How do you feel about 4kids version of DBZKai?

[Cure Dragon 255]

One good thing I think they did was air DBZKai on Toonzai.Sure it was pretty censored, but the plot was intact, only some redubbed lines and edits made to a uncut material. No skipping episodes, no silly jokes or altered music. If they treated One Piece like they did DBZKai I would have had no problems with them. And the whole idea of Toonzai, it was to be a kid friendly Toonami but that dang lawsuit killed any third party interest (They were going to ask other companies to air their anime).

I still wish someone got around to bringing back Saturday Morning Cartoons and anime.

[Tanooki Kuribo]

I think the edits were a bit much sometimes, but it definitely wasn't as bad as the edits we got back in 1997. Back then the show was edited to be suitable for 3 year olds.

[TheBalishChannel]

I liked the 4Kids version of Dragon Ball Z Kai simply because it was different. It's always fascinating to me to see the permutations between the edited and uncut versions of anything Dragon Ball; especially in this case because not only was it TV-only, but the additional edits were added solely by the network. Hearing Sean Schemmel having to imitate Chris' Vegeta and Piccolo voices in order to scrub out potentially offensive dialogue is hilarious and unique.

Watching Dragon Ball Z Kai on Toonami now is just pointless. I might as well just pop in a Blu-ray and binge-watch a couple episodes. DVR'ing the NickToons, 4Kids, and Vortexx broadcasts meant that you can preserve a version of the show that probably won't ever be released, let alone air again at all.

[TheBlackPaladin]

Well, I think we need to make a distinction between "edits" and "adaptation choices."

The reason I say this is because 4Kids was infamous for many instances of both, although I noticed that most fans have a tendency to group them together under the collective term, "edits." So, for whatever it's worth, here's how I personally define them.

Edits: Visual and audio censorship (audio censorship in this case referring to replacing sound effects, like replacing a gun shot with a laser blast).
Adaptation choices: Mostly dialogue adaptation, but we can also put changing the music in this category I suppose.

A decent amount of people have defended 4Kids by saying, "The edits were mandated by TV networks, they had to do them." In the case of the edits, yes, in many cases that was true. In the case of adaptation choices, though? It seems they made a lot of unnecessary changes to dialogue just for the sake of "sounding cool" and appealing to kids (or, at least, thinking they'd appeal to kids). I understand that some visual censorship is mandated by TV networks, but apart from death references and a few swear words, those odd (and, many times, cringe-worthy) adaptation choices in the dialogue and stories were not mandated by TV networks.

The point I'm trying to make is, even if they had to visually censor some things, remove swearing, and remove direct mentions of death and killing, they could still make good adaptation choices like keeping the dialogue faithful overall and keeping the original music, and it would not have hurt the final product...and that, perhaps, is what I find most interesting about the 4Kids version of Kai: it was proof of this.

The highest-rated show in the Toonzai block was also the most faithfully-adapted one. It was proof that 4Kids was wrong. It was proof that, in spite of a few necessary edits here and there, you could still produce a faithful dub, with the original score, and it could still work. For that matter, it not only proved 4Kids wrong, but it proved FUNimation's old way of thinking wrong.

As for the 4Kids version of Kai itself, I felt it was decent enough. Like I said, it was a faithful emulation of the original Japanese version, in spite of its edits. Although, to this day, it contains some of the oddest edits I've ever seen in an anime. Adding sparkles to Chaotzu's death, turning halos into glowing balls, removing Shenlong from the opening sequence after a few episodes (for what, just in case some dragons decide to file a lawsuit?), turning Popo blue....

BUT.....

By far...and I mean, by far...the most hilariously odd edit I've ever seen in anime history, occurred in the 4Kids version of Kai. I'm talking about this clip. Somebody at the 4Kids editing department thought Freeza had a...penis. As I've asked several times, how easily-offended are the people who mandate these edits? I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall in the editing department when they made that decision. Or heck, I'll settle for reading the memos that must have been sent to the editors.

[ParkerAL]

It's mostly only good for a few laughs, really. At the very least, it went through the 4Kids machine without coming out completely mangled, which is impressive. But it's hard for me to feel strongly about it one way or the other all these years later. The show doesn't continue to live with the company's scarring, unlike Pokemon.

[Ree]

haven't watched much of it but I might give it a shot.

[Darkton]

Better than the Saban-FUNi-Ocean dub since it has the same story without the dialogue changes of the latter. As someone earlier said, there's a difference between an edit and a change.

[TheBalishChannel]

haven't watched much of it but I might give it a shot.

It isn't on the air anymore.

[Tanooki Kuribo]

Well, I think we need to make a distinction between "edits" and "adaptation choices.

I don't think we do. I feel most adaptions are forms of censorship.

[jelleline89]

This belongs in the Kai section.

[TheBlackPaladin]

Well, I think we need to make a distinction between "edits" and "adaptation choices.

I don't think we do. I feel most adaptions are forms of censorship.

Well, the reason I felt like making the distinction is two-fold. Firstly, I feel there was a difference between the changes 4Kids legally had to make in order to get their shows on TV, and the changes they did not have to make but made anyway just for the sake of sounding "cooler" to their intended demographic. Secondly, every single dub ever made, even those with overall faithful dialogue, are adaptations. The vast majority of dub dialogue has been re-phrased in order to sound more natural with the on-screen character's lip movements. So it's not necessarily a matter of censorship.

[Kuririn Fan]

It did nothing but hurt Kai's reputation in the west. As far as the casuals knew, Kai was heavily edited, kid friendly version of once "epic" "dark" "mature" Z and without that fauloner bullshit.

[Cipher]

It did nothing but hurt Kai's reputation in the west. As far as the casuals knew, Kai was heavily edited, kid friendly version of once "epic" "dark" "mature" Z and without that fauloner bullshit.

Among adult fans maybe. But surely that's not the goal in wanting to get the series onto a network children's block. It's to get new kid fans (which is where most of the adult fans come from in the first place).

I can see a potential disconnect in that all home media releases were aimed squarely at adult consumers though. I'd like to think there was some rhyme and reason to the way FUNimation approached this and that numbers were on their side, but ... who knows?