Dragon Ball Z Kai

I've been a lover of Dragon Ball Z for most of my life. Z was my obsession through childhood and I remained an avid fan even as an adult. I've been there through the quirky Ocean Dub, the poorly-translated VHS fansubs, the garish orange bricks...

Dragon Ball Kai isn't just the best version of Dragon Ball Z, it's the only version of Dragon Ball Z anyone should ever watch, for anything other than purely nostalgic reasons. DBZ was bogged down by a nearly unwatchable amount of filler. And I'm not even talking about filler story lines like Garlic Jr. or Goku fighting a star. What dragged Z down was the constant stalling: scenes of people powering up for two episodes straight, replaying the same scene of people staring at each other three times. Entire episodes pass with absolutely no progress on the primary storyline.

But Dragon Ball Kai fixes all of this. The great fighting and exciting story of Dragon Ball Z is finally, for the first time ever as an anime, brought to its due glory. This is the Dragon Ball Z that should have existed from the very start, the definitive, superior version.

Thankfully, the terrible new music turned out to be plagiarized, and Z's original soundtrack was restored. So truly the only thing that's better about Dragon Ball Z over Kai, are the opening and ending themes. Kai's new themes are cheesy and cliché', while Cha La and Zenkai Power were pretty cool.

Admittedly, it's not 100% without flaws. The Saiyan Saga cuts out a smidge too much, and feels ever so slightly rushed, while the Cell Saga kept a smidge too much filler, and it's noticeable. But the Freeza Saga is perfect down to the very frame.

To say that Dragon Ball Kai is better than Dragon Ball Z doesn't even do it justice. It's the only version of Dragon Ball Z that should exist. It makes me embarrassed to have held the original Z in such high regard. I used to take a blind eye to Z's innumerable flaws because I had such a history with it. But now that Kai has come out, and it is such a genuinely spectacular show, I'm proud to be a fan again.

DBZ Kai was something I had to watch and after hearing it was an edited version of the original DBZ I was like "Ok, let me see what it is" And I have to say I am glad for it. I can see all the major arcs in condensed form (159 episodes without all the filler episodes that brought the original Z to 291 episodes. While I enjoyed watching Z, the filler episodes and long drawn out fights really made me think of some of those as background noise

It basically has all the good parts, and I enjoy watching it because it's like getting the best of the show. Some of the colors have been softened and I do believe the voice cast has changed partway but I haven't noticed a huge difference so far (80 episodes in)

I hope you truly enjoy this version of DBZ as it is the best and most concise version of the series

I've enjoyed Dragon Ball Z for over a decade, along with everything else Dragon Ball and this is no exception. Dragon Ball Z Kai is enjoyable, and even though I enjoy (and dislike) some of the filler in DBZ, Kai is in no way to be classed as terrible for taking most of it out - some minor bits have been left in.

The dialogue has improved, I like Frieza's new voice actor and the original voice actors have improved slightly. Gohan's new voice actress I was fine with it at first, but it did start to annoy at times, now after a while, I have sort of got used to it again.

When it comes to the music, I prefer the Japanese version of: "Dragon Soul", "Yeah! Break! Care! Break!" and "Wings of the Heart" I really enjoy "Saiyan Blood" and "Only A Chilling Elegy." I enjoy all of the music in Kai even if Kenji Yamamoto "borrowed" it, I also enjoy Shunsuke Kikuchi and Bruce Faulconer's music so I don't really have an argument over music.

DBZ is there when I want to hide away for days - DBZK is there when I want to watch it quicker. Then I also have the option of Dragon Ball and Team Four Star ;3 It's Dragon Ball, I like it all, even GT.

It's not just for young children. The DVD's are uncut (there is blood, a little less blood than Z but added "swearing"), the television version is censored for a reason.

The Buu Saga, is on the way! I hope they keep the worms in, I guess they won't though :(

One thing I am annoyed about is that the UK will have to wait or may never get the Dragon Boxes of any of the series' or the movies. Unless bought from overseas at high cost.

Dragon Ball Z Kai is an excellent recut of the original Z for everyone who enjoys them some Dragon Ball, especially Z. If you also prefer the manga, or just hate the majority of DBZ's slow-paced extra segments, or worthless filler episodes, This is the version to watch. It has every piece of canon material from the manga, with some short filler either due to animation from the original Z being unable to be changed, or the staff leaving some in for whatever reason that could've been removed, but didn't. It leads to a faster-paced storyline that's been streamlined a bit for many fans of Z. Though there ARE a few redrawn scenes to replace damaged frames. Some are simply trace jobs, while the others are completely new. They fit decently though.

This is also the version of Z to get for excellent home releases. If you didn't know, Z has some of the most horrendous home releases I've ever seen. Terrible color correction, terrible remastering all around, really, plus cropping the show to 16:9, leaving us who want to enjoy the show as it was produced out of luck unless we track down the Dragon Boxes, which are LONG out of print & expensive on sites like eBay. This series was properly remastered frame-by-frame in Japan for High Definition airings & releases in its original 4:3 aspect ratio, minus The Final Chapters, which was done by a different team several years after the first part finished airing. Still, it's much better than FUNimation's remasters, I'll tell ya that. If you wanna get someone into the franchise, this is definitely the way. Personally, I DO wish that they reanimated everything from the ground up, but I understand why they did it as they did.

Then there's the English dub. Minus some recastings (Kid Gohan, Kid Goku, Bulma, Frieza, & a lot of secondary & tertiary characters voiced by Chris Sabat in Z) because of actor/actress availability in the intervening years prior to 2009, all of the main voice actors returned to reprise their roles & they sound GREAT! Sean Schemmel especially, since he now gets Goku's character completely. Yeah, they didn't simply reuse audio from Z, they rerecorded everything from the ground up. The added benefit of this, other than improved acting, is that since FUNimation's a better dubbing company since 2003 when the Z dub finished airing, they have the resources to not only get better translations prior to dubbing but they also have access to better writers for their dub scripts! This means no mistranslations, other than the oddly-put line of dialogue, & some dubisms returning either out of keeping with pre-established terms from previous dubs, or some inconsistencies with attack names that were changed in earlier dubs from the original Japanese. Safe to say, if you're an English dub fan, the dubbing is phenomenal! There IS one thing I have to bring up though. In The Final Chapters, the series' recut of the Buu Saga, there's a scene recapping the events of the Cell Games from the previous arc. Prior to broadcast, it was teased that Team Four Star, of Dragon Ball Z Abridged fame, would be voicing the actors in the reenactment of the events. When it finally aired & was released to home video, it was discovered that they were replaced with the original Z audio from the same scene last-minute. It's speculated it's because the people at Toei found out & forced the change in dialogue. The original audio for the scene was accidentally released on X-Finiti & subsequently released to the internet after a fan recorded it. It's a shame because I love DBZA & it's a shame that the audio couldn't be kept, but that's the business, I guess. On the Japanese side of things, the original Japanese cast, though there were some recastings due to actors either dying or not wanting to come back, rerecorded their dialogue as well, mostly because Toei junked the original audio masters some time after the show aired for some reason before they could really use them on future releases. If you want a clearer-sounding DBZ in Japanese, this is good for that as well. I should also mention that the music has undergone a bit of controversy. Originally, for the first run of the show, Kenji Yamamoto, who also did the score for the Budokai games, composed the score for the series. However, it was eventually found out that he intentionally ripped off the scores for Avatar & Terminator Salvation without Toei's knowledge. His score was subsequently replaced on both sides of the Pacific with the original Shunsuke Kikuchi score from Z for the first part. The Final Chapters uses a new score composed by Norihito Sumitomo, who also composed the scores for Battle of Gods, Resurrection F, & went on to do the score for Dragon Ball Super. Some of his compositions don't fit, but most of the rest reminds me of Dragon Ball Z: Buu's Fury's score with how they were synthesized. Kind of fitting, I think. As for the openings & closings, most of them are great. 'Dragon Soul's' a great theme song, especially when sung in the English dub by the legendary Vic Mignognia. Final Chapters is no slouch either. 'Fight It Out' is also pretty good & goes with the whole retro vibe you get from the show, considering it originally ran from 1989-1995 & the original animation reflects that. Though the Japanese Final Chapters theme that was a part of the Japanese broadcast, 'Kuu-Zen-Zetsu-Go' was no slouch in being awesome either.

Altogether, I enjoy Kai. It's, definitely, my version of Z, especially since I don't care for the Z dub too much. I recommend it to everyone who likes good TV.

I am proud to be a fan of Dragonball Z. This perfectly captures the spirit of the series just like the manga. As someone who frequently goes to Books-A-Million, I managed to read all the Dragonball Z manga volumes. I didn't get the episodes of the show on DVD or anything. I just watched them whenever they were on. It was really hard to catch them all because there were just so many of them. It's also great that this version is uncensored. Then again, I heard it's STILL technically a kid's show in Japan.

It's probably just a different culture thing. Of course, this might just be the fact that it's airing on Adult Swim. It's easy to see this classic series done at a much better pace. I still love the original series. They even managed to work a little bit of filler into this show. It shows how anime works and what it is in its raw form. As I haven't most of the original episodes of the show, this was a real treat. ****