In Defense of DragonBall Kai

[Soul]

So generally, especially now after the series has ended there seems to be animocity towards Kai, be the fact that it ends with Cell, the Yamamoto scandal, the Japanese vocal performances and recasts, reanimated scenes that stand out AND so on.
Yes, all of that generally sucks, but I feel like the series has redeeming qualities; as such I'll list some:
• The English dub
First and foremost, the FUNimation dub of Kai is the best thing to happen for the franchise in the US outside of us getting the Dragon Boxes. Its really there to sit someone down who has this preconcieved notion that DBZ is just this series with really wonky, facepalm worthy dialogue, then pretty much have their words forced back in their mouth. Especially on an acting level, Kai's dub is up there with some of the best in my opinion. Though I'm sure a big majority of people here like the dub and now if I wanna watch DBZ in English without playing a drinking game? Kai is here!

•Removal of (Most) Filler
The removal of filler and it benefiting the show goes into the whole 'casual fan's enjoyment of DBZ'. The padding does hurt the original show in a big way in my opinion; I know a lot of people who just wanna it to get on with a fight and the characters are just standing around staring each other down. Sure, I too think it builds tension but its boring! I'm coming from the perspective of wanting more people to get into the franchise. I like some of the non-canon filler, Gohan's in the Saiyan arc and the Z Senshi training in that arc, Garlic Jr., the driving episode, and the Afterlife Tournament. But most of it is unneeded. And to me? I just enjoy watching Kai over Z in those respects.


Theres a few more things I'll go into like it being HD Remaster and such, but any other Kai fans wanna say some more as well?




•

[DragonBalllKaiHD]

The dub of Kai is the best thing to ever happen to Z portion of the series for the English-speaking fans, at least for time being. Most fans of the original who hates the previous dub have enjoyed the new dub because of its faithfulness to Japanese script, although rarely did the FUNi relapse to their old dub way. The characters' emotions has been handled pretty well and you could feel believable. I was really surprised at how well Sean handled SSJ Goku's emotions. You could feel that it's not the same Goku he was before he turned into SSJ. That was his biggest improvement from the previous dub. I have no complaints on how they handled the characters properly.

As for voice acting, well, that's matter of personal taste. Not all characters will be loved because of some recasts, and some of which should have been recasted. An example of this is Ginyu Tokusentai. Some fans felt that Recoome didn't improve and should have been recasted. I myself haven't heard Recoome's voice acting so I can't state my opinion about this. There are improvements for other characters.
Sabat seems to get hang on Vegeta as Kai goes on. The biggest improvement of them all is Freeza. I was pleased with the way Ayres handled Freeza. He grasped Freeza's character really well. There are times when he sounds Nakao-ish.

Music-wise, Yamamoto's score was interesting, but it was a bit too shonen-ish for me. I prefer Kikuchi's. I actually wished he composed new scores for Kai instead of Yamamoto, or even other composer like one who did for GT. Frankly, it's something Toei should have done in the first place. It seems they knew Yamamoto plagiarized the scores for many years and it's sad to see he left the mess to Toei and they had to clean up for him. Replacing his scores with Kikuchi's was rushed and wasn't fitting with Kai's pace.


All in all, there are more positives than negatives in term of script and acting. Will Kai leave positive feeling to both fans of the original and dub? That's really up to FUNi. It will be interesting to see both sides of discussion after Kai ends here. I really enjoy listening the the new English dub.

[Kuwabara]

Kai will always have a place in my heart because even though my favorite score for a Dragon Ball-related property ever has been almost completely discarded, it's how the series should have been done in the first place way back in the early 90's. It's so much more fun to watch than the original series as far as I'm concerned.

[Savage68]

I'm gonna go ahead and speak for myself and say that I'm not interested in the new dub, since I prefer to watch things in their original languages, and that I'll take Z's pacing in exchange for its music and acting over Kai's any day of the week. So yeah, Kai is pretty much a non issue. None of its pros fully justify its existence in my eyes.

[Kendamu]

I really, honestly try to like the original Dragonball Z anime. I love the music in Dragonball Z, there are some amazing parts that I love watching (such as Vegeta vs. ReaCoome or Goku and Piccolo's driving exam) in the original Japanese version of the original show, but every time I try to sit down and really watch the show for everything between my absolute favorite parts, I get bored and start doing other stuff. I end up just going onto the Nicktoons Dragonball Z Kai site and watching a streaming episode or two to get my Dragonball anime fix instead.

If the US DBox would've never come out, I'd probably have just bought specific R2 singles that had those favorite parts and had been done with DBZ a long time ago, moving straight on into Kai without a fuss.

I'd say the main thing that kept me feeling any sort of nostalgia for DBZ was the music. Now that a good small portion of that score is what's being used for all of Kai as the new sets come out, I'm thinking I'm not going to need Z anymore except for watching specific parts of the Boo arc.

I think a lot of it has to do with me being a manga guy. This applies to almost everything; not just Dragonball. Manga just goes at a pace I like a lot better and Kai tends to emulate that pace a bit better. Plus, I can watch it in either language without any real major complaints.

[thedarkuniter]

I pretty much agree with most of what you guys are saying. I watch Kai more than original Z because of the pacing as well as the new English dub. The new pacing gives the show its manga feel to it, whereas Z just takes its time with its filler. The only downer for me is the lack of a Kai version for the Majin Boo saga and probably the music scandal for some people. I like Yamamoto's score for the show however, I've always kinda picture Kai with Kikuchi and allows me to further use the Kai dub with Kikuchi score as a replacement for the Z dub with Kikuchi's score.

[BluezaBladeNZ]

My reason for watching Kai is definitely the new English dub, and finally not having to listen to the awkward stuff that's present in the Season 3 Z dub. Though it is disappointing that Yamamoto's score was removed from the later sets, so I kind of lost interest in it for a while. I did try watching it with the new Kikuchi score but it just didn't feel the same, so I went and reconstructed the Yamamoto score using Kenisu's BGM guide, the soundtracks and unreleased pieces and put it into the 5.1 track, and have already done all of Part 5 so far. If I want to listen to the Kikuchi score, I'll stick with my Dragon Boxes which is mixed far better.

[Akumaito Beam]

The interesting thing for me about all this is I'm not entirely sure if I like Kai's pacing itself or if I'm just bored of certain segments of the show and I want to get them over with as quickly as possible. I was inclined to say it was the former at first. Watching the episodes where Goku fights Vegeta was surprisingly so mundane to me in the original anime. I recently popped in the Kai version of that battle and my eyes were on the screen the entire time just because there weren't giant pauses of "tension building" you could drive a truck through. What changed that train of thought was when I watched an old Boo saga single I had found in the attic. I was totally with those episodes 100% of the time like I was with Kai. I wondered to myself what the difference was and realized I had probably never watched the entirety of the Boo saga anime more than once.

While just typing that last paragraph up I was reminded of a similar story. I was recently watching the original Dragon Ball with a friend who had never seen it before. I got so completely bored of the Pilaf saga about two episodes in but he really wanted to keep going. I have watched/read the Pilaf material a LOT and I literally can not sit through any of it anymore manga or otherwise.

The short answer to all if this is I like Kai's pacing but I can only assume it's because I know this material so well and it's nice to have a speed run version of the anime. That is admittedly a really niche appeal though.

[BlazingFiddlesticks]

Akumaito got it for me; the filler cuts are a godsend. Was watching Goku vs Vegeta on the DBox and my lord did the overlong power-ups and needless slow pacing drag it down for me; one of those things that make me wonder why I watch at all .

New dub was great, even if it's quality, in hindsight, is rather on-and-off due to being largely the same voicecast. More on than off, of course.

[djkalteraphine]

I love Dragon Ball Kai so much more than Dragon Ball Z. There are filler episodes I miss, but for the most part I'm happy to see the backside of that stuff. I'm watching Dragon Ball right now, and once I'm done I'll get to DBZ - but this is probably the last time I'll watch DBZ straight through, all 291 episodes. As far as I'm concerned, Kai is the superior product.

[Hamel]

I'm gonna go ahead and speak for myself and say that I'm not interested in the new dub, since I prefer to watch things in their original languages, and that I'll take Z's pacing in exchange for its music and acting over Kai's any day of the week. So yeah, Kai is pretty much a non issue. None of its pros fully justify its existence in my eyes.

I have to agree with this. I'm watching the dub of Kai because a friend asked me to give it a try and call me biased but I don't and will never like the English version of this show, Ocean Z, Funi Z or Kai. Not to mention I really don't (both the English and the Japanese) like the opening/ending songs for Kai. I feel that the sharper better animated op/ending was a slap in the face of "Ha! We could have done this but it'd take too long and we don't wanna re-draw it" I'm not entirely sure the reasons but they should have the budget/money to re-animate the entire series if they were going to re-do it and "touch up" areas.

Don't get me wrong though, I like that they did cut out most of/if not all of the filler but as most said, some of the filler was nice like the drivers license one. I also noticed that when they're fighting Vegetta and Nappa in Z they showed Chi-Chi seeing Gohan on TV and fainting in Kai they don't. I actually liked that and would have hoped they kept little things like that because it really gives more character development. I think that the pacing in Kai is a lot more fluid than the original but I think the original will always more place than Kai.

[Rocketman]

I'll take Z's pacing

Words that should never be uttered by sentient beings.

[B]

I feel as if the Kai dub gave up around the beginning of the Android arc. It didn't become bad, but I just wasn't as excited for it and no performances stood out. That, in turn, really crushed my interest in Kai as a whole.

It's still better than Z, which I find kind of pointless to argue about. Everyone's planted their foot deep into their stance with seemingly no plans of moving.

[Travis Touchdown]

I love Dragon Ball Z Kai.

I'm a dub fan, unfortunately, and the performances in Kai are so much better than in Z. As much as I loved Dragon Ball Z as a teenager, I was a little embarrassed at the language. All the darns and whatnot made it feel a little *too* childish at times. I not saying I want Goku to drop F-bombs left and right, but Kai's use of profanity is just about what I'd always wished Z would do.

I love how Kai presents itself as a stand-alone show, skimming over Bardock and Dragon Ball in the form of a prologue and even though I know there's more to the story after Cell, Kai definitely has a sense of completion to it. I always liked the Cell Saga as an ending over Goku abandoning his family in the Epilogue. That's not to say I'll throw a fit if they do the Buu Saga in the not-to-distant-future.

I DEFINITELY dig the episode count. I mean, 98 episodes is much more doable for me to watch over the span of a week or so than 291, or even over 500 counting Dragon Ball & Dragon Ball GT. I still enjoy the originals, but sometimes I lose interest and won't go back for a long time and forget where I left off

[djkalteraphine]

I'm a dub fan, unfortunately,

You know you can stop. There is help out there for you... if you go to the DVD menu, you can swap the languages. And if you don't understand Japanese? Well, my good man, they thought of that already - accurately transcribed subtitles, written in your native language.

What will they think of next.

[Savage68]

I'll take Z's pacing

Words that should never be uttered by sentient beings.

It's almost as though that's some kind of... "opinion" or something. *shudder*

[Travis Touchdown]

I'm a dub fan, unfortunately,

You know you can stop. There is help out there for you... if you go to the DVD menu, you can swap the languages. And if you don't understand Japanese? Well, my good man, they thought of that already - accurately transcribed subtitles, written in your native language.

What will they think of next.

I know, but I just prefer watching it in English. I'm one of "those guys" haha.

[Mewzard]

I'm a dub fan, unfortunately,

You know you can stop. There is help out there for you... if you go to the DVD menu, you can swap the languages. And if you don't understand Japanese? Well, my good man, they thought of that already - accurately transcribed subtitles, written in your native language.

What will they think of next.

Well, he said Dub FAN, so it's not so simple to just switch language tracks. This whole statement is rather condescending to those of us who do care about a good dub. It's not good enough for me to have a good sub, I want that good dub with it. Hence, my love of Kai, and wishing it was economically viable to redub all of DB/Z/GT/Movies in this style.

The dub is probably the main reason why I'll watch Kai over Z most of the time, despite enjoying the Japanese version too.

[penguintruth]

Kai is useful to shortcut through some of the arcs in the anime with more filler, and the English dub is presentable. I'd recommend it mostly to new fans or people who've been hesitant to tackle all of DBZ. Myself, I use it as an option.

[kemuri07]

I'm a dub fan, unfortunately,

You know you can stop. There is help out there for you... if you go to the DVD menu, you can swap the languages. And if you don't understand Japanese? Well, my good man, they thought of that already - accurately transcribed subtitles, written in your native language.

What will they think of next.

Reading while watching anime? What kind of tard would do that?

But seriously, it's not just because the dub is in my native language that makes it the preferable choice; it just sounds better. Dialogue seems to flow much better in English, and the characters seem much more livelier as well.

Of course, I'm saying this as someone who has grown up with the dubs and simply prefers anime speaking his native language.