Is Kai Moving Along Too Fast?

[Wojak]

Myself, I don't care as I got really fed up with waiting for the stares and crappy filler to go by in the original anime.
Shortening it up is a fresh breeze and very welcomed, regardless if they cut some parts of the canon story. It's not like you are like "what have I missed?!".
They should just keep up with this. I like the anime as ultra-fast paced.

[Senzu_Bean]

Is Kai Moving Along Too Fast?

I don't think it is. The original series is too long and drags too much for my taste. For now Dragonball Kai is moving just fine, again, for me.

[DemonRin]

The Problem is that people are directly comparing it to the old series instead of trying to watch and evaluate it on it's own merit, which most aren't willing to do.
I personally did NOT go back and rewatch any of these episodes before Kai came around, and am loving it for it!.
As for the removed canon material, i'm beginning to see a trend in it and if I'm right about it, then I don't have any fears for it.
What was cut from the first episode? Well, a few remarks from Raditz hinting at Son's Alien heritage. What did we get in episode 1? a Scene in the beginning EXPLAINING that Son is an Alien, making the Raditz lines redundant.
What did we lose from Episode 2?
MOSTLY it was Kuririn and Kamesennin's reactions to Raditz and them jumping up to help, only to be told "Waitaminut guys, if you die you can't come back". Something that is heavily reliant on having just seen the Piccolo Daimao and Jr. arcs of Dragon Ball to KNOW that they just died and got brought back already.
It seems Kai's MAJOR cuts so far have simply been in the territory of making it less complicated for people who haven't Seen Dragon Ball Yet, as THIS airing of the show didn't have DB directly proceeding it. As was the obvious reason for adding in Son's Memory of the Battle with Piccolo in the beginning of Episode 2.
Finally, we have the bits with Raditz cut from the end, other than the redundant moment of Son saying "a little more to the right!"
Now, almost EVERYTHING They cut here, I'm not so sure they really cut. This seems like it might be like something they've done in One Piece a few times. They cut out canon material in order to have the episode end at a particular dramatic moment, then they stick the Material in Later.
For example, One Piece Episode 279, After a major moment, Franky was supposed to get a speech before the Strawhats jump into a waterfall (not gonna explain, it's not important) however, Toei COMPLETELY SKIPPED Franky's speech, and instead had the Strawhats jump into the fall. NEXT EPISODE (well... after they reran the strawhats' back-stories as filler...) they picked up before the Strawhats jumped, and then showed Franky's Speech as it was supposed to be before the story progressed.
I'm HOPING this is more of that, but I might be wrong.
Another example, in 2006 when the first episode of Hellsing came out, it turned out that they skipped chapter 2 of the manga ENTIRELY. However, it worked within the context of what the Hellsing staff was trying to do with this version of the story, and I'm not sad to see it go in hindsight.
In the end, this might just be the editing team not exactly sure how they're gonna do this in the beginning, but as the series goes on they'll get the hang of it, and you'll stop seeing them lose bits of canon material, especially once the stuff that requires viewing of Dragon Ball stops happening.

Another thing people need to do is just step back and stop comparing this to DBZ. Yes, the filler got really really bad at times (ESPECIALLY Namek) but this is how we've seen Dragon Ball Z for all of the 20 Years it's been out, so Most people are just USED to the bad pacing and think this version is going too fast because of it. Put someone in prison so long, they become institutionalized and can't stand being OUT of the prison. Same difference, We've been watching DBZ with horrid pacing for so long that some of us can't cope with the faster pace and see problems with it.
Just take a step back and try to forget how everything went in DBZ while you watch DBK and ask if the way they're presenting the series makes sense ON IT'S OWN!!
That's what I'm doing, and I'm loving every second of it!! I can't WAIT to see how Namek is handled. Even the people who REALLY like the filler like Super Ghost Kamikaze will admit that in Namek, the Filler was TERRIBLE and REALLY needs to go!!

[Commander_Red]

Something that is heavily reliant on having just seen the Piccolo Daimao and Jr. arcs of Dragon Ball to KNOW that they just died and got brought back already.
It seems Kai's MAJOR cuts so far have simply been in the territory of making it less complicated for people who haven't Seen Dragon Ball Yet, as THIS airing of the show didn't have DB directly proceeding it.

I wonder what they'll do when the topic of Red Ribbon comes up later then...

[DaemonCorps]

I agree that most are thinking the pacing's pretty quick only because we're so used to DBZ's style of pacing. I'll admit that I thought the second episode seemed so crammed in with stuff until I remembered a similar "text based explanation episode" in Yu Yu Hakusho which I didn't mind watching at all.

As for the canon stuff being cut out, I'm gonna also agree that what's been cut out isn't all that important to the episode overall. DemonRin already mentioned some stuff, but I guess I'll bring up one more case: Before Goku and Piccolo face Raditz, there's a bit cut off when Raditz has an inner monologue where he reaches the conclusion that his scouter wasn't broken after all. If you think about it, though, having Goku and Piccolo show up as the scouter mentions pretty much gets the point across that it mustn't be malfunctioning even after reading Gohan's Battle Power.

Also note that during the original manga run, Toriyama had to whip out one new chapter every week. While I'm sure he had some idea where he was going, that certainly doesn't mean that he had every bit and detail covered so that each panel would be absolutely crucial to the plot. One example that comes to mind is when Tenshinhan has that inner monologue before he starts training with Kaio about putting a twist of his own to the Kaioken. And for an example out of the series, there as a ton of lines cut from the Death Note anime because most of the inner monologue stuff going on is never really referenced again and just ends up cluttering the episode if kept in the anime.

So while I'm currently of the opinion that the pacing seems a bit fast, I'm sure it's just because I'm used to DBZ's sluggish pace. I'll get used to it eventually.

[The Tori-bot]

If the manga had already been over when the anime started, it's going pretty much how I'd have expected such a setup to go (apart from strangely leaving in parts of filler while the rest of the segments are cut). Yeah, mabye it's moving a little too quickly, but the more filler gets cut out, the merrier.

[Super Ghost Kamikaze]

If the manga had already been over when the anime started, it's going pretty much how I'd have expected such a setup to go (apart from strangely leaving in parts of filler while the rest of the segments are cut). Yeah, mabye it's moving a little too quickly, but the more filler gets cut out, the merrier.

Depends on what you call "filler", though. I mean, we know the "filler segments" that have nothing to do with the original. But how many seconds of staring is one panel? How much do you clip off, and how much should be kept?

After all, Dragon Ball is part of a tradition of martial arts stories that involve stare-downs. Sometimes they last too long, but if you cut it down to a millisecond the flow is off.

[Bejiita]

Why does Raditz have to repeat that if Kakarot doesn't kill 100 people and dump outside Kame House, he'll kill his son. He said it twice! I'm sure something much more valuable that got edited out could have replace the 20 seconds or so that was used to repeat himself. Ok, that's going on too deep, but seriously, whole sentences being said twice in the same episode literally in the scene after it happened is starting to give me reminders of repetitiveness. This added on with Kamesennins voice sounding different, and I'm still waiting to hear Tenshinhan's, since it's a new era for DB to air in Japan, it's probably a newer audience, and the old school audience are probably watching it too(with their children that is).

Toei are looking to cut out even more footage that the amount that was cut out of the original dub (I mean the first 67 episodes being reduced to 53 or something I can't remember), but I didin't like the old dub as it was like a butchered version, blood being cut out wasn't that big of a deal when entire episodes were being cut, but now it seems like Toei will be doing the same thing, so if the dub was butchered, then it seems Kai will have the same feel. Maybe even blood will be edited out to a certain extent, since Goku's prick was covered over who knows what else will be removed for Dragonball in 2009?

Bare in mind though, that for the entire series to be squashed into 100 episodes, more than you'd think will be removed, plus there's a recession in Japan, so a lot people haven't got money to waste, the anime producers were always rushing in the past to get everything done, and now it's like they want to fit everything in quick and nibble and zip through the whole series, hopefully it will just revive the fanbase in Japan and become popular like how it was before, again. I will still watch all of DB Kai, but to have any comparison to the original series...there's none, the original DBZ will always be number 1.

[Kendamu]

Depends on what you call "filler", though. I mean, we know the "filler segments" that have nothing to do with the original. But how many seconds of staring is one panel? How much do you clip off, and how much should be kept?

They're doing fine. It took 'em about 30 seconds for the farmer to use his pitchfork, hear something, and look up into the sky. Four silent (no dialog) panels of manga where not a lot happened was given that much time for us to soak it in and I've heard no complaints about that part so far.

So, yeah, they can pace it well enough.

[Herms]

Why does Raditz have to repeat that if Kakarot doesn't kill 100 people and dump outside Kame House, he'll kill his son. He said it twice! I'm sure something much more valuable that got edited out could have replace the 20 seconds or so that was used to repeat himself.

The second time he said it was right after the commercial break, so it was probably left in as a sort of "for those of you just tuning in" recap. That's basically the purpose it serves in the manga, where Raditz says the repeated line at the start of a new chapter.

[dragonballzgtfighter]

I thought this episode dragged on a little.

[Tsukento]

You'd figure people would know that by now. How many times have we've seen someone say something or fire off an attack right before a commercial break, and then do it again right after the break in the original DB series'?

[ShinRogafuken]

I thought this episode dragged on a little.

Are you effing kidding me?

[Kendamu]

I thought this episode dragged on a little.

Are you effing kidding me?

Maybe he doesn't know Japanese and hasn't seen it subbed. In such a case, 20 minutes of stuff he couldn't understand. Its the same reason I find Spanish TV boring.

[Bussani]

You'd figure people would know that by now. How many times have we've seen someone say something or fire off an attack right before a commercial break, and then do it again right after the break in the original DB series'?

Don't forget Gohan going SSJ2 twice.

[B]

You'd figure people would know that by now. How many times have we've seen someone say something or fire off an attack right before a commercial break, and then do it again right after the break in almsot any TV series ever.

Fixed.
And I think the pacing is fine.

[Tanooki Kuribo]

I don't understand. I thought it was editing out the filler

Not all filler, it just says it's closer to Akira Toriyama's cut.

[MagicBox]

Episode two moved fast as hell. You take a second to sneeze and you miss something. But I really don't want to judge Kai's pacing until we get to the year of training. The Raditz fight had next to no filler in the first place, so cutting almost ANYTHING would result in a loss of canon material. And Toei had to prove with the first episodes that they were editing the show down, so they kinda HAD to cut scenes to get the point of the series across. It's a lose-lose situation.

I'm really thinking that once we get to the Saiyan training, only honest-to-goodness filler will be removed and the pacing will get better.

[Bejiita]

Why does Raditz have to repeat that if Kakarot doesn't kill 100 people and dump outside Kame House, he'll kill his son. He said it twice! I'm sure something much more valuable that got edited out could have replace the 20 seconds or so that was used to repeat himself.

The second time he said it was right after the commercial break, so it was probably left in as a sort of "for those of you just tuning in" recap. That's basically the purpose it serves in the manga, where Raditz says the repeated line at the start of a new chapter.

Yea I didn't seem to realise, probably 'cos the adverts are skipped in the one I watched. It's true though, in DBZ it happens a lot, once beofre adverts, then again after it returns. I wonder how they will handle Gohan going SSJ2, since in the episode after we see him transform again, and remember him killing 1 extra Cell Jr, maybe this will be sorted out. They'll have to decide which death to cut out, as they all look cool.

[Son Wukong]

I wonder how everyone feels about this, but I feel they, Toei, are moving too fast.

Now that I've found time to compare ep2 side by side I noticed they also cut the part where Goku and Piccolo are shocked of Raditz' strength after they get elbowed in the back.

Raditz:
"Ho~, at least your defense seems to be pretty good. However, your deaths are only a matter of time. Bit by bit, I'm going to increase the strength of my attacks.''

Piccolo:
''To think the difference in our levels would be this big!''

That sure adss to the drama which is lost with this pacing.

I'm sure it's just because I'm used to DBZ's sluggish pace. I'll get used to it eventually.

Hope that goes for me too...