India Press Store - Dragon Ball - Mystical Adventure (Uncut)

Pros: Excellent new voices, including Tao Pai Pai (Umm.. "General" Tao), Master Shen (Tsuresenin), and Arale. Goku and the ole gang are fairly well, above the usual DBZ dub. Dun dun dun..They keep the original music!! It's fantastic and it fits. They change the dialogue in bits and pieces, but sometimes its acutally GOOD changes unlike the script changes in DBZ. For example, Goku asks Tao if he'll stop being a bad man, replies "Of course it does!", grabs the dragonball, and flies away, in a very shrewd and cocky manner which I find very cool. And Christopher Sabat(who plays Piccolo, Vegeta, Yamcha, Jeice, Recoome...countless others...) only plays ONE part in this movie(I think), so you don't have to listen to all those grunts and constipation :)

Cons: Goku's voice isn't as good as his Japanese voice which is hilarious. When I saw the Japanese version, I nearly fell out of my chair laughing when I heard him scream after he hit his head on Metallic (Major Metalitron). And I liked Tao Pai Pai's DoDonPA better than Dodonray. Also, the Mi Fang empire was the name of the place where the movie was set, and it wasn't mentioned once in the dub.

The pros outweigh the cons, which definately makes it worth buying, but I recommend the DVD. It has both English and Japanese versions, and you can watch both interpretations of this excellent movie.

Ceyli Delgadillo (the voice of Dende in the English version of DBZ) voices Goku, and does pretty well. The only downside is that she is much too soft-spoken to play the loud, brash Son Goku, which results in a lot of her lines sounding forced. Though I initially had thought that Stephanie Nadolny (young Gohan's VA in DBZ dub seasons 3 and 4) wouldn't have done as good a job in the role as Goku, had she been cast instead, the new Dragon Ball series dub has shown otherwise, so... I guess I would have preferred her voicing the main character. Other than that, the voices were cast quite well. For those of you who are fans of Akira Toriyama's other big hit, "Dr. Slump," there is a cameo of Arale and Gat-chan, which FUNi manages to pull of near flawlessly, especially considering no backstory is given and few DBZ fans (except some of the hardcore otaku) have heard of it.

A nice perk throughout the whole movie is that they use the original music, right down to the opening theme, "Makafushigi Adventure", and the closing theme (for this movie, anyway) "Dragon Ball Densetsu". It's a refreshing change of pace from the Levy or Faulconer crap that we're subjected to on a daily basis on the English version of DBZ. At times, the music's a bit quiet, but it's still audible, and nowhere near as quiet as it is in the dubs of, say Sailor Moon S or Super S.

This video does have some problems. For one thing, the names of its main villains have been changed. Tsurusen'nin (the Crane Hermit, who trained with Roshi under Master Mutaito) has been changed to "Master Shen". Although "Master Roshi" was derived from "Muten Roushi" ("Martial Arts God, Venerable Teacher"), "Master Shen" appears to have been pulled out of someone's...well, you get the idea. Of course, this also spoils the "shen"/"Kami" (God) pun that's present in the 23rd Budoukai (which FUNimation got around by changing the _real_ Shen's name to "Hero"). Also, T'ao Paipai (a skilled assassin who is hired by the Red Ribbon Army in the series) has been changed to "General Tao" (although this was changed to the somewhat more-accurate "Mercenary Tao" for the series dub). His signature attack, the Dodon-pa, comes through fine the first time, but after that, he calls it the "dodon ray". Of course, Tenshinhan/Tien's attack, the Kikou-hou, has been changed to "Tri-beam", but that was expected. General Blue also makes a brief appearance in the movie, and the thing about him is that he was VERY effeminate (possibly gay) in the original, with a hilarious, girlish laugh. The English voice for this movie is much more masculine, and not as funny (again, this was rectified in the series dub).

There is one odd visual thing that happens at the end of the movie, as well. When the credits come up, they come up half-screen, on a blue background, where only half of the action can be seen. After seeing the DVD, it is clear that this was done to cover up the Japanese credits, but I think Funimation could have done it differently...apparently, they felt so too, because since this tape came out, every other dubbed DB and DBZ movie release has had the original credits shrink down to size so none of the image is lost.

Anyway, it's a good job, but I still got the DVD to hear Masako Nozawa (her name is synonymous with Son Goku... and Gohan... and Goten). I noticed a few things, though... the animation of the opening is altered slightly in the dub (to eliminate the Japanese opening credits) and for some strange reason, the dub's title card is missing from the DVD, even though it was present on the tape. The Japanese one is present, so I'm not sure exactly what happened.

So... if you have the choice, get the DVD, but the tapes are good for at least a rental.