Well, making any new show in general costs a lot of money and time, and it's not like Toei couldn't afford to do it if they wanted to. Plus, DragonBall is perpetually profitable, at least in Japan I gather. So why not?obiwan23s wrote: And for those saying "they should've just remade the whole show," get real. That would cost an insane amount of money and would've had to have been planned out over a longer period of time, and definitely wouldn't have made it on TV as fast as Kai did. A completely re-animated DBZ will never happen short of Steve Jobs or Donald Trump funding it.
Yes, I must say I'm one of the people who wishes they would have created an all-new show. In fact, before we ever had news of Kai, I had actually contemplated the concept of how cool it would be to do a remake anime and when I first heard about Kai, I thought it would be along those lines. But of course it quickly became obvious that that would not be the case since it was being released so quickly.
Personally, I would be thrilled about a complete revamp of the DB/Z anime faithfully based on the manga, with all-new, top-notch animation like we see in the Kai openings and the recent "Son Goku and His Friends Return" special. That would be the bomb-diggity. I don't think it's entirely out of the question a few decades down the line. Furthermore, I think the concept of repackaging DragonBall with a new title and everything would make a lot more sense in that context. Kai, on the other hand... well, let's be honest, it's basically just digitally altered old footage slapped between new theme songs and eyecatchers.
That being said, I'm still very excited about Kai. I totally love the opening and ending theme songs and especially the gorgeous new animation for them. The vibe is very relevant and contemporary, with bouncy, upbeat pop songs. I never really liked the bizarre "Zenkai Power" closing song of the original series, so the update is welcome. However, I think we can all agree that "Cha-La Head Cha-La" will live on.
I was disappointed at first with the decision to re-crop the picture into widescreen, considering what a fiasco that turned out to be with Funimation. However, the effect is not nearly as disturbing due to the selective reframing work that Toei so wisely executed, plus the picture appears to be considerably extended on either side (from what I can tell with the naked eye). Thus the visual composition is almost never disrupted, with a few minor exceptions. I was quite pleased with the result.
I think the high-definition remastering job looks beautiful and clean overall. But I wish they would have stilled the little bit of jitter that remains in the footage. And earlier in this discussion, someone brought to our attention some screenshots that had some lousy retracing work on them; it’s striking how bad these moments look as frozen frames (little Goku looks rather like he’s wearing eyeliner as he’s leaping through the trees). Still, I hardly noticed these issues as they flew by during the episode, because most of the artwork looks truly renewed and effectively refurbished. Again, Kai is miles above the shoddy auto-remastering job of Funimation’s infamous “orange bricks” (which, by the way, really isn’t so bad as the seasons progress). It was absolutely stunning to not see a single black speck or white grain amongst the smoothly-enhanced colors.
And speaking of colors, I really don’t get all this previous chatter about colors from the DBox release being better than the colors from the Funimation release or vice versa, or some such thing. Colors, colors, colors. Isn’t that merely relative? It just depends on your own perspective. Plus, what’s the basis of comparison? Who of us, being the viewing audience, is to say how the original colors were actually intended to be like? Maybe I just feel that way because I’m not extremely technologically savvy. Nonetheless, the “colors” in Kai look wonderful to me, as does the overall picture clarity.
Moving on, I absolutely loved how the episode moved along so quickly. I am completely supportive and excited at the notion of removing filler and increasing the pace of the DBZ story for DBK. I’ve been re-watching DBZ recently, and I find it annoying that the pacing is so profoundly awful and slow at some parts. This concept of a faster, manga-faithful re-cut of the show definitely flies with me. Indeed, if Kai continues to be satisfactory in this respect as more episodes are released, I have a feeling it will replace Z for me when it comes time to once again revisit the anime. That means I can just sit on my ass for about 40 hours instead of 110 hours.
So, there it is. DragonBall Kai has begun. Admittedly, we’ve got a lot more to see before we can render a final verdict, but judging by my first impressions of the first episode, I approve.
