Why do so many American fans hate Kai?

[WittyUsername]

To sum up this topic, it's because of no Faulconer Productions music, and Gohan's recast. At least that's what the majority says.

The vocal majority is rarely the true majority. A thousand people whispering to one another won't be as loud as ten people shouting angrily at the top of their lungs.

I love Kai's dub, it's what we needed. I'd love for that effort to be put in a DB/Z/GT redub, but I'll take what I can get until that miracle can happen.

Why would Funimation go through the trouble of doing something like that?

[Mewzard]

To sum up this topic, it's because of no Faulconer Productions music, and Gohan's recast. At least that's what the majority says.

The vocal majority is rarely the true majority. A thousand people whispering to one another won't be as loud as ten people shouting angrily at the top of their lungs.

I love Kai's dub, it's what we needed. I'd love for that effort to be put in a DB/Z/GT redub, but I'll take what I can get until that miracle can happen.

Why would Funimation go through the trouble of doing something like that?

An excuse to resell DBZ as a new product 10-15 years from now?

[Flame Dragon]

An excuse to resell DBZ as a new product 10-15 years from now?

I have a feeling it will never happen... Funimation gets better money by milking the nostalgia of the "crappy dub" fans. And since we got already a serious dub with Kai, i don't think they will go through the hassle.

[cRookie_Monster]

To sum up this topic, it's because of no Faulconer Productions music, and Gohan's recast. At least that's what the majority says.

The vocal majority is rarely the true majority. A thousand people whispering to one another won't be as loud as ten people shouting angrily at the top of their lungs.

I love Kai's dub, it's what we needed. I'd love for that effort to be put in a DB/Z/GT redub, but I'll take what I can get until that miracle can happen.

When the Faulconer score first came out, the vocal majority by far hated it. Then, as many of those vocal majority predicted, the kids who were watching at the time grew up and started becoming vocal. The silent majority became the vocal...majority? I actually think it's more like 50/50 but w/e .

I think sales are what the companies really care about, not how much people complain. Your dollars/euros/etc are the votes that really count If DBZ had not made money along with the complaints, they probably would have dropped Fauloncer like a hot potato....except for his contract. I guess they did drop him at the first opportunity (DB GT) so....I dunno. I think the vocal masses were part of that, but there was more going on as well. Also if Faulconer was hurting sales that badly I think they would have found a way to fix the problem faster.

[TheGmGoken]

To sum up this topic, it's because of no Faulconer Productions music, and Gohan's recast. At least that's what the majority says.

The vocal majority is rarely the true majority. A thousand people whispering to one another won't be as loud as ten people shouting angrily at the top of their lungs.

I love Kai's dub, it's what we needed. I'd love for that effort to be put in a DB/Z/GT redub, but I'll take what I can get until that miracle can happen.

When the Faulconer score first came out, the vocal majority by far hated it. Then, as many of those vocal majority predicted, the kids who were watching at the time grew up and started becoming vocal. The silent majority became the vocal...majority? I actually think it's more like 50/50 but w/e .

I think sales are what the companies really care about, not how much people complain. Your dollars/euros/etc are the votes that really count If DBZ had not made money along with the complaints, they probably would have dropped Fauloncer like a hot potato....except for his contract. I guess they did drop him at the first opportunity (DB GT) so....I dunno. I think the vocal masses were part of that, but there was more going on as well. Also if Faulconer was hurting sales that badly I think they would have found a way to fix the problem faster.

To be fair. With options of a JPN score or even the JPN audio. The sales only increased I think. Now you got English fans and JPN audio fans. I mean even if the dvd quality is shitty. Most would't notice or care enough to not-buy for that reason.

[DBZAOTA482]

We were bullied at school.

[thatdbzguy]

We were bullied at school.

Give me your lunch money.

[ABED]

I think the only reason Faulconer got the job was because conventional wisdom was to change the music for dubs. I still believe they would've been just as successful regardless. You can't miss what never existed.

[Nikkolas]

Similarly you can't accurately predict how things WOULD have gone. If someone other than a woman had voiced Freeza, maybe I wouldn't think he was a terrible villain. But she did and I do and Faulconer's music did replace the original. So all we can do is go off what we have.

American fans hate Kai because they are generally ignorant and not in the bad way either. DBZ was just another anime to them. They didn't read the manga or watch the subs because...why would they? They saw it on Toonami and that was good enough. As such, Kai feels unnecessary and pointless to them. it's a lazy cash-in just like it was in Japan. I'm sure we all remember the great hopes people had for Kai in the beginning and then the dissatisfaction when Toei didn't re-animate the whole thing. They just made it look weird, with blue-haired Raditz. That applies to Western fans too. "Kai just didn't bring anything necessary to the table" is how I'd sum up a lot of fan opinions.

A good comparison would be Berserk. Nobody really seems to be whining about the movies. Why? Well I guess some people disliked the anime (I really liked it, in spite of the things it cut from the manga. It still captured the Golden Age perfectly for me and made me fall in love with Griffith) This is because Berserk fans are largely also manga fans. They have no attachment to the old anime for the most part.

[KentalSSJ6]

Similarly you can't accurately predict how things WOULD have gone. If someone other than a woman had voiced Freeza, maybe I wouldn't think he was a terrible villain. But she did and I do and Faulconer's music did replace the original. So all we can do is go off what we have.

American fans hate Kai because they are generally ignorant and not in the bad way either. DBZ was just another anime to them. They didn't read the manga or watch the subs because...why would they? They saw it on Toonami and that was good enough. As such, Kai feels unnecessary and pointless to them. it's a lazy cash-in just like it was in Japan. I'm sure we all remember the great hopes people had for Kai in the beginning and then the dissatisfaction when Toei didn't re-animate the whole thing. They just made it look weird, with blue-haired Raditz. That applies to Western fans too. "Kai just didn't bring anything necessary to the table" is how I'd sum up a lot of fan opinions.

A good comparison would be Berserk. Nobody really seems to be whining about the movies. Why? Well I guess some people disliked the anime (I really liked it, in spite of the things it cut from the manga. It still captured the Golden Age perfectly for me and made me fall in love with Griffith) This is because Berserk fans are largely also manga fans. They have no attachment to the old anime for the most part.

Me and the Berserk films are a can of worms you dont want open.

[ABED]

Similarly you can't accurately predict how things WOULD have gone.

But we do have evidence that DBZ was popular around the world.

it's a lazy cash-in

It would've been lazy had FUNimation not redone the scripts and just repurposed old audio tracks.

Not sure how any fan could say Kai didn't bring anything to the table. Dub aside, cutting out a ton of material makes the show flow much better.

[Nikkolas]

Me and the Berserk films are a can of worms you dont want open.

Lots of people hate the anime too though. Personally I don't know what Berserk fans are complaining about. They never got those awful, awful "Samurai X" Rurouni Kenshin movies. Or the last half of the RK anime with its terrible filler. Where is my Enishi arc animated?

[Flame Dragon]

Similarly you can't accurately predict how things WOULD have gone.

But we do have evidence that DBZ was popular around the world.

it's a lazy cash-in

It would've been lazy had FUNimation not redone the scripts and just repurposed old audio tracks.

Not sure how any fan could say Kai didn't bring anything to the table. Dub aside, cutting out a ton of material makes the show flow much better.

Honestly, Kai is the best thing that ever happened to the series. I love that now we have an option to easily avoid all the boring parts, aka filler, and just go straight to the point.
Also the remastering was great, the colors are much more vivid in Kai, the reanimated scenes are not as bad as people say, and the footage looks awesome, i prefer it this way.
I'm sure that if they reanimated it to look like EoB or Jo! SGAHFR, i would have hated how it would have looked.
Unless they get a new animation style that doesn't make everyone look like dolls drawn in MS paint, i'd rather stick to the original footage.

The new English dub is just an awesome bonus. Thanks to it we can finally watch a dub that isn't laughably bad while avoiding filler. Best of both worlds!

[JEFFMAN219]

A lot of dub fans hate on Kai for the stupidest reasons. Also they make up bs things about Kai to hate on it e.g Kai has no blood, Kai is a kiddy version of DBZ, Kai does not have an accurate dub. I mean it really baffles me that dub fans hate on Kais dubbing so much smh.

[GarrettCRW]

DBZ was just another anime to them.

To the older dub fans, there wasn't even this silly wall segregating Japanese animation from that of the rest of the planet. DBZ was a cartoon, and it aired right in the middle of the now-dead afternoon block of cartoons. And since Saturday morning cartoons were essentially dead by the time DBZ started picking up steam, those afternoon shows had an incredible amount of influence for '90s kids. As someone who has seen most of his favorite childhood cartoon shows altered on DVD, I can fully understand just why these people react so strongly to Kai, *especially* if they stumble onto it on the CW.

[LordCrumb]

A lot of dub fans hate on Kai for the stupidest reasons. Also they make up bs things about Kai to hate on it e.g Kai has no blood, Kai is a kiddy version of DBZ, Kai does not have an accurate dub. I mean it really baffles me that dub fans hate on Kais dubbing so much smh.

Eh? people say that? It's the complete opposite. I'd say Kai is directed more to the older audience.

[TheBlackPaladin]

A lot of dub fans hate on Kai for the stupidest reasons. Also they make up bs things about Kai to hate on it e.g Kai has no blood, Kai is a kiddy version of DBZ, Kai does not have an accurate dub. I mean it really baffles me that dub fans hate on Kais dubbing so much smh.

Eh? people say that? It's the complete opposite. I'd say Kai is directed more to the older audience.

Yes, but this misconception is due in great part to the fact that FUNimation has done...well, not the best job at telling fans that there is an uncut version of Kai. If you look at FUNimation's YouTube commercials for Kai, you'll see that not a single one of them mentions that the home video version is uncut. At first I didn't think that was necessary, like it was supposed to be common knowledge by this point that anime on home video from FUNimation (and from most other dubbing companies nowadays) is uncut.

In retrospect, though, looking back at how Kai was marketed...I'm convinced, that it is, in fact, still necessary. I lost count of how many people I told about the uncut version of Kai who were shocked to learn that that was the case, with one person even accusing me of making it up. It's amazing how many people think the censored version shown on TV is the actual version, and FUNimation, for their part, has only done one thing to inform people that the home video version is uncut--they include (on many, but not all) of the slipcovers for the Kai DVDs and Blu-rays, a removeable sticker that says, in comparatively small writing, "*Uncut*."

And...let's be honest...who's gonna read the stickers? Especially now that we've moved into a new generation where the necessary info needs to be clearly, easily, and immediately stated because of how easily distracted we have become.

Sure, I suppose some of these fans are partially to blame for not doing their research, but I wish FUNimation had done more to dispel this misconception, because it has led to a common perception among fans that the Kai dub is a "needlessly changed dub that doesn't represent the show I know and love and is seemingly toned down for the kiddies." Which is ironic on so many levels.

[SSDBZGOD]

I disliked Kai mainly because I couldn't get pass the random and hideous re-animated scenes.If they could find the budget to create both a new opening & ending, why not just redraw the entire series in general instead of replacing certain scenes with poorly done animation? If they were going to do this, they could have just left the original "Cha-La Head-Cha-La"/"Zenkai Powa!" opening and ending sequences. Originally, I thought this was going to be an amazing project in re-doing the franchise that we all love. I had no issue with the shortening of episodes since I was more into the manga than anime. I also thought that this would bring the younger generations into the fan-base and we would have a future for Dragon Ball Z. However, after witnessing previews and the actual episodes themselves - I couldn't bare the thought of them just brightening the colors and making just re-animating some scenes. I thought to myself; "What a waste." I even further questioned why they were able to do the opening and ending sequences with such amazingly done animation though they couldn't do the episodes themselves in the same style. In the end though, I still manage to buy the dvd sets and make it apart of my collection.

[Mewzard]

Toei is notoriously cheap when it comes to their work. They'll do what they can to get the most money out of a series for the least money possible. Kai was just a victim of that. Bones' remake of Fullmetal Alchemist was more in line from what I had hoped Kai would be.

Still, we got a great dub from Funimation, so at least someone put the effort into Kai.

Who knows, maybe the international demand will get Toei's Buu Saga work to be a bit better (or at least minimize censorship, if Funi has said anything to them).

[ABED]

DBZ was very close to the manga, it just added material. It was rare when it diverted from the manga.