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.

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.

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.

There are many famous anime out there and among the most dominant is none other than the Dragonball saga. While the first series simply titled "Dragonball" went for a somewhat more comedic route, this second series went all-out with the action and drama. Even though the franchise was not intended for kids, even the edited versions of this show were a ton of fun. get ready to power up because this is Dragonball Z Kai.

What's unique about the second series is that you get to learn much more about the vague origins of characters like Goku and Piccolo. The storyline is more intricate and the action scenes are a lot more intense (and I mean literally planet-shaking intense). Things get really brutal and everything in sight gets blown away. I love that crap! It makes us all look forward to the next action scenes. Some of the characters are a load of fun too, like the ever awesome Piccolo and the delightfully despicable Vegeta, their personalities and interactions with other characters stealing the show. The villains are pretty cool as well like the sadistic Frieza and the menacing Cell, who instill terror into even the bravest of warriors.

What I really like about this series is how dark it gets. In the original manga and the Japanese uncut versions of the show, things get really violent. Even edited, it gets dark with the serious dilemmas and numerous deaths that go around, which makes it more appealing to adults. I guess shows that go this route tend to be pretty successful like that.

My only real problems (and they're not really a big deal) is some odd/exaggerated moments and a lot of the screaming. Other than that, this is one of the best action/adventure series and anime I have ever seen. This show is sure to give you one hell of a punch and it's guaranteed to bring out the super saiyan in you. Check it out. KAMEHAME-HA!!!

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.