Now that we have had time to digest the first commercial for Dragon Ball Kai, we are ready to dive in and pick apart what little we have to go on.

Big thanks to Taku and Snaku for spreading the word and providing up some screen shots to compare with. The below comparison shots showcase the differences between the Dragon Box masters and what was presented to us in this first commercial for Dragon Ball Kai:

With this image, you can see that a bit of the top and bottom of the screen have indeed been cropped for the new presentation. Like FUNimation’s releases, there is also additional footage on the sides to help bring it into the new 16:9 aspect ratio. However, take a look at the next shot:

Drastically different from FUNimation’s own faux-“remastered” releases (which are a dead-on-center cropping), it appears that Dragon Ball Kai will actually be selectively re-framing the shots to focus in on the most important visual information. As you can see above, the cropping is shifted from the center all the way up to the top of the screen.

While an HD version of the trailer did make its way online, I think it is important to wait until the actual TV broadcast of the full show to comment on things like colors, and even for a little additional commentary on the cropping. At a quick glance, however, it does appear that the colors have been adjusted, though they are much softer and consistent in tone than FUNimation’s over-saturation adjustments. The softness carries over to the upscaling, which is not nearly as sharpened (causing a loss of detail) as FUNimation’s.