The Region 1 Pokemon DVDs are terrible and yet nobody cares

[DVDs]

As a DVD collector, I'm fine with how the releases from Viz Media have been. I can't see the releases doing any better on Blu-ray over DVD since it would cost Viz Media more to manufacture there really isn't a demand to have Pokémon on Blu-ray. Special features would be nice, but they honestly wouldn't raise the sales any higher. You're getting exactly what you're paying for, the movies and episodes, and that's the most important part.

I will agree though, it would have been nice for things like "Pokémon Origins", the movie prequels and the Pikachu shorts, which were all dubbed, to be released onto DVD. They remain to be either online exclusive or legally unavailable on any format. They could have been easily included on DVDs, especially alongside the movies since the movies were barely an hour and DVDs can hold more than 2 hours.

 

[Yoshi1001]

By the way, if you really do want to affect change, it would probably be a good idea to alter the tone of the discourse here. Leveling criticism at Viz and TPCi is one thing, but it really does seem like there's an undercurrent of at least partially blaming the fans you would need to convince to get things changed (I'm sure some of them read this forum), which is unproductive.

I would suggest doing some legwork/research and try to get together some information that goes beyond your personal opinion, and shows that the changes you propose would be of interest to consumers.

 

[henrymidfields]

I have read that Viz Media has no control over including Japanese language tracks for Pokemon. That is apparently up to TPCi and they have no interest in putting them on the DVD's. Viz can only publish what they're given and the Japanese language tracks are not something they are given. As far as TPCi is concerned, there is no interest in it. It's sort of a problem here these days with a lot of media companies. Like Disney, they don't really care about you if you're not a parent. They know parents will shell out money on something regardless of the quality, if their kid wants it. Since kids really aren't interested in Japanese language tracks, then we'll never see them on American DVD's.

Except that most stuff coming out from Disney (and I suspect other producers from Hollywood) generally have the original English voices available as well as the Japanese dub, at least in the Japanese localised VHS/DVDs. And I'd be surprised if said studio doesn't focuses on Americans first, and others after - despite the image the company would like to put up in the various Disneyland parks. On the other side, Studio Ghibli at least had Howl's Moving Castle, Up On Poppy Hill, and Kiki's Delivery Service DVDs available in Japanese, English, and French, and this is in Japan. So there's at least one less reason for TV Tokyo to not force the reverse upon TPCi. Or am I comparing apples and oranges here?

 

[DVDs]

By the way, if you really do want to affect change, it would probably be a good idea to alter the tone of the discourse here. Leveling criticism at Viz and TPCi is one thing, but it really does seem like there's an undercurrent of at least partially blaming the fans you would need to convince to get things changed (I'm sure some of them read this forum), which is unproductive.

I would suggest doing some legwork/research and try to get together some information that goes beyond your personal opinion, and shows that the changes you propose would be of interest to consumers.

This. I have never heard a good number of people wanting Blu-rays of Pokémon at all. The consensus is that the DVDs are good enough, so why fix something that isn't broken? TPCi won't dish out extra money for Blu-rays if the DVDs sell enough.

 

[Moe]

I'd be happy if they just worked through whatever currently prevents the movies being on iTunes like the TV episodes are - there you can simply decide to pay the premium for HD or not, and there's no cost in unsold inventory like there is potentially for Blu-Ray, plus the region locking is more effective to prevent the reverse importation issue.

The same could apply for what are bonus features on the Japanese releases - I'll pay a reasonable amount to be able to see the Pikachu shorts, over just getting the movie. Especially as they seem to be dubbed but only ever shown via low quality streams on Pokemon.com.

 

[Adamant]

did the Movie 16 Japanese DVD/BD really include the prequel? I seem to remember something about it only being included on a separate special edition set including Movie 1 and Mewtwo Returns too.

That was a misinterpretation made due to the standard release of the movie not detailing the extras it would include (and the TV Special is considered an extra, accessible from the extras menu together with the trailers, creditless themes and other standard Pokemon movie extras), while the Special Mewtwo Pack obviously gave a list of the various Mewtwo-related movies, episodes and specials included in it, the Movie 16 prologue special being one of them. This led to some people mistakenly assuming the special would ONLY be included in the special pack.

 

[Rex Kamex]

Special features would be nice, but they honestly wouldn't raise the sales any higher. You're getting exactly what you're paying for, the movies and episodes, and that's the most important part.

Eh... I know special features are technically bonuses, but since they're so often found on various DVDs for series in general, having special features seems like a standard, IMO. Most DVDs don't just settle for the movies and the episodes of something.

I do think people are allowed to have the mindset of only really being concerned about the TV episodes and movies themselves on DVD. I don't think, though, that this mindset should only apply to Pokemon. (To be fair, I don't know what you'd think of other series having DVDs that lack special features.)

Even without special features like commentaries and such, there are still things like certain movies apparently still not being released on DVD in widescreen and certain DVDs having oversaturated colors and etc. I think having movies in widescreen and having the colors look normal (that is, without oversaturated colors, or a blue tint on the picture that makes things somewhat darker) are really basic things that should be expected of DVD releases.

(Not saying there shouldn't be a full screen option, just that I think widescreen, were the whole picture is seen, should definitely be an option.)

What gives? The DVDs are incredibly cheap - you often pay less than $1 per episode in most releases - but is the quantity really better than quality here? Or - and this is what I suspect - do most fans just not bother buying the DVDs in the first place and so none of this matters to them? Show of hands: how many people here actually buy the DVDs as they come out?

For me, I don't try hard to buy the newer DVDs because I don't really care enough for the dub episodes enough to just watch them alone. (I was thinking of making an exception of the original Kanto saga, but eh... I wish it had the Japanese version on it.

In general, I wish the DVDs had the Japanese version on them. People talk about kids not caring about it, but as I've said before, though, I think even among older people, there isn't a high interest in that version. I think that for the most part, for older people, the English dub (or at least the 4Kids dub), is the "standard" (or whatever word fits here) for what Pokemon is like, and that the Japanese version is just some different language version. (I'd love to be wrong about this, but...) I also think that many Western anime fans are like this pretty much just with Pokemon- I've read posts before of people who only watch the Japanese version of anime, with one exception being the Pokemon series (although yes, other anime were mentioned).

I mean, they're free to feel that way, but that mindset is part of the larger mindset of where the Japanese version isn't important.

If people take every Western fan who's interested in watching the Japanese version of Pokemon (maybe they're already watching), then take away those who only want to watch the episodes that haven't been dubbed into English, how many viewers are left? Then take away those who'd only settle for the Japanese version for the episodes that 4Kids (the standard) didn't dub.

 

[Charmelizard]

There's apathy towards the DVD's because Viz Media cares so little about improving them.

But why should they bother improving them if the fans seem to be happy with what they've been doing?

When have the fans ever let Viz know that they're not happy? When have they asked Viz about the lack of a Japanese language track on the DVDs? When have the fans boycotted their DVDs until more acceptable ones are released? When have they done anything other than give Viz their money for their lackluster DVDs?

If the fans don't make their voices heard then Viz has no reason to change any of what they're doing.

I have read that Viz Media has no control over including Japanese language tracks for Pokemon. That is apparently up to TPCi and they have no interest in putting them on the DVD's. Viz can only publish what they're given and the Japanese language tracks are not something they are given. As far as TPCi is concerned, there is no interest in it. It's sort of a problem here these days with a lot of media companies. Like Disney, they don't really care about you if you're not a parent. They know parents will shell out money on something regardless of the quality, if their kid wants it. Since kids really aren't interested in Japanese language tracks, then we'll never see them on American DVD's.

Where did you read that?

 

[Dogasu]

Alright, here are some screencaps I've taken from the first Kanto DVD sets. I have not tampered with the colors or the saturation or anything else; what you see is what you get on the DVDs.

Spoiler

The DVDs don't do well with action shots ("Showdown in Dark City")

Washed out colors. Also check out the jaggys around Misty's hair ("Clefairy and the Moon Stone")

More of the same ("Clefairy and the Moon Stone")

Any scene with a lot of red in it will absolutely burn your retinas ("Tentacool & Tentacruel")

Pixelated hair ("Tentacool & Tentacruel")

Any scene with digital paint in it looks bad as well ("The Ghost of Maiden's Peak")
​

I know that this is a low-budget show whose masters probably weren't in the best shape to begin with but it's hard to imagine that this was the best they could do.

Because the consumer is taught by the publisher to consider the product of little value they have no standards.

Which is part of the reason I started this thread. I don't think that many fans have taken a good look at the DVD situation in the U.S. and seen just how messed up the whole thing is. We just accept what's given to us, no questions asked.

I think it's important for us to support the franchise by buying things like the DVDs, but I also think it's important for us to have basic standards.

Leveling criticism at Viz and TPCi is one thing, but it really does seem like there's an undercurrent of at least partially blaming the fans you would need to convince to get things changed (I'm sure some of them read this forum), which is unproductive.

Well I don't think we fans are 100% blameless here. We've been too complacent with the DVD releases and our expectations of Viz have been too low. Part of that has been a lack of information; people don't know what the current situation actually is.

I think showing everyone just how bad things really are and how it could be better is a very productive use of my time.

I think having movies in widescreen and having the colors look normal (that is, without oversaturated colors, or a blue tint on the picture that makes things somewhat darker) are really basic things that should be expected of DVD releases.

Exactly.

"Cropped to 4:3" was a stupid practice in the first place but it makes even less sense now because everybody has widescreen TVs. That crappy video transfer of the second movie that filled up your old Clinton-era TV set has black bars on both sides of the screen on your brand new HD TV. It's not "fullscreen" anymore.

In general, I wish the DVDs had the Japanese version on them. People talk about kids not caring about it, but as I've said before, though, I think even among older people, there isn't a high interest in that version. I think that for the most part, for older people, the English dub (or at least the 4Kids dub), is the "standard" (or whatever word fits here) for what Pokemon is like, and that the Japanese version is just some different language version. (I'd love to be wrong about this, but...) I also think that many Western anime fans are like this pretty much just with Pokemon- I've read posts before of people who only watch the Japanese version of anime, with one exception being the Pokemon series (although yes, other anime were mentioned).

I think you're absolutely right here.

There are plenty of Dragon Ball Z fans, for example, who buy the DVDs and Blu-rays and never touch the Japanese language track. They buy it for the English dub. Other fans buy those same discs and never touch the English language track. They buy it for the Japanese version. Some fans like to watch both. They have a choice.

I'm not stupid enough to think that there will ever be a day when we'll get the Japanese version of Pocket Monsters on DVD in the U.S. It absolutely should happen, and there's no good reason that it couldn't, but it won't. It's a problem that will never get fixed.

The video quality and the aspect ratio and the missing episodes, on the other hand, are things that can be fixed.

 

[Moe]

Here are those same scenes from R4 DVDs for comparison. I suppose it's hard to know what are DVD production problems and what are leftovers from the processes 4kids did when producing the episodes originally and carefully erasing all traces of Japanese. Some of the scenes seem to look about the same, while others look significantly worse on the US screenshots.

Spoiler

Did Dragon Ball Z's dub face the same time cut and censorship problems as the early episodes of the Pokemon dub? If so how do they handle the differences in content, like having scenes that weren't dubbed, and the opening/closing credits?

Considering the differences in content levels for the early Pokemon episodes, I'd think that might be a reason why we haven't seen a simple dual language release. Doing a dual language release and undoing the dub paint edits would be about the only way to make significant improvements in visual quality of the episodes in a lot of cases - but you'd have to either cut the Japanese tracks to line them up, or find a way to fill out the gaps for the dub.

I'd also be interested how much was preserved of the original takes - would they have the voice tracks and music separated out in studio quality, or do we essentially only have the completed dub episodes? Given the comments elsewhere, I'm sure a lot of people would like a third dub track with the original music and dubbed voices.

 

[Adamant]

Did Dragon Ball Z's dub face the same time cut and censorship problems as the early episodes of the Pokemon dub? If so how do they handle the differences in content, like having scenes that weren't dubbed, and the opening/closing credits?

They didn't. The early DVDs were dub-only. Later episodes "fixed" the issue by dubbing the episode first, THEN going in and censoring/cutting stuff. The cut episode then got aired on TV and released on dub-only DVDs, while the uncut version got released on bilingual DVDs with the Japanese audio and subtitles available and a big stupid note on the cover that you needed to be 13 or older to watch this children's cartoon. The credits/title card inconsistencies were handled by using alternate angles depending on which audio you had chosen from the menu.

Eventually they went back and did "uncut dub/bilingual DVD" releases for those earliest episodes, too.

 

[Yoshi1001]

Well I don't think we fans are 100% blameless here. We've been too complacent with the DVD releases and our expectations of Viz have been too low. Part of that has been a lack of information; people don't know what the current situation actually is.

I think showing everyone just how bad things really are and how it could be better is a very productive use of my time.

That isn't the problem with your argument-it's the tone of statements like:

When have the fans ever let Viz know that they're not happy? When have they asked Viz about the lack of a Japanese language track on the DVDs? When have the fans boycotted their DVDs until more acceptable ones are released? When have they done anything other than give Viz their money for their lackluster DVDs?

That seem like an insult against folks who buy the product that's currently available, probably turning them off to your message.

 

[Moe]

They didn't. The early DVDs were dub-only. Later episodes "fixed" the issue by dubbing the episode first, THEN going in and censoring/cutting stuff. The cut episode then got aired on TV and released on dub-only DVDs, while the uncut version got released on bilingual DVDs with the Japanese audio and subtitles available and a big stupid note on the cover that you needed to be 13 or older to watch this children's cartoon. The credits/title card inconsistencies were handled by using alternate angles depending on which audio you had chosen from the menu.

Eventually they went back and did "uncut dub/bilingual DVD" releases for those earliest episodes, too.

Interesting. I wonder how in that case they came to the conclusion that there was a market for the Japanese audio track? Presumably if they've kept on doing it, especially to go back and re-release with both languages, it must have been successful for them.

I'd not thought of or seen the use of the alternate angle feature to achieve that for the credits, that's quite a good solution.

 

[Adamant]

Interesting. I wonder how in that case they came to the conclusion that there was a market for the Japanese audio track?

Dragonball Z was one of the most popular anime series in 90s bootleg fansub circles, and had a significant American fanbase prior to it being licensed. The dub was also atrociously bad and practically everyone who was already familiar with the series had extremely vocal hate for it. Every single Dragonball fan community was full of love for the original and hate for the dub, since the people who actually liked the dub were for the most part 9 years old and didn't even know what a "Freeza" was. They knew there was a market for the original since that market was actively telling them there was.

Now try finding someone who had seen a single clip of the Pokemon anime, let alone a full episode, before the 4Kids dub premiered.

 

[JacobYBM]

That isn't the problem with your argument-it's the tone of statements like:

When have the fans ever let Viz know that they're not happy? When have they asked Viz about the lack of a Japanese language track on the DVDs? When have the fans boycotted their DVDs until more acceptable ones are released? When have they done anything other than give Viz their money for their lackluster DVDs?

That seem like an insult against folks who buy the product that's currently available, probably turning them off to your message.

Why should folks feel insulted with being happy with a product that is a factually inaccurate depiction of the Pocket Monster animated series? They're enjoying the thing they like. The thing they like simply happens to be a product of a horrible lack of creative integrity.

 

[Dogasu]

Besides that, I was responding to someone saying that the fans have voiced their complains but that Viz is too busy being stuck up its own ass to listen. I mean have the fans actually voiced their complaints? Is that a true statement? And if so, what examples are there of this? Because I honestly can't think of any off the top of my head.

I suppose it's hard to know what are DVD production problems and what are leftovers from the processes 4kids did when producing the episodes originally and carefully erasing all traces of Japanese. Some of the scenes seem to look about the same, while others look significantly worse on the US screenshots.

Well, for starters, the American DVDs cram nine episodes onto a single-layer disc. The Australian DVDs that I have (I've got the Seasons 3 and 4 wallets) only have four per disc. That makes a huge difference.

It's also possible that the masters TPCI has are just crap. The masters FUNimation had of the first two episodes of Dragon Ball Z, for example were absolutely terrible until just a few years ago. I think what they ended up having to do was go back to the animation company and request new, better looking masters.

Going back to Pocket Monsters, the few Japanese DVDs that have been released of the original series look much better that the DVDs we have in the U.S. so we know that better-looking masters exist.

Still, bad masters or not, cramming nine episodes onto a disc does not help matters.

 

[Yoshi1001]

I mean have the fans actually voiced their complaints? Is that a true statement? And if so, what examples are there of this? Because I honestly can't think of any off the top of my head.

I'm sure they have, but probably in ways that aren't as obvious as posting on the Internet. For example, back in May, I was able to attend Anime Central, an anime convention held near Chicago. Viz had a booth in the exhibitor area, and I stopped by, spoke briefly with the representative running the booth, and filled out a survey on the tablets they had there. For the record, my concerns were more around getting the franchise's media more widely available (particularly digitally), and while the representative obviously couldn't confirm or promise anything, I do feel like he was really listening to what I had to say, and it makes sense-given the probable demographics of convention attendees, I'm willing to bet they got some legitimately useful data that they took back with them. Just one example, but there are probably others.

 

[DVDs]

I do feel like he was really listening to what I had to say, and it makes sense-given the probable demographics of convention attendees, I'm willing to bet they got some legitimately useful data that they took back with them. Just one example, but there are probably others.

Don't assume that. Numerous people gave insight to Viz Media about the horrible mastering that went into Sailor Moon, and while at first they pretended to take in the information from the concerned fandom, the overall result remained the same. Viz Media saw no error in their release, and made it public that they intended to use the same method in the future. And Sailor Moon's quality was worse than what we get now with Pokémon, so I highly doubt this will be any different. So I doubt your data was even brought to the marketing table, or even made it out of that convention at all.

Also, it's a bit unfair to judge the first release of Season 1 and not even look at the quality of more recent DVDs released by Viz Media.

Here's some examples from Season 14:

Spoiler

Action shots look pretty good on these DVDs. (In the Shadow of Zekrom!)

Colors seem fresh and no jagged pixels to be seen. (Snivy Plays Hard to Catch!)

Same here too. (Minccino—Neat and Tidy!)

Scenes with a lot of red don't hurt your eyes. (Saving Darmanitan From the Bell!)

Unique colors aren't subject to jagged pixels (Iris and Excadrill Against the Dragon Buster!)

And since this is the TPCi dub, not a lot of digital paint on it.

 

[Dogasu]

To be fair, you're trying to compare the video quality of episodes made in 2010 to those made in 1997. The former is bound to look better regardless of how incompetent Viz is.

And then there's the fact that you're watching episodes produced in HD downscaled to SD because of the restrictions of DVD. Illegal downloads look better than those.


One thing that the DVDs could do to help make them worth buying is take a page out of FUNimation's book and provide two English dub audio tracks: one with the made-for-TV music and a second one with the Japanese score untouched. It'd be a win-win.

 

[Lord_Mewtwo]

One thing that the DVDs could do to help make them worth buying is take a page out of FUNimation's book and provide two English dub audio tracks: one with the made-for-TV music and a second one with the Japanese score untouched. It'd be a win-win.

I totally agree as the dub would actually be watchable if the original music was left alone. I actually still haven't watched the Diancie movie for this very reason.