In your opinion, has Kai been a success?

[SSJ Helldog]

It's bringing Dragonball to a younger (new) audience, and in that respect it's great. Also, now there's a version that doesn't look so intimidating for new viewers. A friend of mine has never seen anything past Freeza, because "200 episodes is too much of a time investment." Now, though, he's considering watching Kai when it gets to Trunks.

Personally, I'm not a big fan. I like a lot of the filler, especially in the Saiyan and Namek arcs. It just emphasizes how epic the story is, and what a large chunk of time the story encompasses. The filler I'm glad to see go is primarily battle-related stuff. I can't tell you how infuriating I find Z episodes where they're just grunting at each other, powering up, and battles that go on for longer than 3 episodes. I would rather have had a "selectively shortened" DBK than a manga-based effort.

[Kendamu]

I know what you mean about some of that early filler, but the Jinzouningen arc and the Buu arc both need some major trimming.

[Kai_fan]

My big complaint is that they don't appear to be putting as much money and effort into Kai as Toei's "flagship" would seem to warrant. The show is beating most other first-run anime, and it's essentially nothing but an editing job.

For one thing, couldn't they have it scored-to-picture? Even FUNimation did that. The (heavily) recycled music is very disappointing.

Couldn't they put a little more work into those redrawn scenes?

Cmon guys, Kai is a show with a fraction of the production overhead of other shows that it's wiping the floor with ratingswise.

Regardless, Kai pretty much replaces DBZ for me. A "manga edit" is what I've always wanted, and what I would have done from the outset if I were FUNimation.

I will always have affection for Z, but at the same time a part of me says "good riddance." Kai will be the only Dragon Box I ever buy.

Bottom line: Kai is a closer adaptation of the manga, thus it is pure storytelling, undiluted by the necessity of filler. It says a lot about DBZ that Kai can cut NEARLY TWO THIRDS of the footage and still end up being a faithful, reasonably paced adaptation of the same source material.

Most (not much, MOST) of DBZ is pointless junk-time that never should have been animated. Sometimes it was not-so-bad, even entertaining, pointless junk, but most of the time it was complete tedium. Regardless, it doesn't belong in the story.

While bits and pieces of canon material are being cut from Kai, nothing significant has been cut. A line or a shot here or there.

In my opinion, adding/changing things via filler is actually much more egregious. Toriyama never showed "Hell" (or Heaven) in the manga; we were supposed to see purgatory and merely imagine the others. He never introduced these other Kaios, he (obviously) never intended to have Goku's spacepod out there projecting an image of the moon, and so many other significant and insignificant things that happen in DBZ and degrade the story. All of the filler gives people the wrong idea of "the way things are" in the Dragon Ball universe, in addition to creating inconsistencies and plot holes.

People don't look at Z that way though, because DBZ is what they know and love. So Kai is understood merely in comparison to DBZ (as opposed to comparison to the manga, which ideally is what people should be doing).

I love an economical, streamlined 100 episode telling of the story. That's what I need, both for myself and for introducing other people. Life is too short for me to ever sit through Bulma vs. the crab or Garlic Jr. again, or "five minutes" that stretches on for over an hour of staring contests and panning over landscapes.

[AndoKomando]

Well in my opinion it is not a very big success since it's not pulling in the ratings Ball and Z had when they were on TV. Basically, if you are comparing Kai to Z then you will get a flat "No", it's not very successful. But my personal opinion is that, no, it's not a success since knowing myself being the big fan of DB as I am I haven't watched Kai since like the 6th episode and we are well into the 30s. Reasons why I think it's a failure at this point are that they had us all thinking that it was brand new drawings for each episode which is an obvious no. Also, I hear in some later episodes they left out a few things even from the manga. I don't mind the fast pace, but... I dunno, to me it's just not that great. I also was reading the ratings a few weeks ago for Japan, and it was nothing like what anyone was expecting it to be. It was very far down. So I dunno, it's a failure but it's not at the same time.

[Kendamu]

The reason Kai's ratings are lower than Z's ratings are because Z was pretty much a primetime show (on Wednesdays, I think) while Kai comes on early Sunday mornings. Considering the programming block it's in, the ratings are really high!

[alakazam^]

The reason Kai's ratings are lower than Z's ratings are because Z was pretty much a primetime show (on Wednesdays, I think) while Kai comes on early Sunday mornings. Considering the programming block it's in, the ratings are really high!

Also, Kai is above most of those primetime shows like Pokemon, Naruto and Bleach. You could say anime's ratings as a whole have gotten lower since the time Z was first airing.

[Kendamu]

The reason Kai's ratings are lower than Z's ratings are because Z was pretty much a primetime show (on Wednesdays, I think) while Kai comes on early Sunday mornings. Considering the programming block it's in, the ratings are really high!

Also, Kai is above most of those primetime shows like Pokemon, Naruto and Bleach. You could say anime's ratings as a whole have gotten lower since the time Z was first airing.

Now that I did not know! Sunday morning anime is doing better than prime time weekday anime...!

[Vino]

Eh, I'm on the fence with Kai, some episodes are awesome, some are terrible, my biggest complaint is the music, they should have kept the old score and keep the series name as Z. Another major let down are the redrawn scenes, they look really out of place and pretty crappy, hell even a newgrounds amateur can do better, but eh whatever.

[NeptuneKai]

While bits and pieces of canon material are being cut from Kai, nothing significant has been cut. A line or a shot here or there.
.

A few lines here a few shots there all adds up in the time span of 100 something episodes.

[Rocketman]

While bits and pieces of canon material are being cut from Kai, nothing significant has been cut. A line or a shot here or there.
.

A few lines here a few shots there all adds up in the time span of 100 something episodes.

You know what else adds up? Filler.

[NeptuneKai]

While bits and pieces of canon material are being cut from Kai, nothing significant has been cut. A line or a shot here or there.
.

A few lines here a few shots there all adds up in the time span of 100 something episodes.

You know what else adds up? Filler.

True but I can't bring back footage with the fast forward button.

[Kendamu]

A few lines here a few shots there all adds up in the time span of 100 something episodes.

You know what else adds up? Filler.

True but I can't bring back footage with the fast forward button.

It's an animated adaption of an even better source material. I'll live.

[penguintruth]

It's successful in that it reignited my interest in the world of Dragon Ball, and is a nice, casual way of watching DBZ.

But I find that my interest in it sort of goes in and out, because I find myself missing a lot of the "filler" that I used to complain about.

Not to mention this skipping from old to new animation is bothering the hell out of me. It's like the Zeta Gundam movies.

[NeptuneKai]

You know what else adds up? Filler.

True but I can't bring back footage with the fast forward button.

It's an animated adaption of an even better source material. I'll live.

Good for you, I'm just explaining my position on why cut out manga footage is important to me.

[Kendamu]

Good for you, I'm just explaining my position on why cut out manga footage is important to me.

I wasn't trying to make your point less valid or poke fun at you, I'm just doing exactly what you are: explaining my position. I really like Kai, but in the end it's just an adaption and the very large manga-purist side of me somehow makes animation flubs easier to take rather than harder to take.

[KaiserNeko]

The reason Kai's ratings are lower than Z's ratings are because Z was pretty much a primetime show (on Wednesdays, I think) while Kai comes on early Sunday mornings. Considering the programming block it's in, the ratings are really high!

Also, Kai is above most of those primetime shows like Pokemon, Naruto and Bleach. You could say anime's ratings as a whole have gotten lower since the time Z was first airing.

Now that I did not know! Sunday morning anime is doing better than prime time weekday anime...!

It's due to an over saturation of the market. There's so much to choose from, audiences are spread thinner and thinner. Back when Z was airing, there wasn't that much competition, it was the current Big Thing, and kids mostly only had the television and manga to entertain themselves (besides reading books and going outside to play, but let's be honest here). Now there are more shows and kids have more video games, the internet, and otherwise a multitude of mediums to keep themselves entertained.

[NeptuneKai]

Good for you, I'm just explaining my position on why cut out manga footage is important to me.

I wasn't trying to make your point less valid or poke fun at you, I'm just doing exactly what you are: explaining my position. I really like Kai, but in the end it's just an adaption and the very large manga-purist side of me somehow makes animation flubs easier to take rather than harder to take.

Oh okay, I'm sorry if I sounded snippy.

[Duo]

I haven't watched very much of it, just the Goku vs. Vegeta fight and the first episode. I'm working my way through the Dragon Box right now, so I suppose when I finish that I'll read that part of the Manga, then watch through the Saiyan Arc in Kai. Hopefully this will give me a good perspective on things.

For -years- I cried for a Manga-loyal version of the Anime, but now that my Manga fanboyism has died down a little bit and I'm actually watching the original Japanese version of the Anime straight through, I'm a little more torn on the matter. I'm in a big stretch of Gohan surviving / Goku running / Piccolo fighting himself Filler but it's been enjoyable to me. Maybe the second or third time my feelings would be otherwise.

Plus the Saiyan Arc filler is pretty much awesome compared to every story arc thereafter. Makes me wonder if I should just stick to the first Dragon Box and wait for Kai to release the rest of the series.

Edit: is all of Kai up on Youtube or something? What's the best way to view it?

[Kendamu]

I'm in a big stretch of Gohan surviving / Goku running / Piccolo fighting himself Filler but it's been enjoyable to me. Maybe the second or third time my feelings would be otherwise.

Except for the filler right before the Cell Game, it seems that the filler in the rest of the series is not nearly as fun or creative as the filler you mentioned... and that's if it's new content at all. As the series drags on, it just becomes stretched-out versions of things that should be epic and fun to watch (like Goku vs. Freeza).

For me, Kai will be at its best from Goku vs. Freeza onward.

[Kai_fan]

What he said.

Original scenes are a very different thing than stretching canon scenes to painful lengths.

Not that there was much "original scene" potential to work with in the latter Freeza saga, so Toei had a tough job.

The Kai version of the Freeza battle is going to be a stunning thing to witness. It's all been leading up to this. This is where Kai is really going to come into its own.