DragonBall Z: Fusion Reborn DVD: Review By jamesdickens

It's tough to review movies because you don't want to give away too many details. But at the same time, with Dragonball Z movies, they all seem to follow the same pattern (A *monster* comes or is formed, is dealt with, then powers up to a level beyond the heroes, but the heroes somehow band together and find a way to win, etc.) anyway. This one to me was one of the best DBZ movies. In a nutshell, the movie's about a mistake taking place in the underworld by a bit of a slacker that has dire consequences, bringing the dead back to life while combining loads of negative energy into one being named Janemba (or Janempa - can't remember which form was the fat one vs. the sleek one). After the fat one is dealt with, the sleek one's more than a match for the powered up Goku and Vegeta sucker punches the villian to save his life, etc. etc. (you've seen it before). This time, Fusion's the only thing that may be able to save the day. It was interesting though - you even get to see Freiza & the Ginyu force come back to life in this one, along with another movie villain (albeit briefly... if you blink you miss it) - Bojack and some of his minions.

This movie lines up with the Buu saga and as such, some of the same concepts take place (Fusion, Saiyaman, etc.) So you know what relative power the villain would have - although this one had a sort of teleportation power that was pretty neat, and that it would take a Fusion of Goku and Vegeta to stand a chance. The action was pretty good and I really liked how unlike previous movies, this time the powered up villian didn't spend 50% of the movie beating up the heroes and Goku/Vegeta got a few shots in - leads more to the imagination - I liked that Goku did somewhat okay against the monster before the sword was deployed.

There were a few negatives though to the movie. As for the movie, I wish they didn't worry so much about time, as they couldn't done a few more interesting things with Freiza coming back or Cell or whoever. 2, I like how funimation does voice-overs. But in this movie in particular, they changed the dialogue a bit too much from the original japanese version. You can tell in the end of the movie - the Japanese/American version had Trunks/Goten joking about completely different things. And then at the end of Fusion, the dialogue between Goku/Vegeta, which wasn't fitting to Vegeta's personality. Throughout the argument with Goku/Vegeta - the USA version took away from Vegeta's dejection, eliminating a pretty important piece of their relationship which would eventually close the series, let alone when Janempa's sword crumbled and why (which stems from that). Finally, funimation did a pretty lousy job at distributing this to outlets.

Still, it's a good movie that I definitely recommend for any and all Dragonball Z fans - maybe the very best (not sure if there's another one left), and Funimation was smart to include the Japanese version. Check it out!

Move on because there is nothing to see here.

The picture quality is pretty good, the colors all stay in their respective places which is to say everywhere but this is a good thing, don't forget this is Dragonball Z we're talking about. This feature is presented in a full screen format.

You get dolby digital 5.1 surround in english or japanese mono. The sound is decent, just don't expect it to rock the house.

One thehe front of the DVD case is a poster of the film, and on the back you get various images from the film. inside the case you a single layer dvd and an insert with other funimation films you may want to check out.

This dvd is strictly for the dragonball Z fans. All others should forget about it, cause you won't get it.