Dragon Ball Z Kai

I am what you may call a Dragon Ball person.

I started to watch the original series back in the late 80's when they were being aired in France before most other countries besides Japan itself.

I was done with the all thing when it wasn't even being aired in the US.

I watched it again and again and again along the years as well as all the movies and specials that exist.

In fact, Dragonball was part of my youth and the benchmark for all animations afterwards.

So, when i learned about Kai and the fact that they were cutting stuff off and leaving a lot of the fillers in th trash can i had a "purist" reaction and refused to watch it as i considered that the original work should be preserved intact in my mind.

Nevertheless, with the appearance of the new movie Revival of F, i decided to give it a try as it was the only Dragonball material i had never seen.

Well, i must say that this is a lot better than the original.

Even if some fillers were fun and interesting, i agree that the pace of the Manga was much more proper for a Shounen anime of this kind. This Kai version shows this perfectly.

This new version is action packed like it should have been and settles many stuff like plot holes and other inconsistencies created by the original Z series by the fillers.

These fillers were being made up out of the manga because at the time, Akira Toriyama was actually late in the manga comparing to the anime. This show was so popular that the animation was ahead of the ink and they had to invent stuff and exaggerate the time of power ups and stare contests between fighters.

The Kai version is so much better, I recommend everyone to see it and forget about the original because, well, a good 1/4 of it is made up material without story validity.

Dragonball seems to be more alive than never with Kai reaching the end of the series and new movies of legit material being produced by Toriyama.

It's staggering to see myself, 25 years after the first Dragonball episodes i saw as a kid, still trembling of joy at the sight of new Dragonball material.

To me, this is undeniably the greatest anime franchise that ever existed.

The Dragon Ball series has always been my favourite anime and Kai is no exception, if you liked Z but didn't like most of the fillers then you're going to love Kai. It has little to no fillers HD quality and probably improved on the voices, I also like the new "Dragon Soul" song at the start too! I do have some problems with Kai though one being that everyone in this show just loves to kinda break the fourth-wall, the show is literally riddled with exposition and it kinda of gets annoying this is the same in Z too, but I kinda didn't care at the same time because the show is so good, and lastly Gohan's character development is kind of choppy in Kai not so much in Z though, Z's version of Gohan's development was much better due to the fillers, but I get why they didn't because they wanted to avoid the fillers for Kai. Kai is also much shorter than Z too, the Frieza saga in Z ends at Episode 107, while Kai ends at episode 52 due to the lack of filler, but I think it is a good thing considering the fight between Goku and Frieza last for 3 hours in Z. Overall I love this show if you're someone who has never seen Z and want to see a version most accurate to the manga then watch Kai you'll love it.

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.

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. ****

I read the manga 13 years ago. This Dragon Ball kai is the what in TV was called Dragon Ball Z, from when Goku appears with his son Gohan. I've always disliked DBZ for the very frequent and boring fillers it contains (DBZ is more than 200 eps in total) and I wondered how a "serious" adaptation from the manga would be since I've enjoyed the manga very much. Now this surprise, I'm much older but it is fun to see Goku&Co adventures again. I've seen about 30 episodes so far and I think a good cut and paste of the original DBZ is being done, even if there are occasions when some little fillers are still present and maybe others when they cut too much (not real fillers) but it was probably necessary.

So this is a very rare possibility to see a popular long anime without boring and useless fillers and anyway it is a still very good fast paced action-fighting anime with energy blast and flying characters even if it has obviously outdated animation (about 15-20 years).