Dragon Box

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The Dragon Box is a large and elaborate DVD box set, containing a certain portion of episodes from one of the Dragon Ball anime series. A total of five Dragon Boxes have been released, which together span the entire television series and all of the movies. This DVD box set release from Japan is considered by some of the Dragon Ball fan-base to be the definitive collector's set. The boxes do not contain English subtitles, as most DVDs issued within Japan don't feature them.

Restoration

The film for the episodes/movies on the Dragon Box sets have been fully restored from the original 16mm film reels, effectively cleaning the film, frame by frame, of all dirt and scratches and most of the grain. The frame alignment has also been fixed, removing almost all cases of jitter. The episodes are also presented completely uncut, including the complete opening credits, ending credits and episode previews, which are not available outside of the Dragon Box release (although they are now available on the Japanese single DVD releases).

Dragon Box releases

Dragon Ball

On July 7th, 2004, the original Dragon Ball anime series was released in the Dragon Box format. This set included the entire series, spanning 153 episodes, and came with another Dragon Book and an exclusive World Martial Arts Tournament diorama designed by the creator of the series, Akira Toriyama.

Dragon Ball Z

The first Dragon Box (Volume 1) was released in Japan on March 19, 2003 at a price of ¥100,000 ($841.15 US or £429.62). The set spanned half of the Dragon Ball Z series, containing episodes 1 through 147, and the first Dragon Ball Z TV Special. It also included a large amount of bonus features such as comparisons of international versions of Dragon Ball Z and several commercials. The set also included an exclusive Son Goku action figure, as well as a reference book on the series called the "Dragon Book". A second Dragon Box (Volume 2) was released on September 18, 2003 with the same price tag as the first one, and included the remainder of the Dragon Ball Z series, episodes 148 through 291 and the second TV special. This set also contained a large amount of DVD extras including more commercials and the entire Dragon Ball Z Gaiden: Saiya-jin Zetsumetsu Keikaku OVA. Also included with the set was another "Dragon Book", and an exclusive Piccolo action figure.In late 2005 the Dragon Box Z DVDs were re-released in single volumes with six episodes per disc, for a total of 49 separate volumes. While the packaging and DVD menus are different from the 2003 release, the audio and visual quality is the exact same as those discs found in the 2003 Dragon Box release. The two TV specials and the Dragon Ball Z Gaiden: Saiya-jin Zetsumetsu Keikaku OVA released with the 2003 versions have not been re-released.

Dragon Ball GT

On February 28, 2005, like "Dragon Ball" and "Dragon Ball Z" before that, Dragon Ball GT was released in the Dragon Box format covering all 64 episodes of Dragon Ball GT along with the TV Special Dragon Ball GT: A Hero's Legacy. The set includes a "Dragon Book" and a universal remote control in the shape of a Dragon Radar. The TV Special has not been re-released.

The Movies

April 14, 2006 The release of all of the Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z movies have been moved in Dragon Box format. This set included 8 DVDs, another "Dragon Book", and two exclusive life size transceivers, functional walkie-talkies modeled after the scouters used in the Dragon Ball Z TV series.

While these movies were originally presented in 16:9 in Japan, they had been animated in 4:3 and were cropped to fit the 16:9 aspect ratio. This resulted in some loss of the image, though this was kept in mind when animating the movies so nothing important would be lost. Strangely, all of the releases of the movies by FUNimation and Pioneer were the 4:3 versions without the cropping, save some slight zooming in, which is common on FUNimation's Dragon Ball DVDs. The versions used in the Dragon Box are the 16:9 versions that were shown in movie theaters and released on VHS in Japan.

US release

The first volume of the FUNimation Dragon Box Sets was released in North America on November 17th, 2009. The second was released on the February 16th, 2010, the third box set was released on May 4th, 2010 and the fourth box was released September 21st, 2010. The fifth box will be released on April 26th, 2011. Each US Dragon Box contains around 40~42 episodes each in their original 4:3 aspect ratio with the English dub with original Japanese score in Dolby Digital 5.1 as well as the original Japanese mono audio track encoded in Dolby Digital 1.0 with a bitrate of 96 Kbps (higher than the previous season set releases). Each box also contains a Dragon Book which has episode summaries, original Japanese names, and other entertaining information.