Which is better for introducing people: Kai or the Original?

sangofe · Post by **sangofe** » Thu Jul 30, 2009 2:47 am

Big Momma wrote:So, let's say you have a friend who you want to get into Dragon Ball. Would you show them the original DBZ anime, or would you show them Kai? Which one would be a better starting point?

No doubt about it: Dragon Ball Movie 4: Road to strongest if you want to go for movies, or Dragonball without the Z or Kai for the series.

Li'l Lemmy · Post by **Li'l Lemmy** » Thu Jul 30, 2009 2:55 am

Why is this even a question? I don't typically press my opinion this much, but in this case I'm adamant-- screw Kai, and screw Z; DragonBall, or at least some variation thereof (like Path to Power or the 22nd Tenkaichi Budokai as a starting point) is a mandatory prerequisite before any spacepods come crashing down. It's bad enough that we as fans didn't get to watch the series in order when it first arrived on our shores; now that we do in fact have the option to see it all unfold from beginning to end, it shouldn't even be a second thought as to what needs to be introduced first.

DragonBall first, everything else second.

~Da Lemmy

SaiyamanMS · Post by **SaiyamanMS** » Thu Jul 30, 2009 3:09 am

Li'l Lemmy wrote:Why is this even a question? I don't typically press my opinion this much, but in this case I'm adamant-- screw Kai, and screw Z; DragonBall, or at least some variation thereof (like Path to Power or the 22nd Tenkaichi Budokai as a starting point) is a mandatory prerequisite before any spacepods come crashing down. It's bad enough that we as fans didn't get to watch the series in order when it first arrived on our shores; now that we do in fact have the option to see it all unfold from beginning to end, it shouldn't even be a second thought as to what needs to be introduced first.

DragonBall first, everything else second.

~Da Lemmy

This man speaks much logic. Listen to him.

100% agreed, quoted for absolute truth in the matter.

Kendamu · Post by **Kendamu** » Thu Jul 30, 2009 4:17 am

Just from my personal experience, people usually say, "Nothing is happening. When is something actually going to happen?"

From that perspective, I would show them Kai.

However, if I were amongst someone who knew more about Shounen and filler and could tolerate it better, I would go with Z because it's already complete and we could watch the complete series before Kai was finished.

Post by **Herms** » Thu Jul 30, 2009 4:52 am

I agree with Lemmy. Heck, the original DB anime moves at much faster pace than Z, so starting there gets around the whole problem of filler as well.

Cold Skin · Post by **Cold Skin** » Thu Jul 30, 2009 8:23 am

As several people said, I guess you have to go through Goku's youth to properly introduce someone to the world of Dragon Ball. But to me, it's obviously the manga that has to be used for that part, the TV series should be avoided for the same reason as Z.

When arriving to Goku's fatherhood, I guess the person would have either the choice of continuing the manga or watch Kai. Absolutely not Z because every single non-fan (and even some fans like me) will run away in just a few episodes for its slow pace (with a hurting jaw because of the constant yawning).

Kai has an excellent pace which makes a major move forward in every episode, closely following the manga despite a few minor fillers left, making it much more entertaining and fascinating than the original. Basically, it evolves as a normal TV show. Plus more impressive graphics, better opening/endings, no oldish music... Much better-suited for non-fans.

SSj_Rambo · Post by **SSj_Rambo** » Thu Jul 30, 2009 3:28 pm

If you're looking to just get someone pumped about the series (especially younger kids, I've learned) just show them some of the badass AMV's that are out there. Then move them onto some of the climactic episodes, maybe some movies, and then see where they're wanting to go from there.

Senzu_Bean · Post by **Senzu_Bean** » Thu Jul 30, 2009 4:32 pm

Kai for sure. Unless do you want little kids screaming and cutting their wrists at the stupidity of fillers I would suggest Kai.
But the original Dragonball is needed to know the story.

Dr. Casey · Post by **Dr. Casey** » Thu Jul 30, 2009 5:05 pm

Cold Skin wrote:When arriving to Goku's fatherhood, I guess the person would have either the choice of continuing the manga or watch Kai. Absolutely not Z because every single non-fan (and even some fans like me) will run away in just a few episodes for its slow pace (with a hurting jaw because of the constant yawning).

The Cell Saga might benefit in some ways from Kai (Although I think Z will be much better overall every step of the way) - the mid-saga island battles are easily my least favorite part of Dragon Ball - but the Saiyan arc? Nah. The Radditz battle is shorter than the one against Piccolo, so the person would be fine with Radditz if they didn't find Piccolo to be tedious, and I love the huge chain of filler for training against the Saiyans (Which, if I remember right, is the second longest bit of filler in the entire series, losing to Garlic Jr. and beating out the 23rd Budokai training). It's somewhat slow, but in a good way - these episodes are depicting a wait of one year. I like how at the very beginning there's a feeling of insulation from the conflict because Vegeta and Nappa are still one year away, but with each episode the battle draws slightly nearer and the feeling of dread builds. They're also just entertaining episodes in their own right. The rest of Z vs. Kai I don't feel quite as strongly about, but for the first 20 or so episodes, Z has the advantage by a mile.

Big Momma · Post by **Big Momma** » Thu Jul 30, 2009 7:20 pm

The only reason I don't have the original is because I completely didn't put into play the fact that a lot of people here aren't from America >.<

DBZ is a lot more widespread and popular here in America, and since Kai is just a shorter vesion of Z, I just wanted to know which of the two would be a better choice, even though the manga or original Dragon Ball are clearly favorites.

DemonRin · Post by **DemonRin** » Thu Jul 30, 2009 11:07 pm

Z was actually good in the Saiyan arc because it focussed most of the filler on Throwaway episodes in the middle of the arc. You could skip those episodes and have a good shorter version of Z without having to edit anything.

The Part where Kai will REALLY begin to shine will be Namek. From then on, Kai's gonna look LEAGUES better.

Onikage725 · Post by **Onikage725** » Thu Jul 30, 2009 11:30 pm

Ok, on Kai... I gave up about 5 or 6 episodes in, but I keep seeing comments about its great manga-centric pace. Does that actually start happening? Cuz I ditched it due to the equal opportunity slicing of content. Quick case in point. In the manga, we first get a glimpse of Gohan's potential when he's in the pod. Raditz's scouter flares up, he thinks it's broken. It sparks up again for Goku and Piccolo, and when they actually do show, he realizes it isn't broken and starts to wonder about Gohan. Kai has most of that, but cuts out the final part where Raditz starts putting two and two together about Gohan. In exchange for that important but very small amount of time, we got to keep 10 minutes of Gohan-lost-in-the-wild filler in ep 1.

Not the filler-free, manga-perfect edition I keep hearing about. So please, Kai fans, point me to where I can obtain *your* copies of the episodes. Cuz mine are just DBZ The (unfunny) Abridged Series.

And for a starting point... it's all been said, but Dragon Ball is the proper entry point. You could maybe get away with showing Path to Power, giving a synopsis of the Budokai missed, and jumping straight to the Tenshinhan stuff. By Daimao, the pace is pretty intense. The last saga may as well be Z. Let them experience some of the martial arts and the mysticism before jumping into *speed line* *speed line* *BOOM* *blast duel* with the sci fi back drop.

Kendamu · Post by **Kendamu** » Thu Jul 30, 2009 11:50 pm

Onikage725 wrote:Ok, on Kai... I gave up about 5 or 6 episodes in, but I keep seeing comments about its great manga-centric pace. Does that actually start happening? Cuz I ditched it due to the equal opportunity slicing of content. Quick case in point. In the manga, we first get a glimpse of Gohan's potential when he's in the pod. Raditz's scouter flares up, he thinks it's broken. It sparks up again for Goku and Piccolo, and when they actually do show, he realizes it isn't broken and starts to wonder about Gohan. Kai has most of that, but cuts out the final part where Raditz starts putting two and two together about Gohan. In exchange for that important but very small amount of time, we got to keep 10 minutes of Gohan-lost-in-the-wild filler in ep 1.

Not the filler-free, manga-perfect edition I keep hearing about. So please, Kai fans, point me to where I can obtain *your* copies of the episodes. Cuz mine are just DBZ The (unfunny) Abridged Series.

So you gave up right after watching the hardest parts to condense because there wasn't a lot of filler there to begin with but they had to do something to make it seem faster so people wouldn't just say, "This is just DBZ with new music," or something similar, eh?

Try watching maybe episodes 12 through 16. Those are pretty good.

DemonRin · Post by **DemonRin** » Fri Jul 31, 2009 12:09 am

I didn't even think the things that were removed from those episodes were all that bad.

They mostly only removed redundancy.

Like they told you Son was an Alien in their "Dragon Ball Recap" thing in the beginning, so they removed most of the Mysterious talk from Raditz about Kakarott because he repeated himself several times, and the mystery wasn't as impactful because you already knew about it.

They showed Gohan's Potential several times, so they just expunged a few of them to remove redundancy.

But yeah, the real part where Kai shines is in the Episodes where Filler was originally Rampant.

Just wait till Namek. I have a feeling DBK Namek's gonna be LEAGUES Better than Z.

Adamant · Post by **Adamant** » Fri Jul 31, 2009 2:21 am

sangofe wrote: No doubt about it: Dragon Ball Movie 4: Road to strongest if you want to go for movies, or Dragonball without the Z or Kai for the series.

Eh, I don't think the movie is a particularly good introduction. It's so fast-paced and covers so much material someone unfamiliar with the material it's readapting would just get lost.

And yeah, episode 1 is absolutely the place to start. Seriously, the idea of starting with DBZ episode 1 wouldn't even have entered your head hadn't the American distribution of the series been so ass-backwards, and had the anime just been called "Dragonball" all the way through, episode 154 wouldn't ever have been considered a viable starting point. Not only is it in the middle of an ongoing plot regarding Piccolo, but it also deals with all the heroes save for Goku banding together to fight off the new threat, only to prove powerless, which will be completely lost on someone who don't already know these characters. "Why would the series bother spending a ton of episodes introducing and following a bunch of new characters if they just ended up being fodder anyway? Where's the main character we're supposed to be watching?"
Starting with "Dragonball Z" only makes sense if you're after "rargh super duper awesome fighting and blood and laser beams and hair and extreme", in which case you might as well just start with the Vegeta/Ginyu Tokusentai/Freeza/#18/#17/Cell/Buu/whatever fight.

Captain Awesome · Post by **Captain Awesome** » Fri Jul 31, 2009 2:31 am

One thing I will never understand about American fandom is how despite being so heavily into the show, they are quite happy to skip over 154 episodes and four movies.

I can kinda understand Pilaf and Red Ribbon, but once you reach the 22nd Tenkaichi Budokai DB is action packed.

Kendamu · Post by **Kendamu** » Fri Jul 31, 2009 2:40 am

Captain Awesome wrote:One thing I will never understand about American fandom is how despite being so heavily into the show, they are quite happy to skip over 154 episodes and four movies.

I can kinda understand Pilaf and Red Ribbon, but once you reach the 22nd Tenkaichi Budokai DB is action packed.

Looking at the order the Japanese Dragon Boxes were released, fans in general are willing to skip over Dragonball and go straight to Z.

Captain Awesome · Post by **Captain Awesome** » Fri Jul 31, 2009 2:52 am

Kendamu wrote: Looking at the order the Japanese Dragon Boxes were released, fans in general are willing to skip over Dragonball and go straight to Z.

I can understand purchasing out of order, but never looking back at the original series even out of curiosity?, people call themselves "hardcore" fans when they don't even know the entire story.

It's always seemed a little odd to me is all.

Big Momma · Post by **Big Momma** » Sat Aug 01, 2009 4:12 am

Captain Awesome wrote:
Kendamu wrote: Looking at the order the Japanese Dragon Boxes were released, fans in general are willing to skip over Dragonball and go straight to Z.
I can understand purchasing out of order, but never looking back at the original series even out of curiosity?, people call themselves "hardcore" fans when they don't even know the entire story.

It's always seemed a little odd to me is all.

A lot of people in America don't even know that they don't know the entire story.

Aikachi · Post by **Aikachi** » Sat Aug 01, 2009 4:17 am

Most of my friends that haven't already seen any Dragonball aren't really into anime at all, so if I was to go about getting them into it, I'd probably start with the FUNimation dub of Z. Ideally you could start a person off with the manga or the original Dragonball anime, but it'd be a couple hundred episodes of 'so, when does he go into space and start blowing stuff up again?' if they were even willing to sit through it. So yeah, I'd start with the english dub of Z, unless they were already doing the fansub thing, then I'd start them out on the subs. It's always hilarious hearing someone's first reaction to Goku's original voice. "HE SOUNDS LIKE A WOMAN!!" I suppose they expect the muscle-bound savior of the world to sound like a macho man

I often wonder how many fans following the original manga when it first came out dropped their books screaming 'NOT CANON!!!' when they found out Goku was an alien.

Kanzenshuu

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