My conclusions after showing different people DBZ and Kai

[AgitoZ]

Don't forget to add "in my opinion" to that sentence.

Why...

[BlazingFiddlesticks]

Preferring Z over Kai because of music is like committing suicide because you have a hangnail.

Don't forget to add "in my opinion" to that sentence.

Dude, it's Rocketman.

[Rocketman]

Preferring Z over Kai because of music is like committing suicide because you have a hangnail.

Don't forget to add "in my opinion" to that sentence.

If you prefer Five Minutes, you are wrong. Sorry.

[UnbiasedDBZfan]

Preferring Z over Kai because of music is like committing suicide because you have a hangnail.

Don't forget to add "in my opinion" to that sentence.

If you prefer Five Minutes, you are wrong. Sorry.

My God, don't remind me. And the clash of Freeza's Nova Strike and Goku's Kamehameha took the entire fucking episode!! God, even Naruto has better pacing then DB and that is saying a lot!

[KaiserNeko]

Speaking as a man who's been working with the footage and has had to sit through the ENTIRETY of the Goku VS. Freeza fight until he goes Super Saiyan just to prepare for Episode 28...

Don't you DARE badmouth the pacing and filler of Z! ... 'Cause without it, where would I find all these extra little shots and added talking, staring, and miscellaneous bullcrap that I can use!?

But no seriously. Z's pacing is shit. It's absolutely unbearable and the entire team and I were riffing it the entire time. The filler in the Saiyan saga was actually pretty decent (though I could have easily done without most of the Gohan stuff) but for the most part? The Freeza saga's pacing is just awful and the rest of the series ranges from acceptable to agonizing. I'm actually a -huge- Kai fan.

And remember: This comes from a LONG TIME Z FAN. I grew up on JAPANESE DBZ.

[Aoi]

Speaking as a man who's been working with the footage and has had to sit through the ENTIRETY of the Goku VS. Freeza fight until he goes Super Saiyan just to prepare for Episode 28...

Don't you DARE badmouth the pacing and filler of Z! ... 'Cause without it, where would I find all these extra little shots and added talking, staring, and miscellaneous bullcrap that I can use!?

But no seriously. Z's pacing is shit. It's absolutely unbearable and the entire team and I were riffing it the entire time. The filler in the Saiyan saga was actually pretty decent (though I could have easily done without most of the Gohan stuff) but for the most part? The Freeza saga's pacing is just awful and the rest of the series ranges from acceptable to agonizing. I'm actually a -huge- Kai fan.

And remember: This comes from a LONG TIME Z FAN. I grew up on JAPANESE DBZ.

Kai for me is a god send. We should be proud that our beloved series got this extremely rare treatment. I feel sorry for a few friends of mine who are fanatical about shows like One Piece. I know countless people who won't touch a show that is 530 + episodes in. I tried to , but it's too daunting. There may not be many "filler episodes", but the pace is horrifying.

On the other hand, Kai had made nearly every person that I know (including their children/ siblings) easily get into the Dragon Ball Z story. They love it. Absolutely love it. I really adore Kai. It made me fall in love with Dragon Ball all over again.

[Aoi]

I'm still such a fan that I'll always watch all of Z on top of it. Even the bad episodes in the background, just to say that I did it in the proper order. But Kai is how I plan to introduce the show to my friends. It's the story that sticks out.
The unfortunate thing is how much better the more dramatic scenes were done in "Z".
I mean, the entire Nappa/Vegeta invasion is perfectly scored/edited/paced for me. In Kai it's a big lacking. Misses that "x" factor for me. The "x factor" being Kikuchi's masterful score.

My reaction watching Vegeta get hit by the Genki Dama

Kai- Yamamoto: That was cool.
Z - Kikuchi: This show is truly a masterpiece.

[Gonstead]

I really adore Kai. It made me fall in love with Dragon Ball all over again.

I can agree a lot on this statement. I had lost a lot of interest in the Dragon Ball franchise over the years due to just nothing new ever coming out apart from the usual video game or two here and there but when Kai was announced the little DBZ fan inside me re-awoke more powerful than ever.

I don't think I have ever been this interested in the Dragon Ball franchise since ever.

Another scene in Z I felt was perfect enough was the scene with Trunks powering up to Super Saiyan. It had the perfect build up to it and along with Battle Point Unlimited, made for a pretty much perfect scene overall IMO.

[Aoi]

Oh yeah, nothing will ever take that away. Battle Point Unlimited + the editing / acting. That scene, to me, is a masterpiece.

It's funny because I had so many moments like you just described, where all of a sudden my interest would be completely revived. For me, listening to the Japanese track of the show really made me love the show on another level. I had grown up with the movies in Japanese (loving the tracks on them) + Ocean/Falconer dub.
It took me awhile to get used to it in Japanese, mostly because of the long silent pauses , but that scene for me was tremendous. A real work of art.

One of the reasons I like Kai so much is because the score , to me, gives the show a similar feel to the Ocean score that I love (very modern-cinematic). I realized over the years that we've been exposed to the story so many times through: video games, different dubs, mediums (manga), that there is no pure way to enjoy the story anymore. Unless you grew up with only the Japanese version. It's all mixed.

For example, if I ever think of Cell , I think of how they represented him through Yamamoto's classic SNES scores, Falconer's theme and even the Kukichi's original. It's the story that matters for me.

So for me, it's all about the story, and I feel Kai delivers 100%. It's probably my favourite version of the show and feels like the Dragon ball "Z" that I grew up with. I'm thankful for it.

[Gonstead]

The thing I like about Yamamoto's score for Kai was the balance between the Orchestral and the Rock + Synthesizer.

You have the Orchestral, which you can trace back to Kikuchi and you also have the Rock + Synthesizer which you can trace back to the Faulconer group.

With all 3 of these genre of music combined along with no micky mousing present, I can feel as if both Sub and Dub fans can enjoy the soundtrack even more.

The orchestral music works well for scenes with intense build up to them while the Rock and Synthesizer music works well for battle music in fighting scenes.

IMO it's a combination of Kikuchi + Faulconer Group done right.

[Aoi]

The thing I like about Yamamoto's score for Kai was the balance between the Orchestral and the Rock + Synthesizer.

You have the Orchestral, which you can trace back to Kikuchi and you also have the Rock + Synthesizer which you can trace back to the Faulconer group.

With all 3 of these genre of music combined along with no micky mousing present, I can feel as if both Sub and Dub fans can enjoy the soundtrack even more.

The orchestral music works well for scenes with intense build up to them while the Rock and Synthesizer music works well for battle music in fighting scenes.

IMO it's a combination of Kikuchi + Faulconer Group done right.

Absolutely agree. It's basically a perfect blend of the "fun-innocent" + "epic-cinematic" emotion that for many DBZ conveys.

I especially feel that during 2nd half of the show, during the Cell arc, Yamamoto's music was honestly the best I had ever heard in the dragon ball universe. Sad how it was plagiarized. It still makes no difference to me.

I'm really thankful that we have the DBZ Kai music revival project going on. I'm really looking forward to having Yamamoto's true score with the amazing english dub + Blu ray quality.

[BlazingFiddlesticks]

Do you really want to debate the man who single-handedly edits the Abridged Series of a 291 episode show?

No. I'm done here.

And yet...

Speaking as a man who's been working with the footage and has had to sit through the ENTIRETY of the Goku VS. Freeza fight until he goes Super Saiyan just to prepare for Episode 28...

I can imagine that being a nightmare from an editing standpoint, yet this is one of the few instances I think it's okay to drag out, given how important it is. I said that for Kid Buu as well, even after watching it recently and seeing all the drag. Not that the pace of the Kai version wasn't great too.

(I brought up Freeza in a previous post, but that segment's the exception, if only because it's actually interesting.)

[DBZ Mick]

*Steps In.*

I actually like the Freeza saga in DBZ. Although the filler was pretty bad- mostly the stuff on Earth with Chichi (I didn't mind the Bulma and Ginyu filler and really enjoy quite a lot of the final 5 minutes fight barring ep #102...) I thought it came together in the end...

*Runs away*

[RazorX]

^ What's the main point about Z / Kai? Beating up bad guys. Where's the story? Beating bad guys up. Whoa, that was awesome.

I don't know if you're playing devil's advocate or being a troll. At the risk of feeding the troll; I'm going to answer this absurd statement.

Dragon Ball Z does have a plot and story. If you have characters with objectives, what happens and what that means, basically put, you have a story.

It's difficult to create a universe with characters which are so appealing that they are a success wherever around the world they are introduced to. It would be even more difficult if said universe didn't have a story.

The story isn't basic either. As we know, there is character development and changing objectives; among other things. They are balanced out and paced in such a way that they are believable in the Dragon Ball universe (Vegeta and Gohan's character development are prime examples) and enjoyable.

There's much better animes out there than DBZ. Period.

Dragon Ball Z is the best Anime ever, period.

For nostalgia's sake I love Dragon Ball Z and everything about it, but it's never going to be the best anime series, despite what YouTube commentators say.

In the Nicktoons US DBGT thread, someone noted that Dragon Ball Z could help revive the Anime industry as DBZ helped grow the Anime industry in the early to mid 2000s. After the DB series finished, the Anime industry declined. Now there are various reasons for this and one of them is that most Anime are nowhere near as good or appealing as DBZ.

To have a series as long as Dragon Ball and keep the audiences engaged throughout on a worldwide scale, even grow its popularity immensely as the series progresses, is a massive accomplishment. To suggest that millions of existing fans and the growing list of new fans (via Kai) enjoy a series which "doesn't have a story" is insulting and quite clearly false.

Perhaps you should stick to High school of the dead and once upon a time fairy tales.

Btw; long does not equal popularity, as we can see with the case of One Piece and its cancellations in pretty much all of the English speaking countries.

Dragon Ball Z has a strong appeal because it has an excellent and compelling story. It is able to draw in audiences through generations. The Dragon Ball series (especially DBZ) is referred to as "license to print money" for a reason.

[Aoi]

^ What's the main point about Z / Kai? Beating up bad guys. Where's the story? Beating bad guys up. Whoa, that was awesome.

I don't know if you're playing devil's advocate or being a troll. At the risk of feeding the troll; I'm going to answer this absurd statement.

Dragon Ball Z does have a plot and story. If you have characters with objectives, what happens and what that means, basically put, you have a story.

It's difficult to create a universe with characters which are so appealing that they are a success wherever around the world they are introduced to. It would be even more difficult if said universe didn't have a story.

The story isn't basic either. As we know, there is character development and changing objectives; among other things. They are balanced out and paced in such a way that they are believable in the Dragon Ball universe (Vegeta and Gohan's character development are prime examples) and enjoyable.

There's much better animes out there than DBZ. Period.

Dragon Ball Z is the best Anime ever, period.

For nostalgia's sake I love Dragon Ball Z and everything about it, but it's never going to be the best anime series, despite what YouTube commentators say.

In the Nicktoons US DBGT thread, someone noted that Dragon Ball Z could help revive the Anime industry as DBZ helped grow the Anime industry in the early to mid 2000s. After the DB series finished, the Anime industry declined. Now there are various reasons for this and one of them is that most Anime are nowhere near as good or appealing as DBZ.

To have a series as long as Dragon Ball and keep the audiences engaged throughout on a worldwide scale, even grow its popularity immensely as the series progresses, is a massive accomplishment. To suggest that millions of existing fans and the growing list of new fans (via Kai) enjoy a series which "doesn't have a story" is insulting and quite clearly false.

Perhaps you should stick to High school of the dead and once upon a time fairy tales.

Btw; long does not equal popularity, as we can see with the case of One Piece and its cancellations in pretty much all of the English speaking countries.

Dragon Ball Z has a strong appeal because it has an excellent and compelling story. It is able to draw in audiences through generations. The Dragon Ball series (especially DBZ) is referred to as "license to print money" for a reason.

That was a great read. Thanks for that.

[RazorX]

That was a great read. Thanks for that.

I'm glad you enjoyed it.

[elcrunkus]

I don't have a problem with them doing a manga related release. If you wanna watch the filler and everything you could always just watch Dragon Ball Z.