Dragon Ball Super: Broly (ドラゴンボール超 ブロリー, Doragon Bōru Sūpā: Burorī) is a 2018 theatrical anime film based on Akira Toriyama’s Dragon Ball manga series. The film is an original story and continuation of the Dragon Ball Super anime series, with the staff credits including director Tatsuya Nagamine, screenplay written by Akira Toriyama, music composed by Norihito Sumitomo and animation produced by studio Toei Animation. The film was first released in Japanese theaters in December 2018.
Note: This post has been updated in January 2023 to reflect the current blog layout and some minor tweaks to the original write-up.
Background:
“Earth is at peace after the Tournament of Power. Goku, knowing that there are ever-stronger forces in the universe he has yet to encounter, spends all of his time training to achieve another level. One fateful day, a Saiyan appears before Goku and Vegeta who they have never seen before: Broly. How can a Saiyan – who had all supposedly been annihilated after the erasure of Planet Vegeta – appear on Earth? With the return of Frieza from hell, a fierce battle awaits these three Saiyans who have followed completely different destinies.”
Plot Synopsis via Manga Entertainment, May 2019.
Akira Toriyama’s Dragon Ball is one of the most popular anime franchises of the past couple of decades. The series’ cast of characters, range of action scenes and its artstyle has been beloved by many new and older fans internationally, and Dragon Ball Z in particular was one of Toonami’s popular shows and helped spark the interest in anime throughout the UK and US.
Many years after Dragon Ball Z had finished airing, Akira Toriyama and Toei Animation returned with two theatrical films that continued the story canonically with Battle of Gods and Resurrection ‘F’. With the success of those two films, they started a new anime series (and a manga version as well with differing story plot points) called Dragon Ball Super.
After the new series finished airing, we then received an announcement for another new film. Dragon Ball Super: Broly is the first anime film in the franchise using the Super tag (as previous films prior had used either the original name or the Z tag to represent they are based within those storylines). In addition, the story takes place after the events of the Super series (and its recent anime arc; the Universe Survival Saga) and reintroduces the character Broly, who is a Super Saiyan much like Goku and Vegeta.
While Broly had previously featured in at least three Dragon Ball Z films in the past, Akira Toriyama decided to bring him back with a different background and also so that he’s now in the franchise canonically (because all of the films released before Battle of Gods were considered as non-canon, like a lot of Shonen Jump films were).
Dragon Ball Super: Broly was theatrically released on December 2018 during Japan and a month later across multiple territories including the United Kingdom and the United States. The film was released before Japan on Blu-ray in the United States in April 2019 and a month later in the United Kingdom. Funimation acquired the theatrical and home video rights for the United States & Canada regions, while UK distributor Manga Entertainment, just before they were acquired by Funimation, acquired the same rights for the United Kingdom & Ireland.
Collector’s Edition Contents:
Manga Entertainment’s collector’s editions are pretty simplistic and in the same style as distributors like Arrow Video and Eureka Entertainment with their releases mostly including a booklet and/or artcards and a slipcase.
Dragon Ball Super: Broly‘s release includes a cardboard slipcase housing the amaray case that contains the film on Blu-ray, as well as four stickers and a fold-out poster which are housed inside the case.
The artwork has information and BBFC details presented on all parts of the cover like previous Manga Entertainment releases have done in the past. The collector’s edition Blu-ray set was limited to an unspecified number of units and priced at SRP £19.99. A steelbook was also released as well as a standard non-collector’s Blu-ray later down the line.
I bought this release during a discounted offer in HMV for £9.99 which wasn’t long before the release had started to sell out.
Physical Contents:
- Cardboard (O-card) slipcase with Amaray packaging
- Back cover for specification and BBFC description
- 4 Sticker sheets featuring Goku, Vegeta, Broly and Frieza
- Fold-out Poster
On-Disc Contents:
Distributor: Manga Entertainment
Released: 27th May 2019
The UK release of Dragon Ball Super: Broly contains the film on a single Blu-ray disc, with the encode and authoring worked on in the UK rather than using Funimation’s own encode.
While Funimation released theirs first on Blu-ray, their master turned out to be incorrect in terms of the presentation due to a ‘green’ tint used when you watch the film. Miraculously this was not present in the Manga Entertainment master (both the digital and home video version) so many folks consider the UK release to be the best English release to own at the current moment.
Audio options available include Japanese with English subtitles and the Funimation English dub with optional English Hard of Hearing subtitles. The subtitles are unlockable during playback, while the Blu-ray disc is region restricted to players set to B.
What’s interesting about this release is that it has actual trailers presented before the Blu-ray menu, which isn’t that common for the UK authored anime releases these days. The trailers were for Pokemon: The Power of Us, My Hero Academia: Two Heroes, and Dragon Ball Super. However, there are no on-disc bonus features for this UK release.
Blu-ray Specs:
| Languages | English, Japanese |
| Audio | English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 English Linear PCM 2.0 Japanese DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 Japanese Linear PCM 2.0 |
| Video | 1080p High Definition Native format 16:9 aspect ratio |
| Region | B |
| Subtitles | English, English HOH |
| Locked Subtitles | No |
| Discs | 1 BD-50 |
Blu-ray On-Disc Extra Features:
No extras on the disc
Unboxing Photos:
Final Notes:
Dragon Ball Super: Broly is available to order through multiple retailers across the United Kingdom. The collector’s edition Blu-ray release as of January 2023 is no longer available in print (though United Publications does appear to have a few), but the standard edition Blu-ray can be purchased through Amazon UK, MVM’s Anime-on-Line, and United Publications.
(Disclaimer: Amazon links are also included when available. They are affiliated so if you decide to order them, I’ll earn a small percentage if they ship which will help me with any hauls or small bills.)
The Normanic Vault 
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