My Experience Watching Dragon Ball Z Kai

[ekrolo2]

The best part of the whole Ginyu dance are Freeza's expressions. For the rest of the arc he's played completely straight but I think its fitting even he'd go "WTF am I watching..." a little with their poses.

[TheBlackPaladin]

The English Kai dub of the Ginyu Force's entrance is the only time I have ever laughed at that scene. Here were my reactions to that scene in its various different versions/languages:

-Ocean dub (DBZ): I just sort of shrugged.
-FUNimation re-dub (DBZ): Same.
-Original Japanese version (DBZ): Light chuckle.
-Original Japanese version (Kai): Slightly louder chuckle, because I felt the song improved the goofiness of the scene.
-FUNimation dub (Kai): I. Freaking. Lost it. Between the goofiness of the song, the hilariously over-the-top screams, and Freeza's facial reaction...as soon as we first heard that gust of wind that interrupted the awkward silence, I got a huge laugh out of that!

[Valerius Dover]

Checked out another 2 episodes!

-The whole thing with Goku taking down the Ginyus seems to go a lot faster than in Z, with both Recoome and Burter falling in the same episode.
-The part where Burter and Jeice rush towards Goku....and then land seems a little awkwardly cut. In Z, we had them flying around a bunch.
-Don't really have much else to comment on regarding these episodes, other than Goku sounding a lot better than he did in Z during this part of the series. Towards the end of Episode 31 of Kai is where that transition between 67 and 68 was in Z.

[Wezenheim]

The English Kai dub of the Ginyu Force's entrance is the only time I have ever laughed at that scene. Here were my reactions to that scene in its various different versions/languages:

-Ocean dub (DBZ): I just sort of shrugged.
-FUNimation re-dub (DBZ): Same.
-Original Japanese version (DBZ): Light chuckle.
-Original Japanese version (Kai): Slightly louder chuckle, because I felt the song improved the goofiness of the scene.
-FUNimation dub (Kai): I. Freaking. Lost it. Between the goofiness of the song, the hilariously over-the-top screams, and Freeza's facial reaction...as soon as we first heard that gust of wind that interrupted the awkward silence, I got a huge laugh out of that!

Oh my God, I never saw that part in Kai (I admit that I myself need to watch more of it) and I just watched it on YouTube. It was glorious, it got a chuckle out of me as well. Definitely my favorite version of the scene.

I'm usually not a fan of the English insert song covers in Kai, but I'm happy that one exists, it just adds another layer of cheese to that scene that makes it even more funny for English speakers. I love the Kai dub in general.

This is a cool thread, glad to see that you seem to be enjoying yourself, Valerius!

[Valerius Dover]

Since I last updated, I've now seen another 6 episodes! That brings me up through Episode 38.

-Vegeta killing all of the soldiers inside the ship is removed. Since we see him kill some of them outside, and a bunch of dead bodies inside later on, we're simply left to out imagination what happened.
-Speaking of which, Wilhelm Scream.
-Something I forgot to mention before, the scene where Frieza killed the lone commander just because the Ginyu Force was coming was shortened to the latter not getting any lines at all and not meeting any particular fate yet.
-Awesome Insert Song in Episode 37.Opera-style choir and everything.
-Frieza's voice gets noticeably deeper in his 2nd form, something the Z dub also did. The difference here is that the VA changes the performance naturally instead of having a filter applied for obvious reasons.
-The scene of Krillin getting impaled has a totally different feel to it in Kai. Rather than being a long, horrific, torture scene, it's actually over fairly quickly by comparison. From what I understand, this is what it was like in the manga.
-Around the end of the Ginyu Force sub-arc, they go back to using different BGMs as the recap music, instead of the same one they've been using for the last 15-20 episodes.
-Ok, I'll admit it. Some of the music might be getting a little old. It doesn't affect my enjoyment of the series, though, and there are still some tracks I really like.

[ekrolo2]

Was Freeza's voice getting deeper just a dub thing or did Nakao do it in the JPN version too?

[Wezenheim]

Was Freeza's voice getting deeper just a dub thing or did Nakao do it in the JPN version too?

It sounds like Nakao's voice gets a tad deeper, at least in Z, but I don't think it's quite to the same degree as the dub.

[TheBlackPaladin]

-Awesome Insert Song in Episode 37.Opera-style choir and everything.

The song is called "Only a Chilling Elegy," and yes, it is an awesome song!

-Frieza's voice gets noticeably deeper in his 2nd form, something the Z dub also did. The difference here is that the VA changes the performance naturally instead of having a filter applied for obvious reasons.

For that form, yes, Ayres just deepened his voice naturally. However, for his third form, his voice goes even lower still, and in that case, a filter was used. Ayres said that he can indeed go that deep naturally, but that it takes a lot of effort, so much so that his ability to emote is limited. So, for the third form, they used a little bit of a filter just so that his acting ability wouldn't be inhibited.

[Valerius Dover]

Seen up to Episode 43 now!

-Piccolo says Shut the Hell Up. Frieza gets pissed.
-Sure enough, Frieza's third form is even deeper sounding than the second here. The Z dub, on the other hand, gave the third form the exact same voice as the second.
-Frieza's pretty much back to sounding like his first form now, in his final form, which is what the Z dub also did.
-Really nice rainbow effect when Frieza aims his blast at Gohan. Pretty sure that's new.
-A different part of Chilling Elegy plays in Episode 40, very fitting for the battle.
-Bulma is afraid she is going to die again.....wait, what?
-Another song plays at the end of Episode 41 when Goku is healed, but you can barely hear most of it behind Goku and the narrator talking.
-The scene where Vegeta loses his resolve and Frieza starts beating him up feels a lot more powerful with the sad music playing. I think this is the best usage of the track so far. Kind of made me interpret the scene in a somewhat different way from the Z dub. Chris Sabat's improved Vegeta performance and the writing certainly helps, too.
-Speaking of which, I find it interesting that there's only a 3 year gap between the last recorded Z Vegeta and the Kai performance, yet it sounds very different.

[Lord Beerus]

-Piccolo says Shut the Hell Up. Frieza gets pissed.

That is one of the best moments in all of Kai. I love that scene so much.

[TheBlackPaladin]

-Another song plays at the end of Episode 41 when Goku is healed, but you can barely hear most of it behind Goku and the narrator talking.

That song is called "Super Dragon Soul." Sung by the same guy who sang "Dragon Soul."

As for not being able to hear it that well, yeah, that's one of my issues with FUNimation's 5.1 mixes, and it's not just limited to Dragon Ball stuff. It seems that they have a tendency to mix the music too low when they mix in 5.1. I always noticed that when the edited Nicktoons and CW versions of Kai aired, they used stereo mixes, and the music always seemed louder there. I felt the volume levels of the voices, music, and SFX were always more appropriately proportionate in the stereo mixes.

[Valerius Dover]

Well, it wasn't TOO bad. It wasn't DB Episode 65 levels where you could barely hear any words. Here, you can at least still clearly make out the Japanese words.

As far as quiet music goes, I recall that some of the early DB episodes also have fairly quiet music, up until around Episode 10 or so. And another odd instance would actually be the US version of Z Episodes 68 until around 75 or so, except Episode 70, and that's in Stereo.

[ekrolo2]

I think the problem with using the song is the fact they kept the singer in. It's not like how Chilling Elegy is used in a scene where it's mostly everyone just attacking Freeza with a lot less dialogue. But when you've got Goku inner monologuing & the narrator over the singers voice, it doesn't sound particularly right. I'd chalk it up to just bad placement over anything else.

[Naruto6583]

-Another song plays at the end of Episode 41 when Goku is healed, but you can barely hear most of it behind Goku and the narrator talking.

That song is called "Super Dragon Soul." Sung by the same guy who sang "Dragon Soul."

As for not being able to hear it that well, yeah, that's one of my issues with FUNimation's 5.1 mixes, and it's not just limited to Dragon Ball stuff. It seems that they have a tendency to mix the music too low when they mix in 5.1. I always noticed that when the edited Nicktoons and CW versions of Kai aired, they used stereo mixes, and the music always seemed louder there. I felt the volume levels of the voices, music, and SFX were always more appropriately proportionate in the stereo mixes.

Was the music mixed too quiet with the kikuchi score or the yamamoto score?

[TheBlackPaladin]

-Another song plays at the end of Episode 41 when Goku is healed, but you can barely hear most of it behind Goku and the narrator talking.

That song is called "Super Dragon Soul." Sung by the same guy who sang "Dragon Soul."

As for not being able to hear it that well, yeah, that's one of my issues with FUNimation's 5.1 mixes, and it's not just limited to Dragon Ball stuff. It seems that they have a tendency to mix the music too low when they mix in 5.1. I always noticed that when the edited Nicktoons and CW versions of Kai aired, they used stereo mixes, and the music always seemed louder there. I felt the volume levels of the voices, music, and SFX were always more appropriately proportionate in the stereo mixes.

Was the music mixed too quiet with the kikuchi score or the yamamoto score?

Both. It wasn't a problem with either Kikuchi or Yamamoto, but rather, a problem with the 5.1 mixes in general. In Japan, all of the Kai episodes were mixed in stereo, but FUNimation made 5.1 audio mixes for the dub...which sounds cool on the surface, but it seems that they kept the music too quiet. Too quiet for my tastes, anyway. I found it all the more noticeable when I would watch the edited Nicktoons or CW versions, which were mixed in stereo, and both the Yamamoto and the Kikuchi scores seemed significantly louder there.

[kei17]

For your information, in the Japanese version, the Yamamoto score was significantly louder than the Kikuchi score. There were even some scenes where the dialog is a little hard to catch. Music was still loud in the temporary replacement score version that aired only on some local channels in Japan, but it got quieter in the final version on home video releases. Maybe the suppressed music reflects their reluctance toward the music replacement.

As for the problem with FUNi's 5.1ch mix, I thought it was because of the additional dialog in their Z dub that continues while the moments when there's originally no dialog and the music gets louder. However, since it's not the case for Kai, my guess was wrong after all.

[TheBlackPaladin]

For your information, in the Japanese version, the Yamamoto score was significantly louder than the Kikuchi score. There were even some scenes where the dialog is a little hard to catch. Music was still loud in the temporary replacement score version that aired only on some local channel in Japan, but it got quieter in the final version on homevideo releases.

Well, when I was talking about the levels, I was referring to the dub, not so much the original Japanese version. That's interesting to hear, though. I often wonder how much thought and time was given to the Kikuchi-Kai remix. On the one hand, I'm sure they put in some time and effort, but on the other hand, I'd have to imagine they were in a rush to get Yamamoto's music off TV as quickly as possible to avoid being sued, and that this might have resulted in some less-than-stellar mixing and music placement choices. Their limited Kikuchi library probably didn't help matters.

As for the problem with FUNi's 5.1ch mix, I thought it was because of the addional dialog in their Z dub that continues while the moments when there's originally no dialog and the music gets louder. However, since it's not the case for Kai, my guess was wrong after all.

The music levels in FUNimation's 5.1 DBZ dub track are very inconsistent. It seems to vary from episode to episode--and actually, now that I'm thinking about it, from movie to movie--how loud Kikuchi's music is. I remember a decent batch of the Namek arc episodes having music that was way too low, but I remember the Trunks TV special and the episode where Gohan kills Cell as having the music mixed at a significantly louder level.

[Valerius Dover]

Checked out another 3 episodes of Kai. Up to 46 now.

-So, the Ginyu Frog filler was left in. Not that I have any problem with it, but I wonder why?
-Also, unlike in the Z dub, Ginyu makes no attempt to change his voice while masquerading as Bulma.
-The scene where Goku fears for Krillin, Chi-Chi, and Gohan's fates felt a lot more powerful with Sean's better performance.
-Not much else to say, really. Spirit Bomb is about to be fired, it seems.

[Kuririn Fan]

Ginyu frog filler was left in because it's too assimilated into the canon material, and taking it out would make everything weird.

[Naruto6583]

Ginyu frog filler was left in because it's too assimilated into the canon material, and taking it out would make everything weird.

Like how the gregory filler is also too assimilated into the canon material as well