Seed of Might

What did Seed of Might need to know for our own color correction? You can read more about that here andrewvanner.github.io/som/SoM_CC_P...

While these promo images can be subjectively nice looking, with bold and bright colors certainly appealing to children that Toei hopes to turn into fans, they should clearly be avoided by anyone looking for an accurate reference of Dragon Ball.

Underlighting - TV Tropes Underlighting (aka "Bipack Glow") is an animation technique that caught on in the 1980's, although it dates back much further. Some parts of an animated scene may need to glow. Traditionally, a glow w...

More on underlighting for anyone curious tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwik...

Lastly, these eye catching images are way too bright. In DB, DBZ, and DBGT, the brightest things are ki attacks achieved on film using a technique known as "underlighting". Promo images are already so bright that these effects could no longer stand out as intended.

In addition, some of these promo images are poorly balanced. Black and white things like Goku's hair, eyes, a mask, and clothing appear tinted. Here are what two images look like with a basic balance.

Even promo images of the same part of the series lack consistency. Here's a "paint by numbers" example where we swap the colors of two similar promo images. Note that the swaps are not meant to look good, but directly capture the color of the image above.

Some promo images aren't even consistent with each other. In this example from DBZ, Goku's main skin tone has changed from a peachy red to a bright yellow!

One common revision we've noticed is that promo images for the original Dragon Ball series tend to make Goku's clothes more orange (or less red). This is likely done to try and fit in with his look in DBZ. You can see how the promo image is a little different from the source.

These promo images appeared online years after the series aired. They are made to promote the series, serving as advertisements and video thumbnails. Unfortunately, they prioritize being eye-catching instead of being accurate, tending to be a bit revisionist.

First, you may think these promo images are untouched pictures of the original animation cels. Promo images often look too "clean" and bright compared to the source material. Here are some examples to help differentiate.

What are these images you'll find online? They're "promotional images" or "promo images" for short. While they may look nice, artists and color correctors striving for accuracy should avoid these as references, and here's why... 🧵

YouTube video by ForgottenRelics Why this Dragon Ball Z Commercial looks amazing

A great breakdown of a recent Dragon Ball related advertisement.
youtube.com/watch?v=g799...
Could Seed of Might be in this video somewhere???

Thanks to resident expert @krycek7o2.bsky.social for investigating and providing the audio clips.

You can enjoy Daima any way you want, we believe it would be prudent to make people aware of this! You can still enjoy the music and soundtrack of Daima all you want.

In many true 5.1 soundtracks, the music sounds full, rich, and room filling. You can hear the distinction between instruments, SFX, and voice.
You can't in the Daima mix. This mix is dull, with much of the music drowned out at times due to SFX and voices taking top priority.

Unfortunately, it means the 5.1 Surround track for Dragon Ball Daima will not sound as good as other 5.1 Surround mixes you may be used to. The stereo version is the "true" mix of Japanese audio.

From hearing that, we could tell this surround sound audio track is actually an upmix from the stereo track. What's the significance of that?

Knowing this, we were surprised when listen to the audio and found that if you only listen to the center track, you can still hear music.

What will often happen is different parts of a media are mixed in different channels, with character dialogue exclusively in the center track. Music and sound effects will be mixed into the other channels.

A 5.1 channel audio track will have the following six tracks:
Front Left,
Front Right,
Center,
Low Frequency Effects (LFE, "subwoofer" audio),
Surround Left,
Surround Right
Typically, these tracks are "discrete", meaning what's in one audio track does not affect another.

Update to this story! It turns out, the 5.1 surround sound audio track isn't "true" surround sound. How can that be and what does this mean?
bsky.app/profile/seed...

Here are additional picture comparisons if you want to avoid any social media compression, provided by resident expert @animeajay.bsky.social

slow.pics/c/2lOc8VNJ
slow.pics/c/6wzuKUGd
slow.pics/c/TzU1AD2d
slow.pics/c/2ibyZAOR

Social media compresses video, but this looks fine on YouTube for this example. Some scenes you can compare yourself:
SSJ4 Scene BD youtube.com/watch?v=tRP-...

SSJ4 Scene 4K UHD youtube.com/watch?v=IWVk...

Ending BD youtube.com/watch?v=xkSE...

Ending 4K UHD youtube.com/watch?v=hf_-...

If your name is Bob and you want the Best, Bob, you'll have to wait for some work using the JP HD Blu-Ray. In the meantime, here's the 4K UHD if you really want it.

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The one silver lining to all this is the HD Blu-Ray does not have these problems. The Blu-Ray is slightly better looking than the web version (though it may be hard to tell in one picture) while still including the exact same audio tracks as the 4K UHD version.

A closer view for anyone without access to the other place.
Despite being a 4K UHD, it not authored in HDR, which isn't necessarily bad, as the Daima was produced in SDR. But having the same SDR color space makes the video source here pretty useless for those looking for the best.