Polish your dragon balls and let ‘em shine.

Sometimes the simplest presentation is the best. Dragon Ball Season One comes packaged in a blue fold-out box All with the same illustration of Goku on all the faces of the covers. On the inside of the box, behind the discs, is a nice spread image of Shen-Long. On the back of the slip cover is the series synopsis and a few screenshots from the show. The DVD menus also use images of Goku (and other characters from the show) and have a very simple layout, along with quirky background music. The anime itself has stood the test of time, being produced in the heart of the 1980’s—a very good time for anime quality—and has been digitally remastered to give the traditional animation a bit more vivid color and sound quality. The artwork, true to the designs of famed artist Akira Toriyama, remains classic and lively and the original Japanese background music and sounds are as fun the show itself. This version of the show is uncut and leaves nothing out, which adds to the comedic value to no end. The English voice cast is decent enough, but the original Japanese actors are just so much more dynamic that the English cast pales in comparison.

Offerings to the great dragon.

Dragon Ball doesn’t come overly laden with gifts. It does come with a nifty episode and character guidebook for the series. Aside from that, each disc offers a marathon play feature that allows you to watch through every episode on the disc without interruption of opening and ending songs and credits. There’s also an audio feature that allows for English voice dub with the original Japanese background music and sounds. This is notable because when Dragon Ball original came Stateside and was dubbed, all the music and sounds were also changed and edited—your fun fact for the day. There are also textless versions of the opening and ending songs available on disc five as well as a small host of Funimation trailers. Not a large haul by any means, but the show itself more than compensates for that.

A wish granted to the fans.

The remastered and uncut edition of Dragon Ball is a pure joy to watch. It’s far more lighthearted than its follow-up, Dragon Ball Z, with a more adventurous theme that doesn’t focus quite as heavily on training for epic battles every day. It’s tongue-in-cheek humor is innocently hilarious and its animation quality has stood the tests of time and aging. There’s still a good deal of martial arts mayhem and action, but it’s not the main focus for at least half of the series. Those who’ve never seen anything beyond the edited version from TV will find the uncut version even more enjoyable and will get to view the show as it was meant to be watched. For a boxed set so packed with episodes, Dragon Ball is highly affordable and an absolute must-have for every anime collection.