought the disk yet due to financial issues but it'll be the first anime I get when I get money) but it did somewhat out of the blue. |
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Levitz9
 Posts: 1022 Location: Puerto Rico |
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This reminds me of when Funimation licensed the first Big Windup season years and years ago; people expected it all to come out on a snazzy boxset after a while, so nobody bought BW...
... which meant it never got the boxset and never even had the second season licensed. That only happened recently because Nozomi/Right Stuf went out on a limb. :p Lesson being: stuff gets rereleased (and only rereleased) if it sells. So, blaming Funimation for rereleasing DBZ would be to blame them for following where the money is. How dare they try to keep the lights on. 
I like how Justin put it, he's got a great nuts and bolts view of the subject (having worked in the industry). |
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Shenl742
Posts: 1524 |
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I think I remember an ANNCast from a year or two ago with Shawn Klecknar from Rightstuf about their recently acquired re-release of Nadecsco.
He said that lower-priced re-releases of older titles tend to sell pretty well, as new anime fans are born everyday, and a slate of well-regarded series sold for an amount that's not hard on the wallet is always enticing. |
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doubleO7
 Posts: 1069 |
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The answer to that question is also answered here as well. DBZ keeps selling. Until the sales numbers for one of the biggest anime series in the world start drying up it will continue to be re-released as often as possible. I don't see that stopping anytime soon. It's not like a re-release of a popular show is necessarily taking away resources that could have gone into another new release (which Funi does all the time, so it's not like they just do DBZ over and over). If Funi had any intention of releasing Tatami Galaxy, they would've done it years ago, and none of Funi's other shows is at fault for that. It simply had terrible steaming numbers to the point where they could not financially justify a home video release or a dub at the time. |
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Aphasial
Exempt from Grammar Rules
Posts: 122 Location: San Diego, CA |
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Kind of makes me wonder about the S.A.V.E. and other types of re-releases.
I can't imagine there's *that much* money being saved in slightly cheaper packaging (although the lack of full-color inserts might help). When something is basically the same but sold at a much cheaper price with a cosmetic modification on the front (see also: Game Of The Year "red bar" editions of PS3 games), I kind of wonder if the SKU is being tracked separately or there's a separate contractual commitment being dealt with somewhere that allows/requires it to go out marketed somehow slightly differently. |
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Zalis116
Moderator
 Posts: 6867 Location: Kazune City |
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But DBZ re-releases actually can boast changes and "improvements":
"Different dub!" "Mostly/totally uncut, we swear!" "Now newly-cropped to remove 1/4 of the image!" "We actually left it in 4:3 and included the previews this time!" "Cropped again and color-boosted for modern screens!" "Now with even less of that annoying grain and texture details!"
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EricJ2
Posts: 4016 |
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The first disks of games or movies have to go out at premium retail price and shiny collector edition to attract the fans and recoup the production costs (which is why series used to come out in single disks, to continue to pay for the dubbing)-- And once that initial sale phase is over, the "double dip" release can put it out at a wider mass-market rollout with a more sale-friendly price, since it's just about continuing to move the merchandise. Nothing wrong with SAVE or Game of the Year editions, just that most fans know how to wait for them. That was one of the main crippling factors that popped the Bubble, when we started to catch on that ADV titles would get the season-boxset Double-dip, once they'd finished the dubbing process. |
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JDude042
 Posts: 261 |
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Yea the article should primarily be about Dragon Ball Z to be honest. Lets see...
Late 90s-Early 2000s Ocean Dub Dragon Ball Z VHS/DVDs Late 90s-Early/Mid 2000s Funimation Dragon Ball Z VHS Edited/Uncut Funimation Dragon Ball Z DVD Singles Funimation Dragon Ball Z VHS/DVD Box Sets Mid 2000s Funimation Dragon Ball Z 1st Season Uncut DVDs (Abruptly Cancelled Before the Saiyan Arc was even finished) Mid-Late 2000s Funimation Dragon Ball Z Orange Box DVD Sets Around the 2010 Mark or So Funimation Dragon Ball Z Dragon Box DVD Sets Early 2010-Current Funimation Releases a few Dragon Ball Z Blu Ray Sets and then Cancels Them? Funimation Dragon Ball Z Kai DVD & Blu Ray Sets Funimation Dragon Ball Z Blu Ray Sets Made with New HD Remaster from their original masters Ocean Dub Dragon Ball Z Rock the Dragon DVD Box Set (Saiyan & Namek Arcs) Did I miss anything? I remember being a sucker and buying the "uncut" singles of the Saiyan arc almost ten years ago and being kinda pissed that they cancelled it, but I sold off all my Dragon Ball Z DVDs a long time ago. Last edited by JDude042 on Fri Sep 16, 2016 3:26 pm; edited 2 times in total |
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KarmaRocketX
Posts: 62 |
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"and there is little that can be added to any further releases of such an old series to justify purchasing a new release."
Actually, yes. There very much is. There is something VERY MAJOR that Funimation can do to add to a DBZ release to make it worth buying. Two, in fact: 1. Have a competent release of it. 2. Not make people pay $700 per volume of it after a few short months, or not cancel a good decent edition halfway in. Every single release of DBZ from Funimation has a MAJOR issue wrong with it, in some way or another. We have never, to this day, gotten a definitive release worth having aside from the exceptionally rare and costly Dragon Box sets, but more on that when I get to talking about the Dragon Box. The most well-known "Orange Brick" sets are infamous for their hilariously bad cropping forcing it into an aspect ratio it was never intended to be seen at, that only serves to CHOP OFF large sections of the picture at the top and bottom, their sloppy and horribly inaccurate color correction and their unforgivably disgusting use of DVNR Noise Reduction which actually DAMAGED the picture quality, erased a LOT of detail, eroded outlines whenever the screen moves and makes the entire picture look like some muddy, unfocused, blurry mess that appears as if the original video has been smeared with Vaseline. It is a HORRIBLE MESS of a botched release in every conceivable way. Dragon Ball Z Kai has a more professional and slightly better written dub, but it is NOT the version of the show that is optimal to watch due to the MASSIVE removal of episodes, which may have been "filler" but is still missed, was massively censored (this was true of the Japanese Kai releases not a US exclusive problem though), and the video footage keeps incompetently and gratingly switching back and forth between badly color corrected sub-par original footage and bizarrely and poorly retraced digital scenes that are jarring and totally unwelcome, for no decent rhyme or reason. It is a horribly botched Frankenstien's monster patchwork mess of a horribly edited version of the series with a truly annoying plagiarized soundtrack that later got discontinued after a handful of volumes due to cheap plagerization. Dragonball Z Kai is a botched, horrible mess of an edit by TOEI that is as hideous as it is shameful. The Dragon Box sets are good for what they are, but..... since Funimation SUDDENLY let them fall out of print, refuses to re-release it in any form, and volumes now go for $700 EACH on eBay if anyone wants the only DECENT release of DBZ that still isn't on Blu-Ray even though it is otherwise perfect. And speaking of Blu-Ray, there was the "Level" sets that were just as pristine and great as the Dragon Box, so Funimation in their infinate wisdom.. cancelled after 2 releases leaving it incomplete. And finally the NEW Blu-Ray sets which did release completely and are.... spectacularly horrible again, going right back to the gross misuse of the digitally destructive DNVR, detail eroding, Vaseline-smearing filters, hideous color correction, and again the return of miserably incompetent 16:9 cropping once again. So yeah, can Funimation actually offer something new to the consumer? Actually release Dragonball Z competently instead of screwing it up for once. Take the video files for the Dragon Box sets that Funimation still bafflingly has locked up in their vaults that they are keeping from the pubic in a way that almost makes it seem like they have as much hatred for it as George Lucas hates the original, untouched, NON-special edition Star Wars everyone wants as much as Dragonball Z fans want this.... Upscale it for Blu-Ray, WITHOUT bad cropping, WITHOUT digitally destructive detail eroding filters, like the "Level x.x" sets they started but bafflingly CANCELLED, and keep them in print long enough so that they DON'T have to be bought on eBay for $700 per volume. I don't see why that is so hard, but again, it's like they have something against just releasing the series properly. The problem is not that Dragonball Z has been re-released so many times. It's that the entire series has NEVER been released in it's entirety in an acceptable manner ONCE, except for the one time they put the Dragon Box on DVD that lasted only a few months, before it got to the point that people have to cough up $700 for it now. Dragon Box on Blu-Ray. The only thing people want and the only thing we'll never have. |
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JDude042
Posts: 261 |
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I couldn't agree more, and the sad thing is I used to own all the Dragon Box sets. Sadly it wasn't too long until I realized even as a fan of the series, this just isn't worth having and sold them all on eBay for almost $2,000. I like the series, but for that much money I can't imagine myself sitting down and watching it that much and getting an amount of enjoyment out of it that warranted the ridiculous amount of money I squandered on it. Like right now I'm collecting Japanese games for the Sega Saturn, probably spent a little over $1,000 in almost three months, but I'm getting way more enjoyment out of it than some DVDs that are just going to sit on a shelf not being watched but rarely. Wasn't the Japanese Dragon Box DVDs originally released as early as 2004 in Japan? I'm surprised they haven't gotten around to remastering it for Blu Ray, but it's clear Toei has their focus elsewhere for the time being with Dragon Ball Super and the continuation of the series, rather than delving back into past material. |
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Mr. sickVisionz
 Posts: 2173 |
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The article really could have stopped there. |
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Tenchi
Posts: 4469 Location: Ottawa... now I'm an ex-Anglo Montrealer. |
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The thing is that the old Geneon DVDs have some annoying artifacting I notice even on my not-even-close-to-top-of-the-line-home-theatre-quality 26" (small by modern TV standards) LCD Toshiba that I bought in 2008 and I wish I could own something better because it's a visually beautiful show. Weirdly, I haven't noticed any video quality issues with my Strawberry Marshmallow DVDs, released by Geneon around the same time, although that may just be due to a somewhat simpler art style with less subtle shading effects than Kamichu!. |
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MarshalBanana
 Posts: 5316 |
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I think the man was asking why not just keep printing the version they released, rather than make a new release that they can charge more money for.
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