Kai or Z?

[Cipher]

I think I'd have a different answer for different parts of the series. Kai gave us a mercifully watchable Namek arc, while all of the Boo arc and most of the Cell arc, despite the languid pacing in Z, are more coherent and engaging in it. By the Boo arc Z really had an ability to make its filler invisible and enjoyable as well.

[Dbzejo]

I agree. Honestly, the only bad pacing in Z is Freeza Arc.

[Sun Wukong]

Z for me was overall better.

[Lord Beerus]

Now that Kai is over, I have to say, I prefer Z as a whole. Kai 2.0 was just so fucking awful that is drags down Kai as whole in terms of quality. Kai 1.0 was great as it was, but man, Toei absolutely fucked up the Majin Boo arc portion of Kai so badly. And the Majin Boo arc in one of my favorite arcs in the entire franchise. But when it comes to the dub, I'll always stick with Kai.

[ShaneisMC]

I personally get really irritated when people don't specify the version of the show they are referring to. For the English version of DBZ I'm pretty certain is practically unanimous (and certainly in my opinion) that Kai is without question the greatest way to watch the series. Especially if you are able to get a hold of the series in "parts". The Yamamoto score I personally love. The renewed and infinitely improved dub alone makes it the easy choice. Not to mention the wonderful lack of all the God awful filler. As far as the Japanese version goes of course I can definitely understand how it's a harder decision. You have to make sacrifices either way between Z and Kai. Z has original and consistent music and superior voice work. But it also has all the garbage filler unlike Kai. I can see how a person could make a case based on personal preferences in either of those cases.

[MrWalnut4]

In terms of visuals, Kai 1.0 takes the cake over Z. It is by far the best looking out of all the Z releases with consistent colors and excellent dark detail. Some people complain about it being too soft of an image, but that can easily be corrected by increasing sharpness in something like VLC. Some of the redrawn scenes are pretty bad, but they are worth it for a proper remaster of the Z footage. Kai the Final Chapters is a whole other story but we won't know for sure until the blu rays are released. As far as audio is concerned, I'll say Z for the Japanese dub and Kai for the English dub. The actors were in their prime on the Japanese side of Z, while the English side has finally caught up with their Kai dub. I like both the Yamamoto and Kikuchi scores but I'd have to give a slight edge to the properly placed Kikuchi score over Yamamoto (especially considering the plagiarism scandal). As for filler, I think I would rather not have it for the sake of pacing and keeping a fluid story. Some of the problems I have with Z's filler is they tend to drag out things far longer than they should not because the story lends itself to slower pacing, but so Toei can fill 20 minutes of airtime using less source material (most noticeable during fight scenes like Freeza vs. Goku). Kai was less guilty of this cutting Z's 194 episodes into 98. And if I really want to watch Goku learning to drive with Piccolo, I can go back and watch it with Z.

[Ushabtis]

I'd say Kai is better but I like Z much more.

I really liked the filler arcs in Z, Some of my all time favorite scenes in DBZ are from filler. just love the filler training for gohan in the saiyan saga.

As for the English dub...for the most part Kai is much better. I believe having 10+ year experience voicing their characters made it feel much more natural and with the better written dialog, that really helped the tension of the show. (No one matter how good an actor you are there is no way you can deliver a line like "Pop goes the weasel" and keep the tension of the scene) I really wish we got to see Nadnoly voice Gohan, I'd have loved to see how much her talent has advanced since the old Z Days.

[ZombieVito]

Kai by a mile.

[DemonRin]

I find myself preferring Kai overall...

I have every Blu-ray FUNi put out of Kai so far (so up through Episode 98) and I downloaded a fan edited version of episodes 54-98 that includes 4 Audio tracks. Japanese Broadcast Audio, Japanese w/ Kikuchi Score, English Blu-ray Audio, and English with Yamamoto score restored using the Japanese broadcast track as a base and the 5.1 surround Dub audio.

Kai with the Yamamoto score is my preferred way of watching the series.

Not that I don't LOVE Kikuchi, watching Z it's Kikuchi all the way, but it's obvious Kai was made with the Yamamoto score in mind, and the placement of the Kikuchi score after the fact was hastily done and while it sounds OK, it's inferior to the Yamamoto score placement.

I just can't stand the Filler... as great as Z is, and as wonderful as the quality of my Dragon Boxes are.... watching vanilla Z is as slog at times, ESPECIALLY during the Namek arc..... It's just horrible and hard to watch for me. Kai, for all its faults, fixed this and now it's an enjoyable watch for me.

Add to the fact that it gave FUNimation an excuse to redo the dub and do a COMPETENT job this time, and It makes me very happy. I find myself watching the series almost exclusively in English now. Not because I think the dub is better, overall the original Japanese is still the best IMO, but I've seen this material in Japanese in it's Vanilla Z so many times and my first watch of Kai, that seeing it dubbed well finally is like a "New" experience relatively speaking, so I tend to watch it that way more often than not.

[Alex9196]

i have a question about kai? does it cut away some of the fight scenes? i dont care about most of the filler like this space kids, fake namek, garlic jr and saiyamen. i like underworld tournament especially because its just like 4 episodes but i wouldnt mind if it was cut out. the only real question i have really is the fight scenes?

[Darkblade1995]

i have a question about kai? does it cut away some of the fight scenes? i dont care about most of the filler like this space kids, fake namek, garlic jr and saiyamen. i like underworld tournament especially because its just like 4 episodes but i wouldnt mind if it was cut out. the only real question i have really is the fight scenes?

I think there are a few fight scenes that were cut out, but most of them are just cut a couple of frames here, a couple of frames there so that the fighting looks a lot faster than it did in Z.

[SSJ Electric Fury]

i have a question about kai? does it cut away some of the fight scenes? i dont care about most of the filler like this space kids, fake namek, garlic jr and saiyamen. i like underworld tournament especially because its just like 4 episodes but i wouldnt mind if it was cut out. the only real question i have really is the fight scenes?

I have done back-to-back comparisons between many fights. Numerous fights have something cut, but the removed sequences are often underwhelming anyway. I would say the pre-Final-Chapters fights that are better in Z than Kai are Kuririn and Gohan vs. Gurd, Gohan vs. Reacoom, Goku vs. Ginyu, everyone vs. Ginyu, possibly Piccolo vs. second form Freeza, SSJ (specifically) Goku vs. Freeza, and possibly Vegeta vs. No. 18. The rest (once again, regarding what precedes The Final Chapters) should be just fine in Kai, if you don't mind a little animation speed-up. I would say Trunks vs. Perfect Cell, at least, is actually better in Kai.

[sintzu]

i have a question about kai? does it cut away some of the fight scenes?

Rarely and when it does it's an attack or 2 from the entire fight so overall even though Kai has it's problems I think you'll enjoy Z's story a lot more by watching it thorough Kai especially if you watch it dubbed.

[Alex9196]

oh i guess its worth watching then if i have time. but i guess my favorites i am still gonna watch in z like goku vs majin vegeta, goku vs cell, gohan vs super buu, piccolo vs c17. especially since they didnt fellt dragged out to me like some stuff in dbz. especially the fake namek arc. its only like 4 episodes but so boring.

[funrush]

I don't have the patience for 300 episode shows like I did when I was a kid, so Kai's faster pacing alone wins it for me, not to mention the dub.

[JEFFMAN219]

For the Freeza saga and saiyan saga I say Kai over Z. But for the rest of the series I say Z over Kai especially the Boo saga.

[ShaneisMC]

I recently got the dragon boxes and am watching the original series in japanese for my first full time. Wow I'm blown away. The quality is simply superb. Without question my preferred way of watching the series goes English Kai> Japanese Z> Japanese Kai>>>>> English Z. I absolutely love the first 2. Japanese Kai is alright. And i just refuse to watch the original Funi dub anymore, ever.

[OWmyDragonBallz]

So exactly how did Kai do in Japan? And how has it been doing in America so far (before Boo saga airs of course)? Are the ratings on Toonami even better than the ratings that the old dub had?

[sintzu]

So exactly how did Kai do in Japan ?

And are the ratings on Toonami even better than the ratings that the old dub had ?

It had good ratings but the franchise's sales weren't doing good when 1.0 was airing.

I don't know if they're better but every episode gets the most views on the block.

[TheBlackPaladin]

So exactly how did Kai do in Japan?

The ratings were reasonably good, but that was it. Even then, the ratings still weren't phenomenal. Merchandise and video game sales plummeted as soon as Toei began attaching the word "Kai" to them. When they took it off, sales started going back up. Kai was that toxic. Heck, the original plan for the Buu arc was to not even air or sell it in Japan. It appears the only reason they reversed that decision was due to the unexpected cancellation of Toriko, and the need to fill the sudden unexpected hole in air time (a sort of, "Well, it's better than nothing"-kind of logic).