The Cell Games Begin!, July 8, 2008

Finally its time to relax and chill for Dragonball Z: Season Six where the fighting gets more intence for the beggining of the Cell Games including 10 Filler episodes and 19 action episodes where the power is non stopping. 29 Episodes on 6 Discs.

Episodes include:
What is the Tournament?
The Doomsday Broadcast
Meet Me In The Ring
No Worries Here
A Girl Named Lime
Memories of Gohan
A New Guardian
Dende’s Dragon
The Puzzle of General Tao
The Games Begin
Losers Fight First
Goku vs. Cell
Cell’s Bag of Tricks
No More Rules
The Fight is Over
Faith in a Boy
Gohan’s Desperate Plea
Android Explosion
Children of Cell Attack
The Unleashing
The Unstoppable Gohan
Cell’s Mighty Breakdown
A Hero’s Farewell
Cell Returns
The Horror Won’t End
Save The World
Goku’s Noble Decision
One More Wish
Free The Future

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Another solid season set, September 17, 2008

By 

A Customer –

  

Dragon Ball Z is the one greatest anime series ever created. With its action-packed universe and compelling storylines, Akira Toriyama’s magnum opus has never failed to please. This is the latest season set FUNimation has released of the series.

This set picks up where the last one left off. In his Perfect form, Cell is seemingly invincible. After the Z-Fighters were unable to defeat the villain, he retreats, stating that in 10 days time he will hold a tournament, so that he may fight the strongest fighters in the world. Our heroes go into training, knowing what lies ahead will be their toughest battle yet.

The DVD set is divided amongst six discs, and contains the complete Cell Games Saga (the post-Cell Afterlife Tournament episodes are, disappointingly, NOT included. They will be featured in the next set.) The picture has been subjected to digital noise reduction, and the set includes a booklet of character profiles and episode listings.

Obviously, if you’re new to Dragon Ball Z, you’ll want to start with the Season One box set, but if you’re already a fan, you’ll enjoy these episodes. The previous set contained some excellent fight scenes, and you get plenty more of them here, including Gohan Vs. Cell – one of the most legendary of all Dragon Ball Z fights. The first 10 episodes or so of this set are terrible – some of the worst anime-only filler in the series, with only the occasional interesting moment, like the coming of a new Guardian of Earth. But once you get past those stinkers, it’s an all-out thrill ride for the latter two thirds of the package. The Cell Games (first 10 or so episodes aside) feature some incredible battles. It’s just a shame the “afterlife tournament” episodes weren’t included. I, personally, thought those episodes always worked better as “Post Cell” episodes than “Pre-Buu” ones, though my opinion may be in the minority there.

One of my personal favorite features of the set is the Marathon feature. FUNimation includes a feature in these sets that allows you to view all of the episodes on each disc from start to end with no interruptions from intros/outros/recaps/etc. This is an extremely handy feature I wish more TV shows on DVD had.

Like earlier Dragon Ball Z season sets, the picture has been cropped at the top and bottom (this was done due to excessive grain and damage to the original source), and it has been subjected to the digital noise reduction process. Obviously a lot of fans, myself included, were disappointed to see the picture get cropped. While the digital noise reduction doesn’t do as thorough a job cleaning up the image as you’d hope, it IS the best these episodes have ever looked. In other words, it’s a “give and take” scenario. You lose some of the picture you could see on earlier full-frame DVDs, but on the good side, you gain some picture on the sides, and the image quality is superior to all earlier DVD releases.

Sound quality is similar to the earlier sets. English audio quality is fantastic, but the dub is still translated poorly and the voice cast is hit and miss. On the other hand, the Japanese audio quality is poor, showing its age, but it does feature a well-translated subtitle track from Steven J. Simmons that lets you experience the series as originally intended.

Additionally, like the earlier sets, you have the option of watching the English voice cast played against the original Japanese audio.

Disappointingly, the next episode previews aren’t included. But they weren’t in any earlier season set, so it’s no big surprise.

No special features are included here unless you count the trailers and the same textless opening/closing sequence all other sets like this have had. On the good side, the set does include a booklet similar to the earlier sets, with character profiles and an episode guide, making it handy to go right where you need to go on the DVDs.

It’s another great Dragon Ball Z season set, enough said. Easily some of the best material in the entire series. If you’re a fan of the series and don’t already have these episodes, you can get them all here for one low price. Cropping issues aside, this is a great set, and a good value, especially compared to the older DVD releases.

Highly recommended to any fan of Dragon Ball Z.

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