Folks have already started describing these as “Saban-era” edits, and that may very well be an accurate description.
As predicted, the Nicktoons website is streaming clips of the English dub of Dragon Ball (Z) Kai, which appear to be from the censored broadcast version. In the first clip (of several linked on our forum), we can clearly see not only is the blood removed from Bardock’s face, but also his iconic scar:
 Japanese Kai Broadcast |
 US Nicktoons Broadcast |
Kame-Sen’nin is also rocking a nice, poorly-colored, frosty glass of… uhh… white something, which definitely reminds us of the good ol’ days back in 1996:
 US Nicktoons Broadcast (Kai) |
 US Syndicated Broadcast (Z) |
We dislike this just as much as the rest of you, trust us. In the case of Bardock’s scar, it may simply be an unfortunate necessary evil in order to properly remove the rest of the blood on his face. It makes one wonder, however, just how much will be edited to justify an “uncut” release, similar to “Season 3” VHS releases that had minor verbiage adjustments that seemed to do little more than, as noted, merely “justify” the existence of both an edited and uncut version. Will the dreaded “next dimension” rear its ugly head yet again? Some buddies have already told us that things like “death” will not be mentioned, along with plenty of other dialogue changes…
This is a different case than back in 1999, however, with the edited version being produced exclusively for Nicktoons, rather than a simultaneous home release alongside an uncut version. It is important to note that the home releases on DVD and Blu-ray will be fully “unedited”, and that word (finally) holds true for even the dialogue on the English dub side of things now that the series is being treated the way it is. Furthermore, the original Japanese version will always be there intact. If you care about the series to the degree that we do, the home release is probably what is most up your alley. That is essentially the only version we are interested in and will not extensively be covering the TV broadcast from this point forward. The nice thing about it not being 1999 anymore is that there are no worries about which version(s) will be available for a home release!