Kai Episode 99 (06 April 2014)

[B]

After listening to them over and over, the opening is very DB-esque, and I like it for its familiarity. The new ending is not all that DB-esque, and I like it for its variety. Animation-wise, there's nothing special. I like SS3 Goku scrapping with Genuine Buu, particularly Buu throwing the... I forget if that pink ki ball has an official name or not.

[Gaffer Tape]

Well, had to check out Kai's return, especially since I'm so familiar with Z episode 200 (love the Saiyaman stuff, and it was one of my very first fansubs). So far, the new themes are pretty forgettable to me. Like someone else said earlier, I was a bit disappointed that Yamucha didn't fly off with everyone else. And while I love Tenshinhan and think he needs more exposure, I ended up scratching my head over his inclusion in the group shot at the end when he's barely in this arc at all.

As for the episode itself, not sure how I feel about the music. Haven't seen BOG, so I don't really know how it sounds there, but it just seems somewhat out of place here. Not entirely sure. It sounds very "animesque" if that makes any sense, but not very Dragon Ball-esque. But all that said, it mostly felt appropriate to the scenes. What I mean when I say out of place is that the timing of it seemed wrong, but maybe that's just because it's so different from how music was used in episode 200.

Glad to see I wasn't the only person who picked up on Sesame Street. As soon as that started, I immediately thought of it. Didn't think of the potential for plagiarism, though, for some reason. I guess I just usually dismiss small things like that as a fun coincidence and haven't really retrained my brain to think about it in Dragon Ball terms.

I felt it was edited pretty well. As familiar as I am with Z 200, I honestly didn't notice what they'd cut out. But they obviously cut a lot since they managed to fit an episode and a half in there!

As for the NEP, well, this is what I've been waiting for for years. Always wondered how they were going to handle the Saiyaman stuff, and, to my disappointment but lack of surprise, it just looks like a very heavily truncated version of the TV series without any attempts to make it like the manga with the exception of the jarring length.

[TheWhiz]

Gonna be the odd one here and say I actually loved the new music.

I liked the new score too. The intro & ending was pretty awesome.

[batistabus]

I really like the opening music, but the animation is pretty lackluster.

Nozawa is fantastic as always.

I absolutely HATE this background music. It sounds like the soundtrack to a flash RPG. Needs more (dragon) soul. It's also playing constantly, it rarely hits the mood of the scene, and no track really stands out. Hopefully the battle music later on is better.

I must've missed the news that Minaguchi wasn't coming back. I suppose her replacement is fine, but I'm really gonna miss her.

I feel similarly about the ending as I do with the opening. Great song, cheap animation.

The budget for this must have been pretty low, but if it means getting to hear these voice actors give it a shot one more time, I'd say it's worth my time.

New Kai music vs Sesame Street theme. This does not bode well =P

Yessssss. Let's get this guy out of here as soon as possible. I was excited to hear how he might do on the main series (I didn't like the score for the movie either), but it's actually affecting my enjoyment of the show. I know it's kind of soon to be judging it this hard, but at this point I'd much rather hear Kikuchi tracks re-inserted again.

[B]

If there is one thing that really bugs me about the ED, it's that it's only a minute long, and the majority of the song is screaming. They were really too cheap to add an extra 30 seconds of "animation" and the second verse? I use quotes because they're not really animating as much as they're moving the camera up and down and side to side.

[ThunderPX]

I liked the new score. The OP and ED songs, not so much. The ED instantly disappears from memory when it's over and the OP is a pretty generic anime intro. Tanimoto's voice is still obnoxious. I like the animation for both, though. I'm not sure if I like how much they "spoil", but they're nicely animated and don't linger on any blatantly off-model shots like Dragon Soul and YBCB did. The same can't be said for the eyecatches, which are awful but thankfully short by nature.
The remastering of the original footage is pretty bad. The Buu saga orange bricks actually look nicer than this.
I don't wanna sound too negative, but really, all the good stuff seems kind of too obvious. The pacing is fast without being rushed, the score isn't spectacular yet but unobtrusive and everyone's pretty on the ball with their voice performances. Videl's new VA took a bit of getting used to, but I warmed to her by the end of the episode.

As for the Sesame Street connection, well...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uruw8scbDCY&t=43m17s

[qjz123]

The remastering of the original footage is pretty bad. The Buu saga orange bricks actually look nicer than this.

I really don't see this I think it's the best the Buu saga has looked yet.
Comparisons between the dragon boxes and kai broadcast(downscaled for comparison)





I really like the colors I think other people complaining about a green tint are really blowing the issue out of proportion, it's nowhere near as distracting as the pink/reddish tint that plagued the Dragon boxes(the previous highest quality release).

[Ajay]

It's interesting to see how much just a little colour correction makes to the overall quality of the footage.



Apologies for the lazy screenshot.

[Puto]

You could've at least made it a little less blatant that you're screenshotting an illegal fansub, lol.

[Ajay]

You could've at least made it a little less blatant that you're screenshotting an illegal fansub, lol.

Considering we're all watching this via streams and torrented RAWs, there's absolutely no point in pretending that's not the case. As long as we're not sharing nor discussing that side of things on the site, it shouldn't matter whatsoever. It'd be an issue if it were available to purchase but it's not.

[Codarik]

Listening to the ending song again, it seems like an easy song for FUNimation to dub.

Also, during the ending, I personally don't like that group shot of everyone banged up and struggling, that is way overdone in anime openings/endings.

[RocktheDragon]

Listening to the ending song again, it seems like an easy song for FUNimation to dub.

Also, during the ending, I personally don't like that group shot of everyone banged up and struggling, that is way overdone in anime openings/endings.

Even though it might be overdone in anime in general, I thought seeing it in DBZ was pretty unique and different. Very "non-DBZ", is I guess what I mean.

[KentalSSJ6]

Saw the whole episode. Gotta say its very promising. Nozawa's Gohan was pretty good and I liked the "engrish" moments when she spoke.

Filler has been way cut down and the musical score is pretty good as well, definitely a step up from the horribly overused Kikuchi tracks that plagued the Android/Cell saga.

[bkev]

It's interesting to see how much just a little colour correction makes to the overall quality of the footage.



Apologies for the lazy screenshot.

Funny how much better this simple balancing looks. How does the rest of the episode fare with these kinds of adjustments?

[SSJ3_Zack]

The opening was okay (Animation wise it's terrible) but I do really like the song and cannot wait for a full version to be released. The score is a bit well... Weird to say the least. I don't know why but it reminds me of the score for the Pokémon
Ruby & Sapphire games. The reggae beat that played when Son Gohan hid from Videl made me laugh, it just seemed out of place. It's only the first episode so for now I'll give it a chance.
I'm more interested in his score placement for the battles (Hopefully no overdoing it with the chanting). But dear Kami Dear Zarathustra is pretty terrible in my opinion, luckily it'll be replaced soon enough.

One thing I can't believe how fast they got through the high school material though (Even by Kai standards it seemed to go by so fast). Videl is way too cute sounding in my opinion but Nowaza was great as always. Truth be told I'm happy that I can follow a DragonBall product weekly once more.

[coola]

Didn`t watch episode yet, but, i watched opening and ending, and, while i liked opening vocal, ending song was meh, it is just me, or Tenshinhan looked like Majin?

[GarrettCRW]

It's interesting to see how much just a little colour correction makes to the overall quality of the footage.

Spoiler:

Apologies for the lazy screenshot.

Funny how much better this simple balancing looks. How does the rest of the episode fare with these kinds of adjustments?

That's the fansub I watched as well, and the color timing is pretty good with that adjustment, but I found the restoration to be a bit too aggressive, as everything looked a bit fuzzier than the previous Kai episodes. The music was extremely meh to me, but I'll wait until we get some serious action until I start to make a judgment.

Videl's new voice sucks. And not in a, "I HATE TOM SERVO'S NEW VOICE!!!" way, either.

[Ajay]

Funny how much better this simple balancing looks. How does the rest of the episode fare with these kinds of adjustments?

Yeah, it's pretty crazy. Here's a few more comparison shots:

1:

Spoiler:

Original:

Fixed:

2:

Spoiler:

Original:

Fixed:

3.

Spoiler:

Original:

Fixed:

As you can see, some parts are exceptionally green while others are a lot more subtle. It's so insanely easy to fix that it's quite mad that it wasn't done during the remastering process. The only reason I can think of is that whoever did the colour timings may have been working on a poorly calibrated monitor.

...everything looked a bit fuzzier than the previous Kai episodes.

Honestly, I feel like that's just a result of the low bitrate encodes. Each Kai episode on the Blu-rays came to ~3GB an episode whereas this is ~600MB. That's a huge difference so I don't think it's quite fair to judge the clarity of the product until the official release.

[JackyBoi99]

Just watched the episode and it was great . I liked the colour balance and the score wasn't bad.

Can't wait for the next episode

[TheBlackPaladin]

Man....I keep going back and forth on how much the green tint bothers me. I think it looks worse in still pictures than it does in motion, but man, seeing those ("insanely easily") color-corrected pics really makes me roll my eyes at the restoration process. I get that this was a low-budget effort, but damn.....I mean, with those color adjustments, I dare say that's the best I've ever seen DBZ footage look.