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

[MistaL]

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.)

Well I think it's also an issue of wanting to give viewers an option to enjoy a good English dub with the original Kikuchi score. There isn't really a completely great English dub experience if you only have the Yamamoto and Sumitomo scores (though I do really like the Yamamoto score for quite a few tracks)

[jrdemr]

Well I think it's also an issue of wanting to give viewers an option to enjoy a good English dub with the original Kikuchi score. There isn't really a completely great English dub experience if you only have the Yamamoto and Sumitomo scores (though I do really like the Yamamoto score for quite a few tracks)

I mean, it's not like I don't get why you'd want a good dubbed version of Z specifically, it's just that if I have to choose between a Japanese-only version of DBZ Recut that IAmTheMilkman can comfortably do, or an extremely labor-intensive version that will just make him not want to do it at all... I'd pick the JP-only version in a heartbeat

(Also, with the JP-only version as a basis, someone else can just tack on the English dub later and make the definitive dubbed version of Z separately).

[DefinitiveDubs]

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.

I have to echo the statement that a small handful of cuts are noticeable. The one that stuck out the most to me was the encounter with Buu while Goku and Vegeta are inside him. Buu is out of the floor and Goku and Vegeta get ready for the filler fight with him, but then it hard cuts to Goku injured and kneeling, Buu right in front of him and in the floor again, and Vegeta elsewhere. I think it would've been better to leave in at least a little of the filler fight, because that was very jarring.

[FutureGohanSSJ2]

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.

I have to echo the statement that a small handful of cuts are noticeable. The one that stuck out the most to me was the encounter with Buu while Goku and Vegeta are inside him. Buu is out of the floor and Goku and Vegeta get ready for the filler fight with him, but then it hard cuts to Goku injured and kneeling, Buu right in front of him and in the floor again, and Vegeta elsewhere. I think it would've been better to leave in at least a little of the filler fight, because that was very jarring.

I wonder if, in the same way that IAmTheMilkman had lines redubbed, we as a community could help out IAmTheMilkman with some of these scenes. If anyone is an animator, or knows one, maybe we could help out Milkman with a sort of Kai-style reanimated scene that would fix Goku's injuries, position, where Vegeta is, etc. That would definitely fix the issue, and make it more manga accurate at the same time.

[IAmTheMilkMan]

I have to echo the statement that a small handful of cuts are noticeable. The one that stuck out the most to me was the encounter with Buu while Goku and Vegeta are inside him. Buu is out of the floor and Goku and Vegeta get ready for the filler fight with him, but then it hard cuts to Goku injured and kneeling, Buu right in front of him and in the floor again, and Vegeta elsewhere. I think it would've been better to leave in at least a little of the filler fight, because that was very jarring.

This is probably the one cut in the Boo arc I was most concerned about, lol. It was really tough to make it work. I'd have to pore over the material again to remember my exact reasoning for not simply shortening the filler, but from what I recall there was no way to do that, and the only alternative was leaving all of the filler in, which really took the wind out of the pacing's sails, not to mention that it's all so stupid and pointless and undermines Vegeta's intelligence by making it look like his plan to pull Fat Boo out was basically spelled out for him over the course of several events instead of him realizing it for himself.

However... in my defense...

I didn't "hard cut" quite like you're suggesting. In fact, there's a lot of not hard-cutting going on here.

1. First, Boo tells Goku and Vegeta that they can't beat him, not as they are now.
2. We then go to a shot of Goku reacting to this in a way that suggests he realizes that Boo's right. They can't beat him in their current state.
3. Upper body shot of Boo facing the camera raising his arm and preparing a Ki blast.
4. Close-up side-profile shot of Boo's hand with the Ki moving closer to Goku's face, who is now sweating because, again, he realizes that they can't beat him and that the situation is currently hopeless.
5. The next shot is of Goku's legs as he kneels. He clearly kneels. He so kneels here.
6. Extreme close-up of Boo laughing.
7. Here's where it gets dicey because, yes, this next shot is from a distance where we see that Boo is, indeed, back in the floor. Couldn't really be avoided. In my head, he sunk back down into the floor as Goku kneeled to keep his hand level with Goku's face. That said, the last time we saw a full body shot of Boo (i.e. a visual reminder that he was out of the floor) was almost a full two minutes (1min50s) prior, separated by a sequence of Satan and Dende outside of Boo's body, so it's not as jarring as it could be.
8. We then hear Vegeta offscreen, followed by reaction shots from Goku and Boo who look in Vegeta's direction to find him holding Fat Boo. At this point, there has been plenty of time during these close-ups of Goku and Boo for Vegeta to have gotten in position.

Now, I'm not saying that you don't have a point. It's certainly not as smooth as I'd like it to be. But I think that maybe your critiques are at least a little influenced by being very familiar with the material that was cut, and to suggest that I just said "fuck it" and hard cut between all this feels a little unfair as an editor, so I just wanted to say my piece for the sake of my pride, lol.

Thinking back now, it might have helped to have Goku say something like "He's right" just to drive the point home that he understands the situation to be hopeless, and I wonder if I could have pulled that off.

Reanimated shots like FutureGohanSSJ2 suggested, or something similar to make it so Boo never leaves the floor would be ideal, but I obviously didn't have anything like that on hand. I actually did painstakingly frankenstein together some shots for Kai part one using existing elements to help with cuts, but I didn't see a way to do that here.

[DefinitiveDubs]

We then go to a shot of Goku reacting to this in a way that suggests he realizes that Boo's right. They can't beat him in their current state.

While I can see Goku coming to that conclusion, I can't see Vegeta doing so, at least not immediately. He's clearly raring up to fight Buu regardless of the power difference, which fits the pride of his character. Him suddenly changing his mind to do something more tactical seems out-of-character for him.

We then hear Vegeta offscreen, followed by reaction shots from Goku and Boo who look in Vegeta's direction to find him holding Fat Boo. At this point, there has been plenty of time during these close-ups of Goku and Boo for Vegeta to have gotten in position.

While that is true, there's a logistics problem: Vegeta was standing right next to Goku the entire time before he decided to get into position. Surely Buu would've noticed Vegeta suddenly moving towards Fat Buu, who was only a few feet away. He can't be that fixated on Goku.

There's also a slight issue with the spacing of the scene. Fat Buu is right behind Goku and Vegeta at the start, and according to your cut, Goku never moves. But when we eventually cut to Vegeta tugging on the pod, it's clearly off and to the left of where Buu and Goku are.

Now, I'm not saying that you don't have a point. It's certainly not as smooth as I'd like it to be. But I think that maybe your critiques are at least a little influenced by being very familiar with the material that was cut, and to suggest that I just said "fuck it" and hard cut between all this feels a little unfair as an editor, so I just wanted to say my piece for the sake of my pride, lol.

You're right, and I didn't mean to imply that. My point was just that I didn't think it was as smooth as it could've been. So I'd like to offer a suggestion:

At the start of the filler fight, there's a short moment where Goku and Vegeta attempt to attack Buu, but he punches them away in opposite directions. This only lasts about 10 seconds, where the scene ends with this shot:


Cutting here instead accomplishes several things:

1. Vegeta is now behind Buu, so now Buu not noticing Vegeta's movement towards Fat Buu is a bit more believable.
2. Goku is already on the ground, without the need for a shot where he kneels (the shot where he kneels doesn't quite hide his hand being outstretched from the filler).
3. Both Goku and Vegeta are physically reminded that Buu is right, and it's communicated visually without the audience needing to infer what those characters are thinking.
4. Since there was some movement, the issue with Fat Buu's location is now fixed.

As for Buu being back in the floor, sure, you could leave it as-is and say that Buu just wants to get eye-level with Goku...but I think a better solution (though more difficult) would be to keep the shot(s) where he rises from the floor, and edit out Goku's outstretched arm. It's more believable to me that Buu would sink into the floor and rise in front of Goku just to be creepy, rather than sinking just to get level with him. It would also show Buu getting up close with him onscreen, rather than offscreen, where the last shot he was in showed him a fair distance away.

[Kakkaroto735]

I have a quick soundtrack related question. For that first half of Kai Recut, did you reinsert unused Yamamoto tracks at all? The soundtrack definitely did need a little more variety at parts.

[Kulilin]

Thank you Milkman for your terrific work! I got my 11 year old brother into Dragonball largely using your fan-cut of the series. We watched Dragonball Recut, followed by Yamamoto Revival for Kai episodes 1-99 and then watched your version of Final Chapters. I actually think the Fullscreen FUNi BluRay was a good choice! I generally prefer Dragonbox but I think the footage you went with looks more similar to the first 2 seasons of Kai and a switch to the Dbox in the 3rd season might’ve been a bit jarring. Also, your cut of the Boo arc literally came out like 2 days before we finished the Cell Saga. Impeccable timing!

[BootyCheeksJohnson]

We're you able to take out that one sound error with the Kaioken X20 in Kai? When Goku goes to punch Freeza in both the Japanese and English dub a punch sound effect is played when Goku swings at Freeza even though his fist never makes contact.

[BotellaSolan]

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.)

Exactly.

Virtually all of the people who want Milkman's DBZ recut at this point, are specifically waiting for the original Japanese edit. Most people who grew up with DBZ in English couldn't experience the original music score, so even if people who wanted his Z recut in English did exist, they would account for a very tiny percentage of his fans, since like you said, his Kai recut is essentially the best way to experience the dubbed show.

So, yeah. If he needs to rest, so be it, but if he does have the strength to make a Japanese-only recut, then I doubt even three people would complain about it.

[Shaddy]

...I want Kai recut's dub with Kikuchi's score and the original colors.

[DefinitiveDubs]

I would much rather see a total redub effort of the OG for this edit, on Kai's level, since Funimation doesn't seem to care enough to do it themselves. I would be much more willing to watch Kai's dub if its quality wasn't limited to the second half of the story, because OG's dub is mediocre at best. The few redubbed lines are nice, but they're just not enough.

[MistaL]

I would much rather see a total redub effort of the OG for this edit, on Kai's level, since Funimation doesn't seem to care enough to do it themselves. I would be much more willing to watch Kai's dub if its quality wasn't limited to the second half of the story, because OG's dub is mediocre at best. The few redubbed lines are nice, but they're just not enough.

Honestly I'd love to just see the whole series redubbed by a different studio with a different cast with the goal of trying to present Toriyama's Dragon Ball as faithfully as possible. I can't hear Nadolny or Schemmel and think "That's Goku!" (though I do think Clinkenbeard was a really good Gohan and would love to hear more of her as Goku); the only English language Goku I think really got close to Nozawa in any way is Kelamis in the Pioneer movie dubs, though he wouldn't work as both kid and adult Goku like Nozawa does. I hope Ocean's Kai dub gets released someday and who knows, maybe if it's well received or performs well we could get more Ocean DB dubs--what we know of their Kai dub sounds even more faithful than Funi's Kai dub and it'd be great to see something like that actually come out.

[Aspiring-Creator]

I really wish we'd get a proper redub but honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if that's something they'd have to chat with Toei and Shueisha about. Personally, I'm just happy to watch OG DB, DBZ and DBGT subbed while for Kai, Super or whatever modern material I can consume the dub.

[Fizzer]

Does anyone have a list of the dub fixes in DB Recut? I'm really interested in looking them up but I don't want to compare to the OG scene by scene

[Fizzer]

Does anyone have a list of the dub fixes in DB Recut? I'm really interested in looking them up but I don't want to compare to the OG scene by scene

I found a few by looking for what I thought were some of the most problematic dubisms.

Spoiler:

Goku and Chichi's childhood conversation about marriage is now actually there and not a plot hole.
Piccolo no longer claims to have fought "all over the universe".
Goku's adulthood proposal to Chichi is now worded like the Japanese - this one I knew about from other comments.

I haven't confirmed it, but I'm guessing other references to Piccolo and Kami being aliens are gone too then.

I really am in a pinch again in terms of the best version of the series. The SoM CC version is stunningly beautiful to look at, but the edits here are so smooth and the flow is so natural!

[SaiyamanMS]

I really am in a pinch again in terms of the best version of the series. The SoM CC version is stunningly beautiful to look at, but the edits here are so smooth and the flow is so natural!

I’ve actually recently started work on my own edit of the series using the SoM CC. Not all of my cuts are quite as smooth as Milkman’s, I’ve been a little more ambitious about cutting more filler though. All of my episodes are shorter than the equivalent Milkman ones so far. Just finished editing Goku and Krillin’s training under Roshi.

[Fizzer]

I’ve actually recently started work on my own edit of the series using the SoM CC. Not all of my cuts are quite as smooth as Milkman’s, I’ve been a little more ambitious about cutting more filler though. All of my episodes are shorter than the equivalent Milkman ones so far. Just finished editing Goku and Krillin’s training under Roshi.

What are people using to make these kinds of cuts? I did some dabbling (mostly with Z) with Da Vinci Resolve but I think it's probably overkill, and I was fine with timeline cutting but messed up on exports with resolutions/file sizes/subtitles/multiple audio tracks.

Gives me a huge amount of respect for the people that can actually do this huge scale projects like this - the actual cuts aren't even the hard part!

[SaiyamanMS]

I’ve actually recently started work on my own edit of the series using the SoM CC. Not all of my cuts are quite as smooth as Milkman’s, I’ve been a little more ambitious about cutting more filler though. All of my episodes are shorter than the equivalent Milkman ones so far. Just finished editing Goku and Krillin’s training under Roshi.

What are people using to make these kinds of cuts? I did some dabbling (mostly with Z) with Da Vinci Resolve but I think it's probably overkill, and I was fine with timeline cutting but messed up on exports with resolutions/file sizes/subtitles/multiple audio tracks.

Gives me a huge amount of respect for the people that can actually do this huge scale projects like this - the actual cuts aren't even the hard part!

Da Vinci Resolve is what I’m using for my cut. I had a little difficulty with some of the same things you mentioned when exporting at first, but I’ve since solved it. I’m exporting with only one audio track at a time and adding dual audio to a single file with MKVtoolnix. Also handling the subs in Aegisub as opposed to Resolve itself.

[Falter]

Hey I am really sorry if this has been answered but I tried to scroll though and couldn't see,

Massive fan of the Kai recut, is Boo done and where is a link for it?
I had been so looking forward to the Boo saga and hadn't been on here for ages, took a brief look and I was like,
WHERE WHERE WHERE WHERE WHERE?????
And again, it is tremendous what you have done