Do you feel cheated?

[coola]

Sorry, if it sound like another Kai bashing title. But i can't help but feel Toei cheated me, Kai was advertised as manga cut edition, without any contradictions that happened in original anime, however, in Kai 1.0 we had Vegeta meeting SSJ Goku on Namek, cuts from manga in favor of filler scenes, Kai 2.0 have ugly 16:9 greent tinted picture. Hell filler intact, despite Toriyama own hell vision in newest movie. It is actually much worse than GT, and I'm afraid of Super now, i wanted it to be true continuation of manga, not Kai

[Valerius Dover]

Regarding the Hell contradicting the new movie thing, one must remember that Kai was completed long before Resurrection F was even out. That being said, it doesn't explain why those scenes were left in, as they could've easily been removed.

The only thing I feel cheated about is that they call it manga accurate and then the first thing they do is skip 38% of the manga based on a name change that didn't even exist in said manga. But I've gone on and on about too many times by now.

[Darkblade1995]

Well to be fair, in the manga you have the Vegeta vanishing along with the Namekians scene. And in the anime he vanished when he met Goku and Freeza, so by cutting that they would be cutting filler and manga content at the same time. But yeah I don't have a excuse for many other filler scenes they left in.

I do think Kai 1.0 did a pretty good job with it keeping manga accurate, aside from the first few episodes cutting manga material but leaving in some filler. But them leaving fillers in like the Ginyu in Bulma's body plot, you must understand that Toei never actually stated that they would remove every bit of filler. They said they would remove filler to keep the story at a faster pace, not that they would remove it entirely. That would also require to redraw a lot of scenes. But I never felt cheated.

With the Buu arc on the other hand, I kinda feel cheated and at the same time I don't. I do feel cheated with things like not having a 4:3 remaster and having 69 episodes instead of the ''around 50 episodes'' I expected, but at the same time I kind of expected the Buu arc having a lower budget, cuz Kai was cancelled due to not making enough money, yet they were bringing it back, but the difference was that it was produced for the International market. So I expected a lower quality in... well... everything. From the music to video quality.

I still enjoy Kai, more than I do with DBZ, but if had to choose with what medium to experience Dragon Ball, I'd go with the manga. The anime has to much filler and too much differences from the source material. But if you're a anime guy I would still recommend Kai, even with it's quality drop in the Buu arc. Even if DBZ is more professionally done (in which I totally agree) better voice work, and better music placement can't help me enjoy DBZ's horrible pacing.

[sintzu]

When adapting a story from a book to television you need to change certain things for it to work such as making the VERY short fights in the Buu arc longer.

In terms of the 16:9 that's how I watch everything so it's not a problem for me but it would be nice if Funi released it in 4:3 so everyone can get what they want.

[B]

If you went in with the right expectations in mind, Kai Phase 1 pre-Yamamoto scandal is a respectable product. Toei backed that product(and it failed; but they backed it).

Anyone who thought Kai was going to be a 1:1 transition from the manga was living in a fantasy world. Dragon Ball Z was produced in such a way that the removal of 100% of its filler would be impossible. If a manga-original scene gets cut, but a piece of filler stays in, that's the price you pay to have an edited down episode that flows together and fits the approximate twenty-minute running time.

Kai Phase 2 is just pure contempt and disrespect to your audience. But, I don't know about "cheated." I don't feel like I'm owed anything. They put out a product and I can voice my opinion that it's dogshit and not buy it or look at it. I guess, if anything, they've ruined chance at a proper animated remake for at least 20 years because of over-saturation. They're just gonna burn people out on Dragon Ball until it's 1997 all over again.

[sintzu]

They're just gonna burn people out on Dragon Ball until it's 1997 all over again.

What happened in 97 was due to Gt being so bad which probably won't be the case with Super based on the last 2 movies critical and box office reception.

In terms of Kai it has it's flaws but it also does enough good for me and others to enjoy it and is a good way for the franchise to get new fans in Japan due to how expensive it is to own home media there.

[Lord Beerus]

I don't feel cheated with Kai 1.0 because the was actually a decent remastering job and it was show I could sit through even with its flaws. Kai 2.0, on the other hand, is just a mess from top to bottom and I wouldn't have the patience to sit through it; and I kinda do feel cheated in that regard.

[Zillamon51]

I felt cheated when I found out DBZ Kai would end with the Cell Saga, well after I had already begun buying the Volumes on Blu-ray.

And I'm very disappointed it's taking so long to get the Buu Saga released Stateside. Funi really should have fast-tracked this. At this point, I may just say "Fuck it" and not bother buying Kai 2.0 until I can get it for cheap sometime way down the road.

[LuckyCat]

Poor Kai, it has so many good things about it, but the music scandal really hurt Kai 1.0. Now Kai 2.0 doesn't have that problem, but it really seems hard to justify much of the filler they kept in Buu saga. I enjoy the manga's telling of Buu saga leagues above the anime adaptation in Kai or Z still. Kai 2.0 also has poor placement of music, which was the more or less the lifeblood of Kai's original freshness.

So maybe I'm okay with Kai 1.0 but feel cheated with 2.0.

[MarCas92]

I do, like everyone else I wish it would've been animated from scratch and starting from Dragon Ball. But what we got was...a descent experiment.

I feel that for every good thing Kai does, it does one thing just as bad. Half, the time the animation looks great, the other half it looks terrible. The Yamamoto score was great, but then it was replaced. The Kikuchi score is great, but it is really poorly placed sometimes. The openings and Endings to Kai 1.0 were great, whereas in 2.0 only the openings are good and the endings leave much to be desired.

Also, Kai 1.0 didn't do the best job most of the time with this either, but does anyone feel that the editing in 2.0 is just atrocious?

[Metalwario64]

I do, like everyone else I wish it would've been animated from scratch...

Not like everyone else.

I genuinely like that they reused Z's footage, because, to me, outside of a few episodes by certain studios, it has much better animation and art styles than any modern Dragon Ball production in the past several years. However, it would have been nice it they had retouched the worse animation, like Last House and Studio Live at their worst.

Also, with a tad bit of creativity, they could have easily gotten around filler like Gohan and Vegeta being in the "wrong" location when they were transported to Earth. All they would have had to do is trace shots of Gohan and Bulma in Goku's ship and a shot of Vegeta walking outside of his grave and trace that teleporting effect from some other shot over them. It would have been extremely easy, and they've even done things like retrace shots to remove or relocate characters, so this isn't unheard of in Kai.

[TheBlackPaladin]

The True Purpose of Kai: Toei wanted some relatively easily-achievable ratings and merchandise sales, and they found a (theoretically) perfect way to do that: put an old hit back on TV, and modify it as cost-effectively and as slightly as possible to justify calling it a new thing, when in reality, it's not new at all.

I never felt cheated by Kai because it's (pretty much) exactly what I expected from the start. From the day they first announced Kai, I never thought it was going to be anything other than this. I never once believed that they truly wanted to "make a cut truer to the manga." Let's be honest for a moment, that was just the pretense they were using to get DBZ back on TV. Pretty much the only thing that happened that I didn't predict was the Music Scandal. Otherwise, it's the watered-down cash cow that I immediately suspected Toei was going to make it. And quite frankly, it didn't even do all that Toei wanted it to do...Kai was pretty solid in terms of ratings, but overall merchandise sales actually went down.

Now, before I sound bitter, I must emphasize that I don't hate Kai. It brought in a new generation of fans, made Toei realize that they'd have to make new content if they wanted real success, and personally, the new dub has made it worth it for me....I freaking LOVE the new dub...but that's all. Were it not for the new dub, I'd have almost zero interest in Kai.

[MagicBox]

I certainly don't feel cheated. Anyone who knows the Z cartoon well knows that you can't remove all the filler without re-writing or re-animating something. It was inevitable. But the moment we saw that filler scene of Goku trying to rescue Gohan from the river in episode one, we knew what we were in for. Dragon Ball Z Lite. Filler scenes, manga scenes, they're all fair game to be kept or cut. Our expectations were set from the get-go.

[Darkblade1995]

[I freaking LOVE the new dub...but that's all. Were it not for the new dub, I'd have almost zero interest in Kai.

As much as I love Kai, I'm on the same page here. While I still tune in every week to watch Kai, were it not for the English dub, I'd probably have no interest in collecting the series. The faster pacing of course does help a bit, but the new English dub is main selling point of Kai.