What is DragonBall Kai?

[SuperAndroid11]

I've heard a lot about it, but I don't quite know what it is or if it's any good. Is it just another dub?

[ohaimynameiserik]

Dragon Ball Z with 90% of the filler removed, new voice performances, a far better English adaptation, and arguably the best visual quality of the footage to exist which rivals that of the Dragon Boxes.

[TheBlackPaladin]

Dragon Ball Z with 90% of the filler removed, new voice performances, a far better English adaptation, and arguably the best visual quality of the footage to exist which rivals that of the Dragon Boxes.

While I agree with everything ohaimynameiserik said, I'll give a more "official" definition as Toei would define it.

"Kai" in this case means "refreshed," so the title could be interpreted as "Dragon Ball Refreshed" (or "Dragon Ball Z Refreshed"). It is named such because Toei, the animation company that animates the show, is touting it as a cut of the show that is more loyal to Toriyama's original vision by removing all of the "filler"--a term used to describe stuff that happens in the show not directly based on the Dragon Ball manga that Akira Toriyama wrote and drew.

Back when Dragon Ball Z first aired, the show was being made at the same time as the manga...which occasionally presented problems, because this meant that the show could never get ahead of the manga. So, in order to give Toriyama more time to catch up and finish the manga, they would occasionally add footage, scenes, or even entire storylines that weren't in the manga to give Toriyama time to catch up. Kai removes that filler and only includes stuff that was in the actual manga. Also, they included a new musical score by Kenji Yamamoto, as opposed to the original musical score by Shunsuke Kikuchi.

That's the end of the "official" explanation. The rest of the explanation is opinion-based, but it is (in my humble opinion) an explanation that can be backed up by common opinion and several different official sources.

In Japan, Kai was mostly just an excuse to bring Dragon Ball to a new generation of fans, mostly kids who never got to grow up watching the original show. To add some relevance for people who have seen it before, though, they added a new musical score and cut out the filler. Kai generally got favorable ratings on TV in Japan, but the merchandise, home release, and other related sales weren't as great. It ended up costing Toei too much, so they ended Kai after the Cell arc. There were never any official plans to go into the Buu arc, but the common assumption is that they would have if sales were doing better.

That's not the only controversial thing to happen to it, though. Towards the end of its release on Japanese TV, the show was rocked by a huge event which has been unoficially nicknamed "The Music Scandal." It was revealed that the composer for the new musical score, Kenji Yamamoto, had been plagiarizing a lot of his music. A lot of his tunes were based on Hollywood compositions found in such movies as "Avatar" and "Terminator: Salvation." It's not entirely clear when Toei figured this out, but once they acknowledged it (I think just about two episodes short of its end in Japan), the remaining episodes were replaced with...well....the original DBZ musical score by Shunsuke Kikuchi. Or rather, tunes from the original score. The exact placement of the songs is not the same as it was with Z, which led many fans to complain that it felt like the new mix (of the old music) "didn't fit," or "didn't feel right."

Now, over to us in the English-speaking world. Perhaps because of budget concerns, Toei liscensed Kai to FUNimation so they could start producing an uncut home release of Kai (complete with a new English dub) and an edited TV release (edited on Nicktoons and VERY edited on the CW4Kids). They officially began dubbing in December 2009, but the dub was not seen until early 2010 when the first uncut DVD/Blu-Ray volume was released.

The verdict is that the English dub for Kai is a MASSIVE improvement over the English dub of Z.

Massive enough? Eh. Depends on what kind of fan you are. FUNimation unfortunately can't market Kai to the full extent that they would probably like, because it would involve them coming out and blatantly admitting that they screwed up a lot of their Z dub. Essentially, though, back when Z was being dubbed, FUNimation took A LOT of liberties with the script, to the extent that many scenes were entirely re-written, often with the intention of kiddie-ing the script to appeal to a much younger audience. The old producer, Barry Watson, even admitted that they had a writer whose sole job it was to come in and "punch up the comedy."

With Kai, it's a totally different ball game. The vast majority of the scripts are extremely loyal to the original Japanese version, resulting in an undeniably more accurate dub. The general consensus is that the acting is ten times better as well (in particular, the most well-recieved performance of the new dub seems to be Chris Ayers as Freeza). There are definitely some people who still have issue with the new dub, and there are definitely some lines that still get re-written. However, whereas the re-writes used to be commonplace with the Z dub, you actually have to look for the re-writes in Kai.

Now, when Kai was released in the English-speaking world, the Music Scandal had not yet hit. The second it did, the CW4Kids immediatley started airing their episodes of Kai with the new music mix by Shunsuke Kikuchi (as opposed to the "plagiarized" mix by Kenji Yamamoto). The Nicktoons broadcast didn't catch on until later, but it did. Then, as of Volume 5 of the English release, Kenji Yamamoto's music is nowhere to be found, replaced entirely by the new Kikuchi mix.

That's probably all you're interested in. I highly reccomend you check out the English dub, preferably the uncut one on DVD or Blu-Ray. Please let us know if ya got any more questions!

PS: I just thought of one more thing to add....like I said, everything you're probably interested in is above, but if you wanted some extra news about how Kai is doing elsewhere in the world, read on. It still might be vaguely relevant in that it showcases how the franchise as a whole is doing.

A month or two after the release of the English Kai dub, a Mexican Spanish dub was announced. Things quickly got bad, though, when the original Mexican Spanish voice cast started leaving one by one, saying that they would not work for the money they were being offered by the new dubbing studio (persumably a lower pay than what they were paid for the Z dub). Things got even MORE out of hand when the dubbing director, Irwin Daayan, announced that he did not recieve the Japanese version of the show for dubbing purposes...but rather, the Nicktoons-censored English version. The general consensus was that the budget was so tight for this dub of Kai that they went ahead and bought a pre-edited version of the show. Furthermore, their scripts are based on the edited English scripts rather than the uncut Japanese scripts.

To say all hell broke loose is an understatement. Many fans of the original Mexican Spanish dub spammed FUNimation's Facebook page, assuming them to be responsible for the decrease in the budget (and because they had been mentioned as providing the Kai footage). While FUNimation ended up having nothing to do with actual production decisions, it took a while for this to become clear to Spanish fans.

The Brazilian Portuguese dub suffered the exact same fate. Their dub is also based on the Nicktoons-censored English version, and most of their original cast declined to return due to the lower budget being offered to them.

The point I'm trying to make? Firstly, this should be a crystal-clear sign that the anime indusry is not doing nearly as well as it used to. Secondly, Kai simply wasn't the gold mine that Toei hoped it would be. It didn't flop, but it wasn't NEARLY what they had hoped it would be. In the case of countries like Japan, Mexico, and Brazil, this probably isn't too big a deal because they already have great dubs of Z. For us English-speaking fans though, it's a bit of a letdown. It's very unfortunate that the infinitely more loyal dub is the one that didn't do as well. Again, it's not a huge loss--Kai is the highest-rated show on Nicktoons, after all, and Kai is selling very well on home release--but it's still a tad dissapointing.

[SuperAndroid11]

The point I'm trying to make? Firstly, this should be a crystal-clear sign that the anime indusry is not doing nearly as well as it used to. Secondly, Kai simply wasn't the gold mine that Toei hoped it would be. It didn't flop, but it wasn't NEARLY what they had hoped it would be. In the case of countries like Japan, Mexico, and Brazil, this probably isn't too big a deal because they already have great dubs of Z. For us English-speaking fans though, it's a bit of a letdown. It's very unfortunate that the infinitely more loyal dub is the one that didn't do as well. Again, it's not a huge loss--Kai is the highest-rated show on Nicktoons, after all, and Kai is selling very well on home release--but it's still a tad dissapointing.

Ah, thanks for the info TheBlackPaladin!!! I guess I should still check it out though as a DBZ fan, but I too found the old Toonami English dub to be perfectly fine.

[TheBlackPaladin]

The point I'm trying to make? Firstly, this should be a crystal-clear sign that the anime indusry is not doing nearly as well as it used to. Secondly, Kai simply wasn't the gold mine that Toei hoped it would be. It didn't flop, but it wasn't NEARLY what they had hoped it would be. In the case of countries like Japan, Mexico, and Brazil, this probably isn't too big a deal because they already have great dubs of Z. For us English-speaking fans though, it's a bit of a letdown. It's very unfortunate that the infinitely more loyal dub is the one that didn't do as well. Again, it's not a huge loss--Kai is the highest-rated show on Nicktoons, after all, and Kai is selling very well on home release--but it's still a tad dissapointing.

Ah, thanks for the info TheBlackPaladin!!! I guess I should still check it out though as a DBZ fan, but I too found the old Toonami English dub to be perfectly fine.

As did many people who weren't familiar with the changes that were made. No worries. The general reaction from people who don't know about the changes is, "Calm DOWN, what's the big deal?"

Then they learn about the changes.

"Oohh....."

The Z dub has its merits, I think, but the Kai dub is such a superior effort on almost every front. Like I said, to completely explain why the Kai dub is so good, FUNimation would have to come out and blatantly admit that they screwed up a lot of their Z dub, especially in the writing department. Obviously, they're not going to do that for completely understandable reasons.

If you have DBZ on DVD, here's a little experiment you can try. Listen to the English audio track, but turn on the subtitles for the Japanese version. Then you will see, first-hand, just how much they changed the script. Then, do the same thing with the Kai DVDs (or Blu-Rays), and you will see how much of the script was left pretty much intact.

There are countless examples, but here's one very generalized example. In the previous dub, Freeza's lines were very generic. If you heard the voice, you would obviously know it was Freeza, but if all you did was read Freeza's English dub lines for Z, you'd have no way of knowing it was him. You could swap his dialogue out with the dialogue of any other villain and have no clue about the change. He didn't speak in any identifiable way.

By contrast, in the Japanese version, there is a very identifiable "upper class" mode to his speech. He constantly spoke with upper-class terminology, vocabulary, and had a gentlemanly decorum with his words. This, in turn, made him even scarier. I mean, the guy kills children without a second of hesitation! The contrast of seeing someone speaking so politely and gentlemanly while committing such terrible atrocities adds a very, very creepy vibe to the character that makes him much more memorable. This point was missed entirely with the writing for the Z dub.

The Kai dub, though? He's *constantly* speaking with upper-class speech just like he is in the Japanese version. You could just read his dialogue and be like, "Oh yeah, that's Freeza." That's just the writing, though. Chris Ayers......ooooooh man, Chris Ayers......his performance is just stellar. He has a background in Shakesperean theater, so he has plenty of experience with upper-class speech. He was the perfect choice for the part. Anime News Network called it one of the best English dub performances of the last decade, and I'm inclined to agree. He was the most pleasant suprise as far as the acting department was concerned, but all of the returning voices sound better than ever, and the replacement voices are generally very well-cast.

Like I said, that's one generalized example. There are definitely some lines here and there that could have been written more accurately, but it's not the disaster that the Z dub was. Yes, Z did technically see an "uncut" release, but it was only uncut visually. To quote someone else, "It was the difference between a badly-written dub with censorship and a badly-written dub...but with blood."

Kai is also edited on TV, but sadly, even the edited TV scripts of the Kai dub are more accurate than the uncut scripts of the Z dub. If you're interested in learning about the edits that were made to Kai on TV (both visually and with the dialogue), one of our forum members, Tanooki Kuribo, has an awesome web site dedicated to comparing the edited and uncut versions. It should be worth noting that this compares the uncut version to the edited version as it is shown on Nicktoons (and not the CW4Kids, which edits it even more). If you're interested, you can also watch the Nicktoons-edited version for free on the Nicktoons web site. You can also watch the CW4Kids-edited version on the Toonzai web site but...well...people generally only view that version if they want to see how hilariously conservative the editors are.

Happy viewing!

[Kendamu]

When you type "what is Dragonball Kai" into Google, you get my write-up on Sparking Turtle on the first page!