Why is Kai disliked a lot/ not as popular?

[SaiyanLives]

Hey guys.

I always wondered why kai is not as liked/beloved as regular Z why is that?
I myself prefer Z cause i grew up with it and i love Z so much the more episodes the better so i do like filler..
I would think kai would be just as popular since it follows the manga and has the better dub and is redrawn but kai is not even in the same league haha i was just curious why that is anyone kno?

I'm from eu i recently started collecting dbz maybe once i own it all i might hunt down kai as well, i was thinking maybe watch kai on a crt would be cool experience? Lol

[MasenkoHA]

I don't know if its disliked. If you go on R/DragonBall on reddit the overwhelming majority of the users seem to prefer Kai over Z. At least that was my takaway

Back in the day Kai was widely hated because fans assumed the version on KidsWb was the actual version but that misconception died out a long time ago.

On this forum the fans who prefer Z (usually fans of the Japense version) and fans who prefer Kai (usually Funimation dub fans or have a loyalty to the Funi cast) seem pretty evenly split.

I will say the argument that Kai is better because its English dub is better than Z's English dub is a nonsense argument to me.

[jjgp1112]

Some of it has to do with how much of an obvious half-assed rushjob it was - the redrawn scenes, the shoddy music placement even prior to the Yamamoto scandal, the pacing that was too fast and disrupted the flow. Great English dub notwithstanding, it's just a mediocre product. Had Funimation gotten the original Z dub right in the first place, I'd say just about the only value Kai has is tightening up the mess that is Late Frieza saga.

And then you have Buu Kai, which is just a new mess in and of itself. And since the Funi Z dub had leveled up to acceptable by then, even the new dub isn't as strong of a selling point (and they even mess up a couple of iconic dub lines that were actually more accurate because they didn't want to recycle the same material)

[TheGreatness25]

Do people dislike Kai? I've seen fans recommending Kai over the original Z when asked which version is the best to show a new viewer.

I think for the fans that really wanted an accurate dub, Kai was like the greatest thing that Funimation ever did with the series. I don't think the series did much for the Japanese version, though. It's nice to have less filler, but it is messing with the classic story. Maybe it wouldn't be as underwhelming if everything was reanimated, but Toei essentially did what Funimation originally did to the series (redubbed, changed the music, and cut out a bunch of scenes). Maybe if everything was reanimated at least, it wouldn't force people to think of the original.

I think that Kai underdelivered because it was this big thing that just turned out to be pretty bland. This was Toei's version of remastering the series for Blu-ray, where they just blurred it.

I also know for me that I'm a nostalgic person--I recognize this; I admit this--and Kai came along too late in my life for me to develop an emotional attachment to it. Though, enough time passed that we do have a lot of fans who grew up with Kai.

And not speaking for the Japanese version, the English-speaking fans who grew up with Kai definitely grew up with the superior version than what my generation grew up with. But, nostalgia is nostalgia.

Anyway, Kai was a godsend for dub fans, lackluster for Japanese fans, and kind of didn't pull the trigger on being a true rebirth of Z.

[SuperSaiyaManZ94]

Some of it has to do with how much of an obvious half-assed rushjob it was - the redrawn scenes, the shoddy music placement even prior to the Yamamoto scandal, the pacing that was too fast and disrupted the flow. Great English dub notwithstanding, it's just a mediocre product. Had Funimation gotten the original Z dub right in the first place, I'd say just about the only value Kai has is tightening up the mess that is Late Frieza saga.

I mean, true it was something that Toei pretty much rushed out as a 20th anniversary celebration nod to Z back in 2009. That said while yes it is a mediocre product from a production/budget standpoint i'm glad that it exists due to having an actual good dub from FUNimation attached to it, due to the fact that much of the old dub of Z was horrendous trash.

[JulieYBM]

I can speak for only myself on the subject but I do not find the quality of the work to be particularly good. Morishita Kouzou's lame planning and lack of true support for a Dragon Ball remake led to a work that was poorly planned out and lacked the freedom that comes with hindsight by restricting the project to essentially twenty year old animation instead of hiring a team of creators and giving them the time and resources to create their own vision.

[WittyUsername]

As others have said, it’s a pretty mediocre rush job that was made simply to cash in on the 20th anniversary of the DBZ anime. It also couldn’t even really commit to the idea of staying more true to the manga, since it still kept a fair amount of filler, especially during TFC. The only worthwhile thing to come out of its existence was that it led to a better English dub from FUNimation.

[Koitsukai]

My first contact with it made me think that it was going to be a re-drawing of the entire series, so I was already bummed out from the beginning lol. But that's on me.

I hated the score, it just didn't make sense to me, I hated the recoloring, it was too close to the awful DBS colors, and nothing like Yo Son Goku's. The latin dub was also redone, and the guys just sounded too old, and some were replaced so that was a turn off.
It wasn't the animated manga experience I was sold, but it is much more fluid than Z. I never had a problem with the pace of Z, but it is easier to watch the SS vs Freeza saga on Kai.

But I could never get pass the new shading and the soundtrack. Also, the opening seemed more like a videogame opening.

[Trouser]

Because the redraws are ugly and looks like taken straight from MS Paint, because the music was plagiarised, and because the animations wasn't re-animated in the style of openings and endings.
And it should've started with OG Dragon Ball, not Dragon Ball Z portion of the manga.

And nothing can beat the original Dragon Ball Z anime. It has soul, it feels special, and nothing after its ending felt the same.

[JulieYBM]

because the animations wasn't re-animated in the style of openings and endings.

We dodged a bullet.

[90sDBZ]

I like Kai for what it is. It will never replace Z, but it's nice to have a condensed version to watch when you don't feel like watching Fake Namek for the 20th time. And the English dub is awesome.

The Final Chapters did leave too much filler in, has a green tint, and is 16:9, but I still enjoy the hell out of it, and find Sumitomo's score underrated. And Let it Burn is one of the best insert songs ever.

I'm sure there's countless people who wouldn't be fans without Kai, which justifies its existence as far as I'm concerned. For all its problems it made the show way less of a slog, and more accessible. Even though I prefer Z, I'd recommend Kai over it to newcomers as they'll be more likely to actually finish it.

[ABED]

Maybe it's just me, but I like that the show wasn't reanimated. I can more easily imagine what the DBZ in-house dub could've been like had they committed to accuracy from the beginning.

[Dragon Ball Ireland]

I don't think Kai is noticeably disliked, aside from The Final Chapters. The first 98 episodes are as well received as could be expected for what they are. We also need to remember Z was that case of lightning in a bottle, it was what became a pop culture phenomenon. Kai inevitably was never going to have the same magic, because it wasn't new. It brought in a new generation of fans (which I'm grateful for) but many of whom were likely already aware of Z from having older relatives who were fans decades earlier, leading to diminishing returns.

For the record I like Kai a lot, specifically as an alternate way of enjoying the same show, and watching a good Funimation dub. It's no replacement for Z, particularly for the Japanese casts performances and original Kikuchi score placement, but when I want to watch a better paced Freeza and Artificial Humans arc Kai gets the job done.

[Lord Beerus]

Looking back on Kai, it is very much serviceable if you're looking for decent performances and an accurate script from the FUNimation cast. But for those who were originally fans of the original Japan broadcast of the show (Dragon Ball Z), Kai is completely redundant.

Yes, Kai certainly benefits from having less fat in the plot compared to the bloated nature of the plot of Dragon Ball Z anime, making it a far more streamlined experience and the story much easier to digest.

But the huge negatives for Kai were made apparent with several lesser performances from some of the original seiyuu, a much more generic soundtrack, terrible editing, more censorship, awful redrawn scenes, and some of the iconic seiyuu from the Z anime not being in Kai or being able to stay for its entirety.

The nadar for Kai though has to be how the Majin Boo arc was handled. Good Lord... that shit was terrible. From awful remastering to the awful music, it was just a mess from top and bottom and it was very clear Toei didn't give a shit about Kai at that point.

Not to mention Kai exposed Yamamoto as a thief and a fraud as his score for Kai revealed his long catalogue of plagiarism across the Dragon Ball franchise, leaving a permanent black mark, not just on Kai, and Dragon Ball as a whole.

The redeeming factor of Dragon Ball Kai, for me personally, was the English dub. The work FUNimation work on that show was fantastic, for the most part.

[TheBlackPaladin]

I was amazed at how many fans didn't understand back when Kai was airing that the versions seen on Nicktoons and Toonzai were edited versions. I saw tons of comments to the effect of, "All the blood's gone, now it's for little kiddies!" I convinced a fair number of people to check out Kai simply by virtue of pointing out that it was uncensored on home video. One guy refused to and accused me of making it up.

I gave FUNimation a lot of flack at the time for not clarifying that more in their marketing (as in none of their commercials mentioned the home video version was uncut), but in hindsight, they did have a dilemma on their hands there: due to the nature of Kai being a cut of the show that was "closer to the manga"...well, if FUNimation said Kai was "uncut" on home video, that had the potential to confuse the casual fan. Like, "So do they mean uncut as in there's blood, or uncut as in all the filler is back?"

[coola]

For me, it's only when you are fan of English dub (And even that, its only until Freeza Saga, after that, probably due to various personal circumstances and Yamamoto scandal, it became sloppier):
- Very sloppy editing (especially during Saiyan Saga, if i remember correctly, they even replaced person who was responsible for edits)
- Redrawn scenes, that look like they were made in Flash in early 00's https://i290.photobucket.com/albums/ll2 ... aiep9A.png
- Japanese VA don't sound as amazing as they did in Z (When i heard Wakamoto as Cell, i was so sad...)
- Broadcast audio re emerging made even Kai stereo sound argument obsolete

[MasenkoHA]

..well, if FUNimation said Kai was "uncut" on home video, that had the potential to confuse the casual fan. Like, "So do they mean uncut as in there's blood, or uncut as in all the filler is back?"

I feel like they could have just as easily marketed it as the uncensored version of Dragon Ball Z Kai

[90sDBZ]

I was amazed at how many fans didn't understand back when Kai was airing that the versions seen on Nicktoons and Toonzai were edited versions. I saw tons of comments to the effect of, "All the blood's gone, now it's for little kiddies!" I convinced a fair number of people to check out Kai simply by virtue of pointing out that it was uncensored on home video. One guy refused to and accused me of making it up.

I gave FUNimation a lot of flack at the time for not clarifying that more in their marketing (as in none of their commercials mentioned the home video version was uncut), but in hindsight, they did have a dilemma on their hands there: due to the nature of Kai being a cut of the show that was "closer to the manga"...well, if FUNimation said Kai was "uncut" on home video, that had the potential to confuse the casual fan. Like, "So do they mean uncut as in there's blood, or uncut as in all the filler is back?"

To be fair, even uncut Kai has less blood in certain scenes, like the death of Goku and Raditz. Even in it's uncut form Kai still has instances were it's less graphic than Z, so it's easy to see were a lot of the confusion comes from. Like "Uncut Kai exists... it's just not quite as uncut as Z".

There's also the issue of Kai's edited TV versions being more heavily censored than Z's edited TV version (at least from Season 3 onwards). The inhouse Z dub broadcast actually left in a certain amount of blood, most of the brutal punches/kicks, and didn't shy away from mentioning death. Many episodes essentially aired uncut.

I haven't seen the Toonzai version of Kai, but I've heard enough to be glad I didn't. The Nicktoons US cut aired in the UK, and was my introduction to Kai. While infinitely better than the Toonzai version, it did remove most blood, hard hits, and reference to death. It actually ruined Goku vs Vegeta as a lot of the heavy blows were cut short or removed entirely. It basically stripped that fight of its meat. Even the Saban dub didn't go that overboard with censorship, opting to add stars or smoke to heavy hits rather than removing them entirety. Nicktoons Kai did get better over time though, with a lot of heavy hits left in during the Frieza fight.

I didn't start to fully appreciate Kai until I got it on Blu-ray, uncut with Yamamoto for the early episodes. It really was night and day compared to the broadcast. I think the US Toonami broadcast really went a long way in salvaging Kai's reputation in the US. I remember reading it was a ratings hit on there, and had many reruns.

[Trouser]

because the animations wasn't re-animated in the style of openings and endings.

We dodged a bullet.

Considering how crappy Super was, yeah, we did.

[JulieYBM]

because the animations wasn't re-animated in the style of openings and endings.

We dodged a bullet.

Considering how crappy Super was, yeah, we did.

Well, yeah, mostly because of poor scheduling and poor character designs. Not very many people want to work with Yamamuro Tadayoshi these days and I doubt it would have been any different in 2009-2012 as it was later on in 2015-2018. It's a real shame because there's a lot of good to salvage there if the project had just been properly produced from the ground up but unfortunately the greed of capitalism and the hubris of executives knows no equal.