One of the most popular anime series in the world is Akira Toriyama's Dragon Ball (and the follow-up Dragon Ball Z.)  Unless you've been living under a rock for the last couple of decades or so you've probably encountered the story of Son-Goku and his friends and they search for mystical Dragon Balls, fight evil, and have all sorts of galaxy-spanning adventures.  FUNimation has now released three of the Dragon Ball movies (out of the four that were made) in uncut form in a nice boxed set.  These movies are a lot of fun, especially for fans of the show.  While they basically retell (with some significant differences) earlier stories from the Dragon Ball series, they are filled with such humor and excitement that it's hard not to like them.

Dragon Ball is the story of a young boy named Son-Goku.  He's a fun-loving kid, who just happens to have a tail.  Oh yeah, and he's got super-human strength and unbelievable fighting ability.  The show is very light hearted in tone, with Goku meeting every villain's threat to kill him with a smile.  There is a lot of fighting, but Goku manages to treat it all as a joke.

There's also seven Dragon Balls.  If anyone manages to collect all seven, they can summon the Eternal Dragon who will grant them one wish.

The first Dragon Ball Movie, Curse of the Blood Rubies, is not included in this set.  That's a shame, because the only version of this film, to my knowledge, available in region one is an edited versions that is included with the first Dragon Ball DVD set; The Saga of Goku.  It would have been nice to have all the movies together in one collection, and to finally see Rubies in its original form.

Sleeping Princess in Devil's Castle:  The second Dragon Ball movie has retells the story of Krillin and Goku becoming students of the Turtle Hermit, Master Roshi.  When both boys arrive at Roshi's Island to train with the master, Roshi decides to give them a series of tests, and whoever comes out ahead will be his student.  He assigns the lads the task of going to the Devil's Hand and rescuing a beautiful princess (and bringing her back to his island, of course.)  The task isn't as easy as it sounds since the Princess is guarded by a vampire-demon named Lucifer and his army of ogres.

A fun film that retells an early story, it seems rushed at only 55 minutes.  Still, the beginning has a lot of humor and the end has a lot of action.  What more could you want?

Mystical Adventure:  Dragon Ball Movie #3.  This adventure has Goku and Krillian once again training under Master Roshi, but when they've completed their tasks, he enters them in the World Martial Arts Tournament.  In a change from the original show this time the Tournament is run by Emperor Chiaotzu.  In any case, the Emperor's Vizier, Master Shen, has been collecting Dragon Balls.  He's been telling the Emperor it is to gain the return of his kidnapped wife, but in reality he's doing it so he can use them to overthrow Chiaotzu and reign in his place.

This movie also retells the story of Bora and Korin's Tower where Goku ends up getting some really quick training.  This condensation was okay, but I preferred the original, longer version as told in the TV series.  Like the previous film, this is short, only 48 minutes, and cramming the World Martial Arts Tournament in with all the other plot points makes the movie seem rushed.  They are so crammed for time that the resolution has to be shown while the credits roll.

The Path to Power:  This final Dragon Ball movie is my favorite.  This one starts at the very beginning, with Goku living alone with just the Dragon Ball that his grandfather left him.  He meets Bulma, a girl looking to collect the Dragon Balls so that she can wish for the perfect boyfriend.  Not wanting to give up the ball his grandfather gave him, Goku joins her on the search.  Along the way they meet the usual supporting characters, Roshi, Oolong, Yamcha, and more.  Before they can collect all of the balls however, the Red Ribbon Army attacks.

This was a fun adventure, and it's always great to see the origin story once more (even if it is changed slightly.)  Goku is an infectious character and his escapades are a lot of fun.  The highlight of this movie is when the Red Ribbon Navy attacks and Master Roshi shows his stuff.  The old hermit is more powerful than one would have imagined.  Running a bit longer than the other movies, this one plays out the best, though it still feels a bit cramped and rushed.

These three movies come on three single-sided DVDs which are housed in slimpack cases.  The three cases fit nicely into a decorative slipcase.

Audio:

All three movies offer the choice between the original Japanese soundtrack in stereo or an English dub, also in stereo.  The first film in this collection also offers a 5.1 English mix.  I viewed these with the Japanese tracks and found them to be fine.  There wasn't a lot of use made by the soundstage, and the action sequences could have been punched up a bit, but for films from the 80's they sounded fine.  I'd advise against choosing the dub track since that also cues certain edits in the movies.  For example, in Mystical Adventure the credits roll over the ending scenes.  Since these are in Japanese, in the dubbed version half the screen is blacked out with the credits (in English) running on the blacked out sections.  This looks really stupid and thankfully it doesn't happen if Japanese is selected for the language.

Video:

The full frame images were fine.  The pictures were a bit soft in places and the aliasing was evident in more than a few spots but it was never distracting.  There were also some spots evident on all three films, but these weren't excessive.  Aside from those defects the films looked great.  The lines were tight and the colors deep and vibrant.  While not the greatest looking set of films, these are worth adding to your anime collection.

Extras:

Unfortunately none of these DVDs came with any features aside from a set of character profiles on The Path to Power.

Final Thoughts:

This is a great set.  The movies are fun and light and it's a very enjoyable way to spend an evening.  Since these movies mainly retell episodes in Goku's early life with some changes luke-warm fans won't need to see this.  Any other Dragon Ball fan who wants to spend an enjoyable three hours should pick this up though.  Recommended.