Kai coming to Hulu on July 1, 2023

[Dragon Ball Ireland]

For anyone interested, only season 1 listed so far. Both the original Kai and The Final Chapters.

Only "Dubbed" is listed, but most fans seem to prefer the show that way.

[OmegaRockman]

WHAT?!

YES!!! KAI FANS WINNING!!!

Sorry, I forgot myself there a bit. I'm rather excited for this news. I've wanted Kai to have a streaming home for longer than a lot of people realize. Finally I can recommend Kai to new people and have a legal place to point to for them to watch it instead of having to tell them they'll need to buy the Blurays.

[M16U3L2015]

I thought it was coming to Crunchyroll, here in Latin America Crunchyroll has just added in the last few months both Kai and The Final Chapters with dub only.

For some strange reason, the episode titles are in English even though only Spanish and Portuguese dubs are available.

[MasenkoHA]

For anyone interested, only season 1 listed so far.
Only "Dubbed" is listed, but most fans seem to prefer the show that way.

I'm gonna guess that they're just releasing all of Kai and all of TFC under "one season" each

[wjbraden]

Interestingly, the dubs of the new reboots of Digimon Adventure and Dragon Quest are also coming to Hulu on exactly the same day. Seems Toei must've cut a deal. Maybe they're really, truly starting to ease up on their reluctance to streaming...

[MasenkoHA]

. Maybe they're really, truly starting to ease up on their reluctance to streaming...

I dunno where this "Toei is reluctant to have their properties available on streaming" idea came from but it's never been a thing. Multiple Toei IPs have been readily available on pretty much every streaming platform imaginable.

As to why it took so long for Kai to finally be available for streaming? Who knows but it wasn't because Toei was anti streaming

[wjbraden]

. Maybe they're really, truly starting to ease up on their reluctance to streaming...

I dunno where this "Toei is reluctant to have their properties available on streaming" idea came from but it's never been a thing. Multiple Toei IPs have been readily available on pretty much every streaming platform imaginable.

As to why it took so long for Kai to finally be available for streaming? Who knows but it wasn't because Toei was anti streaming

Well, I should say for Dragon Ball anyway. Kai hadn't streamed anywhere in the world until just last year, I'd say that's definitely intentional on their part. Lest we not forget how Dragon Ball Super didn't have a streaming deal in place until over a year into its broadcast.

In the case of the dubs for World Trigger's latest seasons, Digimon Adventure: and Dragon Quest: The Adventure of Dai, they've only been available via digital download (in the U.S. anyway), which is a rather unusual strategy in the current anime market where everything streams immediately. The One Piece dub is even dropped in batches for digital download and held from streaming for a time.

My theory is that Toei still has a vision to put their shows on cable TV, to reach a "mainstream" audience with ad revenue stream behind it (which may be viable in other countries, but obviously isn't in the US anymore, as the only channels that still show anime are Adult Swim, Disney XD and the channel that only 5 people get, Primo TV - which was the home of World Trigger season 1's dub at first mind you). Jason Demarco of Adult Swim even said on twitter a while back that Toei practically begged them to air the show on their block again last year.

And if/when they can't get a TV deal in place, they go to the next "premium" option, which is digital download, where the consumer directly pays the most per pop. This stuff finally going to streaming like it should tells me that they're maybe starting to change their policy on things. All theories though, having been following this stuff for years. Toei will be Toei and will march to the beat of their own drum time and time again.

[Dragon Ball Ireland]

My guess is that when TOEI wrote up the contracts for Kai in 2009 they weren't so keen on having it streaming out of a misguided fear about it leading to a surge in piracy, which is not what they wanted for Z's 20th anniversary, so included a clause for it to not be available on any VOD platforms, at least at that time.

Conversely now that Kai has come and gone in most territories and bringing back Super (no longer the hot new Dragon Ball show) isn't a high priority TOEI is looking for more ways to grow their profits from old content. It's probably the same reason the movies have just been announced to stream in various countries, TOEI tried and succeeded in getting them on TV, they're available physically, this is just one more way to squeeze a little bit more out of them.

Hell, TOEI even announced when Dragon Ball Z became available on Hulu back in 2011 just under a month before the second level set was released, by which point the series had been on Toonami, most fans probably owned at least one copy, so it was one more option that hadn't been tried by that point.

[wjbraden]

My guess is that when TOEI wrote up the contracts for Kai in 2009 they weren't so keen on having it streaming out of a misguided fear about it leading to a surge in piracy, which is not what they wanted for Z's 20th anniversary, so included a clause for it to not be available on any VOD platforms, at least at that time.

Conversely now that Kai has come and gone in most territories and bringing back Super (no longer the hot new Dragon Ball show) isn't a high priority TOEI is looking for more ways to grow their profits from old content. It's probably the same reason the movies have just been announced to stream in various countries, TOEI tried and succeeded in getting them on TV, they're available physically, this is just one more way to squeeze a little bit more out of them.

Hell, TOEI even announced when Dragon Ball Z became available on Hulu back in 2011 just under a month before the second level set was released, by which point the series had been on Toonami, most fans probably owned at least one copy, so it was one more option that hadn't been tried by that point.

Yep, that all checks out. I think something else that might've affected their decision to not stream Kai and other anime for a long time was due in part to the One Piece simulcast leak that happened in Spring 2009 (which, long story short, was when someone found what was meant to be the first English simulcast episode of the show, or any Toei property for that matter, on Funimation's server early, and leaked and circulated the episode before it even aired in Japan, causing them to suspend any sort of simulcasting for several months).

Maybe had that little snafu never happened, Toei would've been more open to streaming earlier like the rest of industry was.

[MasenkoHA]

I haven't bothered to check for myself but apparently Hulu did upload all of Kai and TFC which seemed pretty expected to me.

Also to the surprise of literally nobody it's Kikuchi Kai. I've nevee seen Kikuchi Kai for the first 52 episodes so I might check it for curiosity sake.

[DB1984]

If the entirety of Kikuchi's BGM had been converted to digital, this would be forgivable. But because it hasn't, and it's pretty clear that it hasn't (don't even get me started on the false advertising that was the "Great Complete Collection" from 1994), it leaves a lot to be desired.

[DHM211]

100% expected the Kikuchi score for Kai so not really disappointed on that front. I don't know why I had hopes of the green tint getting fixed but forgot how ugly raw Kai TFC is. The color correction edit from a few years back is still the only way to enjoy Kai TFC.

Spoiler:

On a side note, at least the audio-sync issue for TFC was fixed in this version.

[MasenkoHA]

100% expected the Kikuchi score for Kai so not really disappointed on that front. I don't know why I had hopes of the green tint getting fixed but forgot how ugly raw Kai TFC is. The color correction edit from a few years back is still the only way to enjoy Kai TFC.

Spoiler:

On a side note, at least the audio-sync issue for TFC was fixed in this version.

Between the green tint, only existing in widescreen, and leaving about half the filler in, I think it's safe to call TFC a complete and utter trainwreck

[DHM211]

100% expected the Kikuchi score for Kai so not really disappointed on that front. I don't know why I had hopes of the green tint getting fixed but forgot how ugly raw Kai TFC is. The color correction edit from a few years back is still the only way to enjoy Kai TFC.

Spoiler:

On a side note, at least the audio-sync issue for TFC was fixed in this version.

Between the green tint, only existing in widescreen, and leaving about half the filler in, I think it's safe to call TFC a complete and utter trainwreck

It’s not nearly as polished as Kai part 1, but I still prefer it to Z. Even though it leaves some filler in, I felt like the worst filler got removed (Debura turning into an Angel ). Some Bui saga filler was actually great, cutting SSJ2 Goku vs Kid Buu would have been criminal.

The dub is also light years better than Z which I can’t bring myself to watch. The 16:9 for TFC never bothered me because how far Toei zoomed out and the selective cropping was really well done.

[OmegaRockman]

Things I noticed:

- The audio in the opening and NEP in Episode 1 sound kinda funky, like something went wrong while re-editing/re-encoding the episode for streaming. And the episode is indeed slightly re-edited; they corrected the opening in Episode 1 using the Japanese logo (Dragon Ball Kai without the Z) to be the US logo. That was something a lot of people noted when the home release came out back in 2010.
- They used the Nicktoons TV masters for some episodes. I looked through them all because I'm a crazy person, so I can tell you it affects the following episodes: 2, 3, 5, 6, 9, 27, 54, 59, 60, 61, 65, 67, 71, 73, 76, 80, 82, 88, and 97.
- While checking for which episodes used the Nicktoons masters, I noticed that the Closed Captions on Episode 37 are a subtitle translation for the Japanese track and not proper CCs for the dub (I assume the Simmons subs). There may be more examples of this; this is just the one I caught.

[MasenkoHA]

- They used the Nicktoons TV masters for some episodes. I looked through them all because I'm a crazy person, so I can tell you it affects the following episodes: 2, 3, 5, 6, 9, 27, 54, 59, 60, 61, 65, 67, 71, 73, 76, 80, 82, 88, and 97.
- While checking for which episodes used the Nicktoons masters, I noticed that the Closed Captions on Episode 37 are a subtitle translation for the Japanese track and not proper CCs for the dub (I assume the Simmons subs). There may be more examples of this; this is just the one I caught.

Wait...they just straight up used the edited version mixed in with the uncut version?

Holy shit the level of incompetence

[Danfun64]

Can someone explain to me why ep 71-98 are missing? Every other episode appears to be present and accounted for from Kai 1.0 (ep 1-70) and Kai TFC (99-167/all 69)

[sangofe]

Things I noticed:

- The audio in the opening and NEP in Episode 1 sound kinda funky, like something went wrong while re-editing/re-encoding the episode for streaming. And the episode is indeed slightly re-edited; they corrected the opening in Episode 1 using the Japanese logo (Dragon Ball Kai without the Z) to be the US logo. That was something a lot of people noted when the home release came out back in 2010.
- They used the Nicktoons TV masters for some episodes. I looked through them all because I'm a crazy person, so I can tell you it affects the following episodes: 2, 3, 5, 6, 9, 27, 54, 59, 60, 61, 65, 67, 71, 73, 76, 80, 82, 88, and 97.
- While checking for which episodes used the Nicktoons masters, I noticed that the Closed Captions on Episode 37 are a subtitle translation for the Japanese track and not proper CCs for the dub (I assume the Simmons subs). There may be more examples of this; this is just the one I caught.

Sounds like a huge mess...

[GhostEmperorX]

Already knew that this would be a botched release somehow, there was just no way around that massive scandal during the broadcast.

If the entirety of Kikuchi's BGM had been converted to digital, this would be forgivable. But because it hasn't, and it's pretty clear that it hasn't (don't even get me started on the false advertising that was the "Great Complete Collection" from 1994), it leaves a lot to be desired.

It's more of a "stereo vs. mono" thing rather than "analog vs. digital", but yes, even that album was part-stereo, part-mono.
Unfortunately, none of the JP soundtrack albums featuring his BGM released at any time ever give any credits relating to the recording sessions, which includes the recording, mixing, and mastering engineers or studios, because then we'd know who's responsible for even going near mono (especially considering the time period, it's inexcusable). Just about nothing else from back then suffers from this problem.

[DB1984]

Besides the title card, eyecatches, and NEPs, what other Yamamoto tracks were leitmotifs of others? The ones I mentioned were leitmotifs of Dragon Soul and both 1.0 ending themes.