Dragon Ball Recut [COMPLETE], Dragon Ball Kai Recut [COMPLETE]

[Ajay]

So since Milkman has seemingly abandoned this for the time being, can we expect someone to make a v3 with the AB bluray footage once volume 2 comes out?

It's not abandoned, he's just not redoing Dragon Ball until AB finish their release.

[FutureGohanSSJ2]

If he comes back in the first place, I'd assume he'd use the Z dub. Since using Kai dub again would mean all that would change would be the soundtrack most likely. Or at least, other negligible changes that aren't really worth a whole new multi-year project. It'd be easier to justify doing a big project again if it's a different dub.

He doesn't like the Z dub, which is why when he was here he did plan to use Kai's. What you're forgetting is that Kai and Z have completely different JP performances too, which most people agree were better in Z.

Hey there, sorry to interject. I'm not sure if this is true. I am aware that there are quite a number of people who say the Z performances in Japanese are better than the performances in Kai, but I'm not sure if that would include "most people". I have read numerous interviews from the Japanese voice actors in which they believe they were able to give, at the very least, more confident reads because they know where the characters are this time around. Below, I have referenced Mayumi Tanaka as well as Masako Nozawa's comments on Kai. I believe there's more (as I swear I remember seeing one from Ryusei Nakao), but this is what I found for now from memory. I understand that a lot of people further enjoy the Z performances, but I think "most people", well we frankly just don't know. But I just wanted to shed light on that.

[MistaL]

If he comes back in the first place, I'd assume he'd use the Z dub. Since using Kai dub again would mean all that would change would be the soundtrack most likely. Or at least, other negligible changes that aren't really worth a whole new multi-year project. It'd be easier to justify doing a big project again if it's a different dub.

He doesn't like the Z dub, which is why when he was here he did plan to use Kai's. What you're forgetting is that Kai and Z have completely different JP performances too, which most people agree were better in Z.

Hey there, sorry to interject. I'm not sure if this is true. I am aware that there are quite a number of people who say the Z performances in Japanese are better than the performances in Kai, but I'm not sure if that would include "most people". I have read numerous interviews from the Japanese voice actors in which they believe they were able to give, at the very least, more confident reads because they know where the characters are this time around. Below, I have referenced Mayumi Tanaka as well as Masako Nozawa's comments on Kai. I believe there's more (as I swear I remember seeing one from Ryusei Nakao), but this is what I found for now from memory. I understand that a lot of people further enjoy the Z performances, but I think "most people", well we frankly just don't know. But I just wanted to shed light on that.

I think you could ask anyone on this forum and they'd say they prefer the original performances. The Japanese cast might have a different opinion, but that's based on their own experience in performing it while we have the end result as our metric. Everyone sounds older and in places less energetic, Nozawa included (though she's much better in Boo Kai and Super) and especially Horikawa and Yanami.

[DefinitiveDubs]

There are plenty of artists out there who think updated versions of their work are automatically better just because they say they are. Whether or not the cast had difficulties with the original show or they didn't feel confident in their performances, in the end, their performances still ended up better. Death Of The Author is in full motion here.

Besides, of course people attached to the newer production are going to say the newer production is better than ever in interviews. Do you honestly expect Nozawa to say her performance has gotten worse, when Toei is expecting her to promote the show? The only reason Kai's voices were redone was due to the original audio masters for the show being lost, not because the cast could've done better. If they hadn't been, Toei wouldn't have bothered with new recordings.

[sangofe]

The only reason Kai's voices were redone was due to the original audio masters for the show being lost, not because the cast could've done better. If they hadn't been, Toei wouldn't have bothered with new recordings.

They couldn't have used mono sound in Kai anyway. Impossible to separate the voices from the bgm on the Kai recordings...

[Shaddy]

Neural Net voice separation has come a long way recently. You could probably do a lot with a new filler cut if you didn't have to edit around the OST.

[sangofe]

Neural Net voice separation has come a long way recently. You could probably do a lot with a new filler cut if you didn't have to edit around the OST.

Not when Kai aired. Plus I'm 100% sure it wouldn't have sounded nearly good enough for a broadcast.

[Shaddy]

I wasn't talking about Kai. I'm saying that, hypothetically, someone could do a more ambitious filler cut than DB Recut if they didn't have to worry about soundtrack clipping.

[FutureGohanSSJ2]

There are plenty of artists out there who think updated versions of their work are automatically better just because they say they are. Whether or not the cast had difficulties with the original show or they didn't feel confident in their performances, in the end, their performances still ended up better. Death Of The Author is in full motion here.

Besides, of course people attached to the newer production are going to say the newer production is better than ever in interviews. Do you honestly expect Nozawa to say her performance has gotten worse, when Toei is expecting her to promote the show? The only reason Kai's voices were redone was due to the original audio masters for the show being lost, not because the cast could've done better. If they hadn't been, Toei wouldn't have bothered with new recordings.

I believe you about the original performances, man. However, naturally of course, I must play devil's advocate here.

To respond to both you and MistaL, let's rewind time a bit. Let's go back to 2009 when Kai first came out here. We can say what we want about the Japanese version, but I think every person here can agree that the English Dub of Kai is the superior version when compared to FUNi's original dub. Correct? We can all agree on that I believe. However, to counter what MistaL said about "ask anyone which they prefer and they'll say the original", don't forget people /still/ say this about the Dub! In fact, the argument that you gave me, "Besides, of course people attached to the newer production are going to say the newer production is better than ever in interviews. Do you honestly expect Nozawa to say her performance has gotten worse, when Toei is expecting her to promote the show?" You would be SHOCKED to find out exactly how many people used to argue with me using /that same argument/ about the Dub cast and their comments on their artistic work. Literally the exact same thing, in fact. I used to site Sean Schemmel, Chris Sabat and especially Sonny Strait interviews in which they all have backed their newer performances as being, yeah, much better. And yet I heard the same things; "They're just lying, FUNimation wants them to support their newest show, of course they would /lie/ and say the new Dub is better, it's so that you'll watch!" Same argument, right? And yet... we /know/ that's not true, don't we? I don't think it's fair to assume the Japanese cast is simply stretching the truth because "Toei expects her to promote the show." I think if she truly believed her older performance was better, I think there are ways to promote the newest show you're in without having to stretch any truths. Also, since she is the artist, it's only natural that you improve your craft over time. If she, as the artist, genuinely believes her newest piece of art is better, I think we should believe her. Now, it's at that point that I'm able to make my own decision on which I prefer personally as a fan. But I think to say she, or anybody else for that matter, is stretching any truths is a bit... of an intense stance. Nozawa is a 90 year old woman. I don't think anyone at Toei is pressuring her to stretch any truths, but who knows, I could be wrong in that.

[Helios518]

There are plenty of artists out there who think updated versions of their work are automatically better just because they say they are. Whether or not the cast had difficulties with the original show or they didn't feel confident in their performances, in the end, their performances still ended up better. Death Of The Author is in full motion here.

Besides, of course people attached to the newer production are going to say the newer production is better than ever in interviews. Do you honestly expect Nozawa to say her performance has gotten worse, when Toei is expecting her to promote the show? The only reason Kai's voices were redone was due to the original audio masters for the show being lost, not because the cast could've done better. If they hadn't been, Toei wouldn't have bothered with new recordings.

I believe you about the original performances, man. However, naturally of course, I must play devil's advocate here.

To respond to both you and MistaL, let's rewind time a bit. Let's go back to 2009 when Kai first came out here. We can say what we want about the Japanese version, but I think every person here can agree that the English Dub of Kai is the superior version when compared to FUNi's original dub. Correct? We can all agree on that I believe. However, to counter what MistaL said about "ask anyone which they prefer and they'll say the original", don't forget people /still/ say this about the Dub! In fact, the argument that you gave me, "Besides, of course people attached to the newer production are going to say the newer production is better than ever in interviews. Do you honestly expect Nozawa to say her performance has gotten worse, when Toei is expecting her to promote the show?" You would be SHOCKED to find out exactly how many people used to argue with me using /that same argument/ about the Dub cast and their comments on their artistic work. Literally the exact same thing, in fact. I used to site Sean Schemmel, Chris Sabat and especially Sonny Strait interviews in which they all have backed their newer performances as being, yeah, much better. And yet I heard the same things; "They're just lying, FUNimation wants them to support their newest show, of course they would /lie/ and say the new Dub is better, it's so that you'll watch!" Same argument, right? And yet... we /know/ that's not true, don't we? I don't think it's fair to assume the Japanese cast is simply stretching the truth because "Toei expects her to promote the show." I think if she truly believed her older performance was better, I think there are ways to promote the newest show you're in without having to stretch any truths. Also, since she is the artist, it's only natural that you improve your craft over time. If she, as the artist, genuinely believes her newest piece of art is better, I think we should believe her. Now, it's at that point that I'm able to make my own decision on which I prefer personally as a fan. But I think to say she, or anybody else for that matter, is stretching any truths is a bit... of an intense stance. Nozawa is a 90 year old woman. I don't think anyone at Toei is pressuring her to stretch any truths, but who knows, I could be wrong in that.

Honestly preference is a thing and anyone is freely allowed to prefer anything but it's worth mentioning that the difference between the OG Funi Dub and Kai Funi dub was the experience.

When Funi started the OG dub, most of the VAs had literally no experience besides Sonny Strait who did some puppet shows. By the time Kai came out, the Funi cast had decades of VA experience and they're not old enough that their voice regressed. For reference, Chris Sabat was ~26 yrs old and Sean Schemmel was ~30 yrs old, both had 0 yrs of experience when starting DBZ and by the time of Kai they had ~13 yrs of experiences.

On the otherhand, the JPN cast already had plenty of VA experience by the OG Dragon Ball. For reference, Masako Nozawa had ~26 yrs of exp, Ryo Horikawa had ~5 yrs of exp, and Toshio Furukawa had ~12 years of experience by the time of DBZ.

In short, the original Japanese Z is far more comparable to the Funi Kai in VA experience. So while I don't doubt Nozawa literally just told the truth on having a better feel for the characters, age catches up to everyone.

[FutureGohanSSJ2]

There are plenty of artists out there who think updated versions of their work are automatically better just because they say they are. Whether or not the cast had difficulties with the original show or they didn't feel confident in their performances, in the end, their performances still ended up better. Death Of The Author is in full motion here.

Besides, of course people attached to the newer production are going to say the newer production is better than ever in interviews. Do you honestly expect Nozawa to say her performance has gotten worse, when Toei is expecting her to promote the show? The only reason Kai's voices were redone was due to the original audio masters for the show being lost, not because the cast could've done better. If they hadn't been, Toei wouldn't have bothered with new recordings.

I believe you about the original performances, man. However, naturally of course, I must play devil's advocate here.

To respond to both you and MistaL, let's rewind time a bit. Let's go back to 2009 when Kai first came out here. We can say what we want about the Japanese version, but I think every person here can agree that the English Dub of Kai is the superior version when compared to FUNi's original dub. Correct? We can all agree on that I believe. However, to counter what MistaL said about "ask anyone which they prefer and they'll say the original", don't forget people /still/ say this about the Dub! In fact, the argument that you gave me, "Besides, of course people attached to the newer production are going to say the newer production is better than ever in interviews. Do you honestly expect Nozawa to say her performance has gotten worse, when Toei is expecting her to promote the show?" You would be SHOCKED to find out exactly how many people used to argue with me using /that same argument/ about the Dub cast and their comments on their artistic work. Literally the exact same thing, in fact. I used to site Sean Schemmel, Chris Sabat and especially Sonny Strait interviews in which they all have backed their newer performances as being, yeah, much better. And yet I heard the same things; "They're just lying, FUNimation wants them to support their newest show, of course they would /lie/ and say the new Dub is better, it's so that you'll watch!" Same argument, right? And yet... we /know/ that's not true, don't we? I don't think it's fair to assume the Japanese cast is simply stretching the truth because "Toei expects her to promote the show." I think if she truly believed her older performance was better, I think there are ways to promote the newest show you're in without having to stretch any truths. Also, since she is the artist, it's only natural that you improve your craft over time. If she, as the artist, genuinely believes her newest piece of art is better, I think we should believe her. Now, it's at that point that I'm able to make my own decision on which I prefer personally as a fan. But I think to say she, or anybody else for that matter, is stretching any truths is a bit... of an intense stance. Nozawa is a 90 year old woman. I don't think anyone at Toei is pressuring her to stretch any truths, but who knows, I could be wrong in that.

Honestly preference is a thing and anyone is freely allowed to prefer anything but it's worth mentioning that the difference between the OG Funi Dub and Kai Funi dub was the experience.

When Funi started the OG dub, most of the VAs had literally no experience besides Sonny Strait who did some puppet shows. By the time Kai came out, the Funi cast had decades of VA experience and they're not old enough that their voice regressed. For reference, Chris Sabat was ~26 yrs old and Sean Schemmel was ~30 yrs old, both had 0 yrs of experience when starting DBZ and by the time of Kai they had ~13 yrs of experiences.

On the otherhand, the JPN cast already had plenty of VA experience by the OG Dragon Ball. For reference, Masako Nozawa had ~26 yrs of exp, Ryo Horikawa had ~5 yrs of exp, and Toshio Furukawa had ~12 years of experience by the time of DBZ.

In short, the original Japanese Z is far more comparable to the Funi Kai in VA experience. So while I don't doubt Nozawa literally just told the truth on having a better feel for the characters, age catches up to everyone.

I agree!

[jrdemr]

Masterful work as always. Eagerly awaiting the definitive version of Dragon Ball Recut with the color-corrected AB Groupe Blu-Ray discs!

I gave Kai Recut a look, and despite being, as expected, an extremely competent edit... Kai sadly just doesn't do it for me There's barely any hint of the original's soul. The music is a bit lifeless (and Sumitomo's is atrocious), half the actors are gone, and the ones that remain are nowhere near the performances they had in Z, when they were in their prime.

I really hope that by the time Seed of Might get out their color-corrected Dragon Ball Z footage, IAmTheMilkman has had enough rest and can find the time to also do Z. If he does, I will never look at the original, unedited version ever again.

(The fact that Recut doesn't take up 1TB of storage also helps immensely )

[BootyCheeksJohnson]

Masterful work as always. Eagerly awaiting the definitive version of Dragon Ball Recut with the color-corrected AB Groupe Blu-Ray discs!

I gave Kai Recut a look, and despite being, as expected, an extremely competent edit... Kai sadly just doesn't do it for me There's barely any hint of the original's soul. The music is a bit lifeless (and Sumitomo's is atrocious), half the actors are gone, and the ones that remain are nowhere near the performances they had in Z, when they were in their prime.

I really hope that by the time Seed of Might get out their color-corrected Dragon Ball Z footage, IAmTheMilkman has had enough rest and can find the time to also do Z. If he does, I will never look at the original, unedited version ever again.

(The fact that Recut doesn't take up 1TB of storage also helps immensely )

Honestly he could probably make the "definitive" version of Dragon Ball Recut with the recent color corrected footage release done by the Seed of Might team. Not that the recent French Blu-ray master doesn't look great.

[Scsigs]

Honestly he could probably make the "definitive" version of Dragon Ball Recut with the recent color corrected footage release done by the Seed of Might team. Not that the recent French Blu-ray master doesn't look great.

AB Grope's also taking their sweet ass time getting Set 2 done.

[BootyCheeksJohnson]

Honestly he could probably make the "definitive" version of Dragon Ball Recut with the recent color corrected footage release done by the Seed of Might team. Not that the recent French Blu-ray master doesn't look great.

AB Grope's also taking their sweet ass time getting Set 2 done.

Considering that the first set was rushed and had to be produced in 2 months that's probably for the best. More time will (hopefully) guarantee better results.

[MistaL]

Honestly he could probably make the "definitive" version of Dragon Ball Recut with the recent color corrected footage release done by the Seed of Might team. Not that the recent French Blu-ray master doesn't look great.

AB Grope's also taking their sweet ass time getting Set 2 done.

Considering that the first set was rushed and had to be produced in 2 months that's probably for the best. More time will (hopefully) guarantee better results.

Honestly the fact they were able to put out such a great looking release in only two months is nothing short of incredible. Cannot wait to see how the next set will look

[IAmTheMilkMan]

Sorry for the lack of a formal update. I’ve just been very busy, exhausted, and it’s tough to find the time to respond. As it is, the following took me months to write.

First things first—the footage. I could (and am about to, apparently) go into the reasons I chose 30A over Dragon Box, but it all boils down to that I just think it looked better, especially for a Kai edit. Ultimately, there’s no perfect solution, so I chose what worked best for me. I think the Boo saga on the Dragon Box looks like a particular kind of garbage, especially in the color area, and I am not a color corrector. I can’t stress this enough—I am not a color corrector. 30A’s colors for the Boo saga honestly aren’t as bad, and at the very least are more consistent, which allowed me to apply some filters across the board that eased up a bit on the reds and fake grain. That’s all I could do with my limited skillset. The majority of 30A’s Boo footage also appears to suffer less from blurring, starting with Vegeta’s fight with Pui Pui, where the footage starts to look sharper from then on. However, it still doesn’t warrant a 1080p encode, in my opinion, so I kept it at 720p, since there’d be no benefit to anything more than that. I knew some would give me shit about it, but again, it was the better choice for me.

Honestly, I’ve kind of been under the impression that not many people are watching my Kai Recut anyway, especially not those who care so much about video quality, so I felt I had a little more freedom with my choices. I watched the whole thing on my TV and thought it looked great. *shrug*

Anyway, whenever unanimously decided upon better footage arrives in the future, I made it so that I could relatively easily replace it.

Now onto the more fun stuff.

• Sumitomo's used for the OST (which I guess I'm okay with, though I wonder if the more iffy placements have been updated--might've kinda been hoping for a Yamamoto/Sumitomo mix lol)

Rescoring completely would have been an insanely difficult and laborious task. I did, However, use the Japanese placements sometimes, usually when trying to match a different edit present in the Japanese cut, so there are some music differences from TFC, but that mostly affected the beginning of the arc, save for a couple different placements at the end. Only once can I recall going out of my way to replace something by choice, and that was during Goku’s introduction at the tournament grounds, and I stuck with Sumitomo to keep it consistent.

• Kuu-Zen-Zetsu-Go gets kept for the OP (sweet), and Milkman used a mix of it, Fight It Out!, and the Dragon Soul OPs to get around the spoilers--similarly, Dear Zarathustra is kept for the ED (also sweet) and mixes it and Never Give Up footage-wise. Both look great (I like the cut from the FIO shots of Goku powering up to the ending group shot in KZZG, synced to the music), curious to see how the "spoilers" are gradually added.

I’m glad you liked the cut at the end of KZZG, I was proud of that one. The plan was to gradually work more footage back in as the show went along, but that proved to be too difficult as the footage was synced to the music, and adding anything new was tough to do without moving everything around again, so I just wound up reverting to the original KZZG once everything in it had been revealed in the show, heh... I did swap the Gotenks footage out once he was revealed though. I think that was the only difference.

Never thought I'd see the day where someone would manage to cut the dinosaur filler from the Saiyaman reveal.

I thought removing Gohan’s bandage in the hallway would be difficult, but it turned out to be one of the easier things to do here. I’m glad it worked, I was so happy to see that filler go.

Just finished Buu recut last night. Was pretty fantastic. There were a handful of moments were cuts were noticeable, as opposed to how seamless the previous sagas were, but I think a big part of that is the Buu saga's source footage's fault. There's so many things that get unbelievably extended in ways that previous sagas didn't do, like Piccolo when checking Vegeta's remains in the manga flies directly into the crater. In the anime he flies over, floats down, then walks around. Changing the composition like this makes it hard to edit the anime to flow like the manga without noticeable cuts, and it's the most noticeable in fights because of battle damage changing. (The piccolo thing was an example, Milkman's edit handled it perfectly fine. Mid-battle stuff such as Vegeta watching from the sidelines against Kid Buu in the manga's first half of the fight whereas in the anime he's battle damaged at that point is a clearer example of what I'm talking about here with it being hard to make the editing consistent in this saga compared to the previous ones.) Overall easily going to be my go to way of rewatching the Buu saga or even recommending DBZ to casuals in general.

Edit: just wanted to clarify when I say handful I mean handful, they're just two or three. I still absolutely loved the experience and am grateful Milkman finished it.

I was fully aware of this particular instance, and made the decision to move forward with the cut after weighing my options. Ultimately, I didn’t feel like it was distracting enough not to, and I further justified it by looking at how inconsistent Toei themselves often were with battle damage, with it seemingly coming and going at the whim of the animator. For instance, in that very same fight, Vegeta's battle damage completely disappears once he volunteers to hold off Boo while Goku charges up his Ki, and that wasn't a result of my meddling, that's just how it is in the original anime (however, they were originally two different episodes of Z which made it less distracting).

Generally, because this is Kai, I felt I had the freedom to sometimes take bigger risks, but I always tried to make things as smooth as possible.

I’m tempted to ask at which other points you noticed a cut, because I’ve had people get on my case for various perceived noticeable edits in the past that weren’t my fault, and are actually present in the original anime. At the same time, I don’t want to draw attention to anything that actually is my fault, so perhaps we’ll leave it at that, lol. Maybe PM me if you can think of another spot and I’ll walk you through my thought process.

Does anybody know what audio was used for this outside of DBZ Kai? Vegeta's respect scene in particular (Episode 35) and theres some voice acting that isnt present in either the Kai or og Funi Dub.

I believe earlier in the thread Milkman was hinting at this edit (doesn't say much about it though), I can't exactly tell if it's AI voice cloning or a voice line from other DB media (like the games).

Additional audio was taken from the OG dub, and Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot. That game is a treasure trove of accurately dubbed dialog since they couldn’t be bothered to reword (or “Funimation-ize”) thousands of lines of dialog for a video game, which ironically worked in my favor. Only problem is that the performances and/or quality of the recordings sometimes weren’t up to snuff, so it took some finesse to blend them in with the rest of the dub.

Dialog from Kakarot also made a few edits possible that wouldn’t have been otherwise, since the events played out so much differently in the anime. This results in some sequences and dialog from the manga that have never been present in the anime before, in both English and Japanese. For instance, Boo transporting directly to the Kaioshin Realm, and Mr. Satan grabbing Vegeta with no help from Fat Boo, were both made possible with supplemental dialog from Kakarot.

Also, considering that TFC was originally intended for the international market, but aired on Japanese TV because they needed a last-minute replacement when the Toriko anime got cancelled, wouldn't it have made sense to use 'Fight It Out' for the theme song?

I hate “Fight it Out”.

My assumption is that it's for consistency or his preference over anything else.

As for the whole OP thing, I think it's genuinely just a preference.

Largely a preference, yes.

If anything, I think the English versions of Makafushigi Adventure and Dragon Soul from the English dubs should have been replaced with the Japanese versions for consistency with Boo Kai, though back when he started the project there was no way he'd know we'd get a completely different OP outside of Japan.

There’s a very real possibility that I would have replaced Dragon Soul’s English with the Japanese for Kai consistency, but I’m not completely sure. I think Dragon Soul’s English version is kind of weak, but I tend to lean toward official English covers for dubs if they’re available, for maximum dub.

The project as a whole has always been based on the Japanese version; all of Kai Recut contains the Dragon Ball Kai logos from the Japanese version rather than the Z Kai logos from the international version.

I don’t know if I’ve mentioned it yet, but removing the “Z” from every single spoken instance in the English dub audio across the entire series was not a negligible amount of work.

Not at all trying to sound like I'm knocking milkman, but he could have saved himself a ton of effort if he just used the default Kai TFC video source and either removed the green tint himself or used the green-tint free(and stabilized at that) version that was posted online back in 2017.

That was my plan initially, but eventually the crowding of the 16:9 crop got to me too much, so I pivoted to 4:3.

What milkman did was astronomically hard because Toei, in addition to cutting filler entirely, also trims frames off of pretty much every scene left to make each episode fit a perfect 23:07 runtime.

Yes. From every shot, actually, but that's probably what you meant.

The problem is, you're not guaranteed to win with any of the DB footage that one can use and unless he wanted to wait and see what AB Groupe might've pulled off years down the line or for SoM to finally put out the CC DBox stuff of DBZ? This was the probably the best choice for HD DBZ in terms of necessity. It's not perfect certainly but for the sake of getting Boo Kai in 4:3 cut down to a reasonable length? It's a concession one has to deal with and I think compared to what could've happened? I personally am just glad we got it and have it still be high quality because now we're getting to the realm of finding the nits to pick.

This was more or less my thought process.

I especially don't think Milkman was running low on motivation the longer the project took and I don't think waiting for a AB Groupe or SoM cc release was going to increase the chances of the project getting finished. So the compromise seems justified, especially if he didn't trust his ability or patience to edit the Dragon Box manually (that's its own can of worms).

Also this.

Hats off to him for pulling it off, but dear god, it could not have been pleasant.

It wasn’t.

Posting back on the forums after 19 years to say, thank you, Milkman, for Dragon Ball Recut and Dragon Ball Kai Recut. Incredible project that fans who've been in it for a few decades would daydream about.

Have gone through DB and watching the show with my kids, who are experiencing what is arguably one of the best ways to watch this series.

Looking forward to going through Kai Recut, really impressive work to take dialogue from Z and from Super and work it in to fix the dub oddities.

Bravo after all these years, it's a lot of work of true fan passion!

Wow, 19 years! Thank you very much for the kind words, and it makes my day knowing that your kids are experiencing it this way.

I noticed something in the dub of DB Recut that I wonder if others also caught. There is newly recorded dialogue that you added, I think.

I caught it in the file for episode 71 of the dub. I only noticed it because I was playing around with reformatting /editing some of the episodes for myself using Adobe Premiere. I happened to see for this episode, the audio track for the dub was longer and kept going after the credits. And it had all these lines of Goku saying, "I could have sworn he died in that big explosion," referring to Tao Pai Pai, spoken multiple times, like voice acting.

I thought at first it was Sean Schemmel and somehow there was a mistake made from Funimation in that they left his own recorded dialogue on the DVD track. But not only is that not likely, after some careful listening I noticed it's not Sean but someone else sounding very similar. Then I went back to the actual episode section and there it was. At one point, Goku's dub dialgoue is re-dubbed, with what I'm assuming is fandub.

Digging up the dubtitles for this episode from opensubtitles.org confirmed, it was to replace this line (sub translation added for comparison):

Funimation: There was a big explosion, and then he was gone.

Recut: I could have sworn he died in that big explosion.

Subtitles: I could have sworn I beat him!

Doh! Looks like I missed an exporting error, lol. Thanks for bringing it to my attention.

As others have pointed out, KalsKingdom is the one who re-dubbed those lines. Very talented guy.

And for anyone curious, I had to work the words "big explosion" in there because Tao Pai Pai's very next dubbed line (in Recut after the excised filler flashback) directly responds to Goku saying "big explosion" thanks to Funimation's re-written dialog. If they had stuck to the original dialog, there wouldn't have been a problem.

I could see why this specific dialogue was re-recorded. You would think the word bride would have been kept, but Funimation's removal of the promise and what they added in was one of the many poorly written lines throughout this era of its dub for Dragon Ball.

You nailed it, that was exactly why I couldn't use the word 'bride' because, if I remember correctly, Funimation's dub never actually uses the word 'bride' anywhere before this exchange. The closest I could find was during a filler sequence where Chi Chi asks Goku about marriage, so I took that dialog and pasted it over their initial exchange so that the flashback during this sequence now actually references something relevant to the present discussion taking place and makes the joke work.

But it's interesting that this was even done at all, because your write up mentioned that you didn't focus too much on the dub for DB Recut. Yet here's an effort to re-record some very specific dialogue.

I decided to clean up the dub a bit for the v2 release and fix all of the inconsistencies that I was aware of that were either a result of my editing, or Funimation's meddling.

There are a few dub lines in recut that don't work with the context removed, one that's stuck in my mind all this time is when Roshi tells the story of Mutaito sealing away Piccolo and Oolong says "where did you say those mountains were again?" - no mountains had been mentioned because those lines had been removed.

Damn, looks like I missed one. I guess I’ll have to try and fix this for the v3.

Milkman did redub a few lines himself for Kami disguised as Shen/Hero. I don't remember which lines they were though.

I don't believe I ever specified what they were since I don't want attention drawn to them, lol. I can't remember if there was more than one line that I redubbed myself, but the reason was to remove any instance of Shen/Hero/Kami/God unambiguously referring to himself as an alien, which he did not know at this point, but Funimation liked pointing it out in their re-written dialog.

I've often wondered about the viability if using AI voice changing to fix some of the worst dubisms.

As have I. As have I…

I think with a properly trained vocal model, it could work, and I’d like to try it. It would also open the door for some mind-blowing fan-dubs, which I’d also like to try, but that’s if I ever find the time.

So since Milkman has seemingly abandoned this for the time being, can we expect someone to make a v3 with the AB bluray footage once volume 2 comes out?

It's not abandoned, he's just not redoing Dragon Ball until AB finish their release.

Definitely not abandoned. The main holdup recently has been my busy life, and also a bit of exhaustion, but I absolutely plan on updating DB Recut. Initially I was just going to use AB's footage like Ajay said, but since SoM's release has come out, I think I'll probably do two different versions: one using SoM's color corrected footage, and another using AB's upscale, and hopefully in a way that won't be much more work.

I have no timeline for this. Things have to settle down in my own life first before I can really dive into it, but once I begin, it shouldn't take long. Updating isn't nearly as difficult a thing to do as, say, replacing Kai's footage shot-by-shot.


As for DBZ Recut… It’s something I’d still like to do, but the way in which I want to do it, if I want to do it right, may not be something I have the time or energy for anymore.

If I went about it in the same way that I went about editing DB Recut, then it actually wouldn’t be too difficult. However, that would involve basically leaving the English dub track as-is, which I’ve thought about doing just because it would be so much less work… but I really really hate Z’s English dub, and I’d like to do what I can to keep it from ever being heard again.

So what I want to do with the dub would be what I’ve said in the past—use Kai’s dialog and sort of remaster the soundtrack so it doesn’t sound like it’s being played through a potato. But that involves much much more work on my part, if it’s even possible. The thing about Kai’s English dub is that, with the quicker cuts, they had a tendency to overlap dialog a lot, which would make syncing it up with Z’s footage very difficult. This is my theory, anyway. I’ll probably end up giving it a shot with the first few episodes to determine the viability of it, and then go from there. AI might help there too, who knows.

Anyway, that’s where I’m at. Thank you to everyone who’s watched and enjoyed Boo Kai Recut, and Kai Recut as a whole, really. Though it’s not as popular as DB Recut, I’m proud of what I was able to do with it. Maybe in a future post I’ll point out some cuts I’m particularly proud of, but for now, after literal months of drafting this post, I’ll leave it at thank you.

[Aspiring-Creator]

Anyway, that’s where I’m at. Thank you to everyone who’s watched and enjoyed Boo Kai Recut, and Kai Recut as a whole, really. Though it’s not as popular as DB Recut, I’m proud of what I was able to do with it. Maybe in a future post I’ll point out some cuts I’m particularly proud of, but for now, after literal months of drafting this post, I’ll leave it at thank you.

Honestly man, you could just easily stop right here and I think you'd be just fine. You put in so much effort into this project and in a way that really paid off. Genuinely, your editing work on this series is scary in how clean and seamless it is and it's resulted in what is going to be my de-facto way to rewatch this series. Hell, it's so good that frankly I haven't seen a reason to go back and watch the OG Kai. So whatever rest you need to take? Absolutely take it, you've more than earned it.

[Shaddy]

Thanks for all your hard work, Milkman. Rest assured that lots of us are still here following your edits, they make enjoying Dragon Ball a much less daunting task. Obviously I'd love to see Kikuchi's work and Z's corrected footage properly recut, but like aspiring-creator, I wouldn't blame you for stopping now. You've earned your rest and then some, the lengths you went to to make these flow as well as they do shouldn't be ignored.

[jrdemr]

As for DBZ Recut… It’s something I’d still like to do, but the way in which I want to do it, if I want to do it right, may not be something I have the time or energy for anymore.

If I went about it in the same way that I went about editing DB Recut, then it actually wouldn’t be too difficult. However, that would involve basically leaving the English dub track as-is, which I’ve thought about doing just because it would be so much less work… but I really really hate Z’s English dub, and I’d like to do what I can to keep it from ever being heard again.

So what I want to do with the dub would be what I’ve said in the past—use Kai’s dialog and sort of remaster the soundtrack so it doesn’t sound like it’s being played through a potato. But that involves much much more work on my part, if it’s even possible. The thing about Kai’s English dub is that, with the quicker cuts, they had a tendency to overlap dialog a lot, which would make syncing it up with Z’s footage very difficult. This is my theory, anyway. I’ll probably end up giving it a shot with the first few episodes to determine the viability of it, and then go from there. AI might help there too, who knows.

Given that Kai is effectively the definitive way for dub fans to enjoy a faithful translation (and that you personally don't like the "Z" dub yourself), why don't you just focus on the original JP version for Z? Will probably be a lot less work for you.

That way, both fans of the definitive Japanese release and the best English dub can enjoy the story without any filler, albeit with different versions.

You could just wait for SoM to finish their color correction (and rest up in the meantime) and then tackle it when it's done.

(Can you tell that I really, really, really want a Dragon Ball Z Recut? No? Okay, then.)