GT or Kai - Which is bigger dissapointment?

[SonMatthew]

For me, the only real disappointment of Kai was that it was cancelled. The show itself cannot be judged on that, in my opinion. Yes some of the redrawn scenes were sketchy, but you have to acknowledge that these were done mostly make sure cut material didn't effect continuity. It's not a major part of the show and, to me, the re-master as a whole looks brilliant. Sure, now Funi has remastered the series (and has possibly done a better job) but at the time of release I was delighted to see the series look this good and would have hated re-done animation. To bring it back to the Zeta Gundam movies, while the new animation itself was nice I still much prefare the original animation style and would much rather see that remastered than see new animation. The same is true for Dragon Ball. I find the opening of Kai and many other recently animated dragon ball clips to have a much less attractive style than the original animation.

Over-all, I'm just very happy to have dragon ball in affordable hi-def with cuts to filler which had stopped me revisiting the show for many a year. Yes, I understand some of it is good (very rarely, I think) but the extended stare offs/reactions/recaps really ruined the pace and hampered the story. This is what Kai provides and its only disappointments are unavoidable by definition and so I don't judge them very harshly (yes, the voice actors will obviously have aged but still do a nice job; the score, despite the controversy, sounded great to me).

GT is a bigger disappointment as it just isn't very consistently entertaining, the animation is not as attractive and it's story does a disservice to many characters despite it's nice ending.

[Kibito_Kai]

Why is GT regarded as a disappointment? To me GT was just fan service to well... the DB franchise fanboys who just didn't want to let go. At the very least it wasn't a poor attempt to rehash an old series with stolen music.

[Saiga]

GT by far, to me. Kai was a good idea done somewhat poorly. GT was a very poor idea done horribly. To me, GT has more flaws than things going for it. Some scenes are funny, a very select few character designs are cool... and that's it, for me. Everything else from GT is horrible. The ending is absolutely godawful and nowhere near as fitting as the ending of Z.

Kai's disappointment for me was that is didn't cut out all of the filler and didn't cover the Boo Saga. I was also disappointed that it wasn't redrawn but at least that's justifiable.

[Thanos]

Kai's a bigger disappointment, the way I see it. Kai promised to deliver a manga-true, shortened, redrawn series of Dragon Ball Z for those who don't like the filler... and it failed. If it had been what it was advertized originally as, I most likely would've used it as a preferred viewing of Dragon Ball Z.

Dragon Ball GT, however, was basically filler through and through and wasn't written by Toriyama to begin with, so it didn't really have a whole lot of potential from the get-go.

At this point, Dragon Ball GT basically serves as a vehicle for some of the cool characters it introduced. Hardly anyone cares about GT anymore, especially in Japan. Yet, in Japan, the series' characters live on in video games.

Everything else from GT is horrible. The ending is absolutely godawful and nowhere near as fitting as the ending of Z.

So, the series ending with Son Goku leaving his family and friends to train some new kid was a fitting end? That's one of the few things I can honestly say I don't like in Dragon Ball Z. The ending. I really couldn't give a flying fuck about Uub. The way Goku, after finally having the chance to live on Earth with his family and friends, decides to go off for years to train some new character was bullshit and totally not like Goku.

I'm pretty sure Goku actually loves his family, but I guess that whole ending proves me wrong. :-/


I dunno, GT's ending certainly wasn't the best, but for me I like knowing that Goku never died (from my interpretation of it). The way he's all happy-go-lucky yet can accomplish anything, even conquering death seems quite fitting for him. But it would've been cool to have it end somewhat up-in-the-air, so in your mind you can have the memory last as though the characters are still fighting bad guys, training and searching for the dragon balls.

[Cipher]

Hardly anyone cares about GT anymore, especially in Japan. Yet, in Japan, the series' characters live on in video games.

To be fair, that's probably because, as I've hypothesized before, significantly fewer Japanese fans have even seen it. There are no budget DVD releases of the series overseas, no manga to buy, and it hasn't aired on a major network in more than a decade. There's almost no way for younger fans to see it, and the older crowd likely hasn't re-acquainted themselves with it in years.

Remember, the major vehicles for the series in Japan have always been the manga, which is much more affordable than it is stateside, and the movies, which were the only available home media for quite sometime.

[Metalwario64]

Kai's a bigger disappointment, the way I see it. Kai promised to deliver a manga-true, shortened, redrawn series of Dragon Ball Z for those who don't like the filler... and it failed. If it had been what it was advertized originally as, I most likely would've used it as a preferred viewing of Dragon Ball Z.

Dragon Ball GT, however, was basically filler through and through and wasn't written by Toriyama to begin with, so it didn't really have a whole lot of potential from the get-go.

That's pretty much how I feel.

Kai is more disappointing to me because I had higher expectations, in part due to Full Metal Alchemist: Brotherhood, which set out to do pretty much the same thing, and did so with an actual budget and effort, but Kai failed to deliver. It was incredibly half-assed with cheap reuse of existing animation, and highly inconsistent tracing that almost always clashes violently against the older cel-based animation.

Yamamoto's music was good, but to me, I prefer him in the games, as his music just doesn't really nail all of the aspects of Dragon Ball, especially the martial arts feel of the series. I would have much preferred Kikuchi from the very beginning, either through reuse of the score, but with at least most of the actual BGMs, or with a new score composed by him. Kikuchi scored Kai, much like the animation, is incredibly inconsistent, and incredibly limited, making the whole series feel much more repetitive, despite the removal of so much filler.

The pacing of the show itself is also inconsistent. The Saiyan arc is just way too fast and just removes so much impact that much of that portion of the series had. Then Namek still had too much filler at times. After that it's been pretty good for the most part, but there's still times where it either goes by too fast, or too slow. Again, this is most likely a result of them lazily reusing Z's animation.

With GT, it was a complete filler series, and judging from Dragon Ball filler, one would know to not set their expectations high with it, so when it fails to deliver, it isn't as disappointing because it's basically living up to the standard set by the rest of Dragon Ball's filler.

GT was completely made by Toei, with no manga source to base it off of, I just don't see how people would have high expectations for it in the first place, so I don't see why people would be so greatly disappointed by it. I think some people here are mistaking disappointment for the show's overall quality, and since they don't like GT as much, they are labeling it the greater disappointment. It's okay to feel that way, but I think a few people are genuinely misunderstanding this thread.

[Saiga]

So, the series ending with Son Goku leaving his family and friends to train some new kid was a fitting end? That's one of the few things I can honestly say I don't like in Dragon Ball Z. The ending. I really couldn't give a flying fuck about Uub. The way Goku, after finally having the chance to live on Earth with his family and friends, decides to go off for years to train some new character was bullshit and totally not like Goku.

I'm pretty sure Goku actually loves his family, but I guess that whole ending proves me wrong. :-/


I dunno, GT's ending certainly wasn't the best, but for me I like knowing that Goku never died (from my interpretation of it). The way he's all happy-go-lucky yet can accomplish anything, even conquering death seems quite fitting for him. But it would've been cool to have it end somewhat up-in-the-air, so in your mind you can have the memory last as though the characters are still fighting bad guys, training and searching for the dragon balls.

The manga ending doesn't make Goku look bad at all, he had just lived with his family for ten years and he told them he was going to visit them while he trained Oob. He can teleport, it won't be hard for him at all. GT ruins the ending by saying he never once visited, which is terrible. And it was a new adventure for Goku, finding an heir to take over for him so that he doesn't have to defend the earth. And if he doesn't have to do that, he can spend time with his family again.

[Silver Sinspawn]

Hey, we all know Goku is a horrible father. Don't use that as an argument point

[Saiga]

Hey, we all know Goku is a horrible father. Don't use that as an argument point

Not everyone thinks that.

[Gokuman1993]

Hey, we all know Goku is a horrible father. Don't use that as an argument point

Not everyone thinks that.

Agreed!

[Gonstead]

Goku is FAR from a horrible Father but he isn't the perfect Father either.

We can leave it at that.

[Saiga]

Goku is FAR from a horrible Father but he isn't the perfect Father either.

We can leave it at that.

Yes! That's how I see it.

[The Iron Fjord]

Neither. Both rocked my socks off!

[Titan]

Kai. It was the anime equivalent of seeing your favorite 80's band reunite and tour. It's the songs you love, maybe with some slight changes in the arrangement and a member being replaced, but it just doesn't feel right. The vocalist can't hit the notes he used to, the guitarist can't play as well because of his alcohol problem, and the (new) bass player is just sorta on auto-pilot and can't sing the backing harmonies to save his ass.

...so yeah, Kai was basically the Van Halen reunion tour of 07-08. ;p

GT, on the other hand was like the album said band did in the 80's that was the weakest in their catalog, but you still enjoyed a song or two.

That's what i think as well.Kai is a meaningless marketing stunt and a fraud.

It was incredibly half-assed with cheap reuse of existing animation, and highly inconsistent tracing that almost always clashes violently against the older cel-based animation.

Definitely!

It doesn't sit well with me to watch something that I have already watched, except trimmed down and sped up to follow the manga closer.

It's kind of like how the guys on the podcast feel about the animanga. If you want to watch an anime that is closer scene-wise to the manga, then you might as well just buy the manga and read the manga. If the filler really bothers you that much in Z, then just fast-forward through the scenes and skip the episodes you don't want to watch

Kai happened this way,because,Toei wants to sell the same product while investing almost zero.
It is a scam to the fans.

[Daimo-Rukiri]

Goku is FAR from a horrible Father but he isn't the perfect Father either.

We can leave it at that.

Ya I know, It's like I gotta train to protect the Earth and whatnot and leaves for an excess amount of time.

I think if Chi-Chi ever made him get a job I swear he would be bored out of his wits.

[El Diabeetus]

I'd say neither. If Kai never got a dub, I'd say Kai. But, that saved Kai for me. And I always liked GT despite its faults.

[Ringworm128]

Ignoring the awesome English dub, Kai is defiantly the bigger dissapointment IMO. Though GT had a few off character designs it still was drawn from scratch unlike Kai which just used old DBZ footage. And it had better performances from the Japanese voice actors. Also even though it had a few plot holes GT had the benefit of a new story. Also since Kenji Yamamoto's dark secret had been found out Kai was even more disappointing, not to mention the fact it didn't even cover the full series. Really besides the Funi dub and lack of filler Kai didn't have much going for it.

[dbboxkaifan]

GT - liked it.

Kai - well, this might be the disappointment because there's no Majin Boo saga which I'd loved to have seen it.

Despite Kai's not having Majin Boo arc, the English dub is excellent much better than FUNimation's old Z dub.

[Silver Sinspawn]

Interesting to see how even the votes seem to be.
I'm enjoying how nobody has bought up that the GT movie was rather crap, compared to others.

[Vhanos]

GT was an abomination but Kai is more dissapointing.

I see how people who aren't really fans of the Dragon Ball series say how Kai is better than Z.

Kai cuts stuff out. But some of the stuff that get cut out make things not make sense at times.