The end of the Majin Buu arc revealed?!

[Hujio]

So I decided this needed its own topic, but I recently did a little digging into Fuji TV's upcoming schedule, which they've established up thru the first week of April. There will be no episode on 2/22, for Kai or One Piece, and the 148th episode of Kai is scheduled to air on 4/5 (Toriyama's birthday, again!). So we know there will be at least 148 episodes. However, that only leaves 7 episodes of Kai to cover the remaining 28 episodes of Z, well I suppose 24 if they remove the four remaining filler episodes. Lately each Kai episode has been covering roughly 1.5 episodes of Z, so it isn't exactly flying along at a real fast pace right now.

At this point, to finish things out in 7 episodes, they'll pretty much have to cut out a ton of stuff so they can cover at least 3 episodes of Z per episode. But who knows what they'll cut or keep, so really, I have no idea what the hell they're gonna do. Also, the upcoming 4th Blu-ray box set will contain episodes 135-146, so depending on how many more episodes there are Toei will either add an extra disc on 4th box set or we'll be getting a 5th box set. Although I can't really see Toei making a 5th box set unless they have at least 10 more episodes beyond the 148, and I don't see that happening either.

On top of all that, we also have to consider the ending themes. As we learned last March, Toei decided to divide up the ending into quarters, giving us four ending themes:

• "Dear Zarathustra" (Episodes 99-111) = 13 episodes
• "Pure Heart" (Episodes 112-123) = 12 episodes
• "Oh Yeah!!!!!!!" (Episodes 124-136) = 13 episodes
• "GALAXY" (Episodes 137-ongoing)

Assuming these quarters are divided up equally, the fourth ending theme ("GALAXY") will have been used for 12 episodes with episode 148. So either they'll have to break their original plan and add another ending theme, or extend this one out, if they end up adding more episodes. So now I'm just totally confused when Kai is going to end. The evidence is pointing all over the place. But, based on how Kai has been handled since day once, I'm guessing they're going to rush cut it the rest of the way and end it with episode 148 on April 5th (now watch me be completely wrong).

[Rocketman]

Kai is edited so Vegetto kills Buu.

[Lord Beerus]

Kai is edited so Vegetto kills Buu.

KaiserNeko must be rolling in his grave at how horrible Dragon Ball Z is being edited.

[Kid Buu]

Kai is edited so Vegetto kills Buu.

Imagine if it ended when Super Buu kamikazed himself against Gohan, and in this version it just destroys the entire universe alongside heaven and hell.

[Ajay]

Kai is just one great product. Great.

Splice in Goku throwing a Genki Dama at the people in charge of this shit.

I'll take that as an acceptable way to end the series.

Hey, maybe they can use that apocalyptic track appropriately, for once?!

[JulieYBM]

Yeah, ChibiGoku and I were thinking this would be how things will work out the other day on Twitter. Digimon Adventure tri needs somewhere to air, so my guess has been that it will air in the 9AM slot, breaking up the JUMP duo. World Trigger is going to be fifty episodes, so it's not likely that its slot will be given back to Digimon, so this makes the most sense, unless the franchise changes to a third channel, TV Toukyou.

It is kind of weird for a Dragon Ball show to not air when during a month when a new film is coming out, but the same did happened with the 2013 film. Hopefully we can get another TV special, at least.

[Theophrastus]

If the Japanese version ends at episode 148, that means the Japanese version will only have 50 episodes versus 69 for The Final Chapters. A 19 episode difference.

That would be kind of crazy. The latter portion of the Buu arc in the anime padded the fuck out of everything (one chapter per episode pacing + filler even after the manga had already ended), so I can see it being feasible to cut all that fat and still reach the end somewhat coherently, but unless they spent the cash to animate some brand new bits to make the transitions as seamless as possible (hah) it'd probably look super disjointed and awkward.

[Valerius Dover]

Kai is edited so Vegetto kills Buu.

KaiserNeko must be rolling in his grave at how horrible Dragon Ball Z is being edited.

Wait, what!? What happened to KaisnerNeko? I didn't hear about this!

[Lord Beerus]

Kai is edited so Vegetto kills Buu.

KaiserNeko must be rolling in his grave at how horrible Dragon Ball Z is being edited.

Wait, what!? What happened to KaisnerNeko? I didn't hear about this!

[Chuquita]

Maybe they won't show all the episodes, just end it wherever that week's episode falls, and go "if you want to see the ending, buy the dvd/blu-rays!"?
Kai is so bizarre. I did end up dropping it (I think I stopped somewhere around daylight savings time) but I was still curious to see where it was going.

[Valerius Dover]

Joke: Oh, thank goodness, you had me worried for a second. I still don't really get the joke, but whatever.

So, I'm not sure what to think of this Kai situation. It could go either way, really. I think the fastest way to find out would be to keep an eye on the international version in comparison to the Fuji TV cut, which sangofe is doing.

[NitroEX]

Wouldn't surprise me if they just omit the Oob stuff entirely.

[Bananape]

Sarcasm =/= Internet

You can't expect everyone to get what is obviously your inside joke.

[Valerius Dover]

^Nah, it's cool. That gif sums everything up other well. That's what autism does to you, I guess.

[NinjaGoku]

This theory is just a guess but I think somewhere along the line Toei decided to have Dragon Ball Kai on air during the launch of the new 'F' movie.

At the very beginning we assumed JPN Kai would be roughly 52 episodes (makes sense if you split each of the endings and ending on the spring anime season) with the international version being 69 episodes.

What I think will happen now is that we will see an episode count much closer to 69 episodes for JPN Kai, it's quite noticeable that they've stopped editing as much content as they did at the very start, 1.5 ratio doesn't seem a lot.... so my guess is that JPN Kai has been on par with the international version for some time now to extend the series longer than they first intended.

I mean how much have they cutting out of JPN Kai in comparison to the international Kai recently? We would need someone that's been paying attention to the international version to get an estimate.

[Valerius Dover]

^From what I understand, the two versions have remained the same since around the time the Z Fighters left the tournament.

[DBZ_Lee]

I mean how much have they cutting out of JPN Kai in comparison to the international Kai recently? We would need someone that's been paying attention to the international version to get an estimate.

Since JPN Kai episode #107 (which matches "The Final Chapters" #16) - there has been no difference in footage - the episodes have matched exactly.


Here's my guess - I have been keeping a very close eye on both versions. The opening 15 episodes of "The Final Chapters" were condensed into 8 (giving us a difference of -7). This was when Toei were intending on halving the 92 - they got this far, but then their minds changed when Fukkatsu no F was confirmed to be released in 2015.

There was a comment made by Nozawa (in a Nikkan Sports article) stating that the series had been halved - this comment was later (very oddly) removed.
No one knew why they would remove the comment, but it makes sense now - at that time the movie had not been made public, and Nozawa wasn't wrong, it was that Toei (along with Fuji TV) had changed their minds - and not kept the VA's in the loop.

Now, we know for a fact they are taking at least one more break, which, if they are indeed cutting no more, would take us right up until the last Sunday in June - the 28th. The decision to Simulcast with France, was, (at least for me anyway) a declaration that cutting was completed.
I could be completely wrong, but to cut 19 episodes down to 7 would result in an even worse outcome than the awful Great Saiyaman episodes at the start of the Majin Buu Arc of Kai on Fuji TV.

I wouldn't put anything past Toei at this point, but I'm fairly confident there will be a fifth set announced very shortly - containing the final 14 episodes 147-160.

[NinjaGoku]

Your post says it all DBZ_Lee, well figured out, I'm positive that will to be the final air date.

Another giveaway is that ending #3 featuring Gotenks doesn't match up too well with the episodes he featured in, Gotenks was in the midst of fighting Buu when the ending switched to #4.

[sangofe]

Joke: Oh, thank goodness, you had me worried for a second. I still don't really get the joke, but whatever.

So, I'm not sure what to think of this Kai situation. It could go either way, really. I think the fastest way to find out would be to keep an eye on the international version in comparison to the Fuji TV cut, which sangofe is doing.

So far, the latest french dubbed episode is exactly the same as the last japanese episode that's been aired.

[DBZAOTA482]

^Nah, it's cool. That gif sums everything up other well. That's what autism does to you, I guess.

I'm autistic too but I still got it. I was (jokingly) gonna post the same thing you did.

I figured they did that ending for Galaxy cuz they ran outta ideas.