DBZ Broadcast audio - will it make JPN Kai more obsolete?

[coola]

If DBZ does get released with Broadcast audio, will it make Kai even more pointless for fan of Japanese original? Even now, with questionable pacing (especially in Saiyan saga and later Buu saga) and poor redrawnd scenes, not as good VA, one of its only highlights, cleaner audio, will be gone.

[JohnnyCashKami]

Nope. Given that there's a considerable interest for Japanese Yamamoto Kai (01-95) and that it's a condensed version of Dragon Ball Z in HD, it'll always have its place in history.

I honestly love the Yamamoto score and specifically in Japanese, too bad 96-98 had the score swapped to the replacement. To be fair, at least the Z BGM score in 96-98 episodes are somewhat better than 01-95.

[PremiumSalt]

Broadcast audio won't make pretty much everything after the Saiyan arc any less of a slog to sit through. Kai will always be relevant, simply by virtue of being a lot easier to actually sit down and watch. I am curious as to what you mean by "questionable" pacing in the Kai Saiyan Arc, I've never had an issue with it.

[Robo4900]

Yes and no.

Yes for anyone to whom the sound quality was the main problem with Japanese Z.

No to anyone who watched Kai for any other reason.



Japanese Kai isn't without value, it's just that it doesn't have the massive advantage English Kai has over English Z of the superior dubbing. People make noise about the cast not being as good in Japanese Kai, but they were fine. Not as young as they were in Z, but for instance, Ryusei Nakao arguably was even better in Kai. So, I don't think the broadcast audio would obsolete Kai, it would just make Z more enjoyable.

[MasenkoHA]

Broadcast audio won't make pretty much everything after the Saiyan arc any less of a slog to sit through. Kai will always be relevant, simply by virtue of being a lot easier to actually sit down and watch. I am curious as to what you mean by "questionable" pacing in the Kai Saiyan Arc, I've never had an issue with it.

This though.

The appeal of Kai in Japanese for people has always been the pacing. The audio will effect next to nothing.


As for the Saiyajin arc the only questionable pacing in Kai is Gohan’s complete turn around as a character after the time he wakes up from his Oozaru excursion. The filler in Z provided a lot more natural progression from sheltered mama’s boy to young Goku jr fighter.

All of the Snakeway filler in Z is pretty much garbage. The filler with the Z warriors is useful if you’re a pleb and skipped Dragon Ball but assuming you did the proper thing and watched Dragon Ball before Z and Kai you don’t need all that filler with the Z warriors in the Saiyajin arc anyways.

Some good filler like the planet Arlia episode, the pendulum room episode, Gohan and the robot and Gohan and the dinosaur episode are surely missed though.


Even though it has its own many many problems the 1996 dub is actually the best pacing wise. You still get to see Gohan’s character development but it also picks up the pacing. 35 episodes almost drags but 26 episodes is just right.


All 3 versions have their pros and cons though.

[JohnnyCashKami]

Yes and no.

Yes for anyone to whom the sound quality was the main problem with Japanese Z.

No to anyone who watched Kai for any other reason.



Japanese Kai isn't without value, it's just that it doesn't have the massive advantage English Kai has over English Z of the superior dubbing. People make noise about the cast not being as good in Japanese Kai, but they were fine. Not as young as they were in Z, but for instance, Ryusei Nakao arguably was even better in Kai. So, I don't think the broadcast audio would obsolete Kai, it would just make Z more enjoyable.

That's pretty narrow minded of you to say that the music has no effect on the language track watching it on. Yes, the English FUNimation dub is definitely far superior to the old Z FUNi dub but compared to the Ocean Dub? Different question altogether.

I don't get why fans on this forum feel like Japanese Kai is shit and not worth watching. Some even say it's as bad as FUNi Z dub. Yeah, right.

[MasenkoHA]

. Some even say it's as bad as FUNi Z dub. Yeah, right.

I don’t think anyone has ever said that. Period.

[VegettoEX]

. Some even say it's as bad as FUNi Z dub. Yeah, right.

I don’t think anyone has ever said that. Period.

For real, that's a gross exaggeration. I've never seen that. This just seems like you're looking to make trouble / have an argument for no reason.

This is my favorite Freeza dialog example I always point to. The delivery in the original is unmatched in its ferocious at-wits'-end, whereas in Kai Nakao plays it almost... straight? There's so much like this in Kai. It's fine, but it doesn't compare.

And if I'm going to do any kind of rewatch of the series, it's going to be the original version of the series, irrespective of the quality of the audio attached to it. Kai was a curiosity at best when it was released, and remains that way. I didn't like having to watch someone's edit of the show in 1996, I wasn't interested in someone's edit of the show in 2009, and I remain uninterested in someone's edit of the show in 2019. The show is the show is the show, and as it was originally created/presented is what I'm interested in.

[Big Boss]

. Some even say it's as bad as FUNi Z dub. Yeah, right.

I don’t think anyone has ever said that. Period.

For real, that's a gross exaggeration. I've never seen that. This just seems like you're looking to make trouble / have an argument for no reason.

This is my favorite Freeza dialog example I always point to. The delivery in the original is unmatched in its ferocious at-wits'-end, whereas in Kai Nakao plays it almost... straight? There's so much like this in Kai. It's fine, but it doesn't compare.

And if I'm going to do any kind of rewatch of the series, it's going to be the original version of the series, irrespective of the quality of the audio attached to it. Kai was a curiosity at best when it was released, and remains that way. I didn't like having to watch someone's edit of the show in 1996, I wasn't interested in someone's edit of the show in 2009, and I remain uninterested in someone's edit of the show in 2019. The show is the show is the show, and as it was originally created/presented is what I'm interested in.

That voice crack/squeal that Nakao does in the original is some next level shit. Fucking phenomenal.

[coola]

I am curious as to what you mean by "questionable" pacing in the Kai Saiyan Arc, I've never had an issue with it.

Sorry, pacing was bad choice for Saiyan Saga, i meant editing, there were times where it was very sloppy:
- Removal of manga scenes yet keeping on pointles filler (Kuririn meeting with Chi-Chi)
- Bad editing (Bulma mouth was moving but she didnt talk, fixed in English dub at least, Chi-Chi lying at Kame House (Scene of her arrival there was removed)

If i remember correctly, some editors were changed after Saiyan Saga, and i can see why.

[Robo4900]

- Removal of manga scenes yet keeping on pointles filler (Kuririn meeting with Chi-Chi)

If Kai was re-edited to be 1:1 what was in the manga, the pacing would arguably be even worse than the original. You'd have no breather time where you need it, and you'd spend too much time on some things; the pacing of an anime and the pacing of a manga are two very different things, so regardless of how many chapters you put into an episode, if you're literally just doing a page-to-screen thing, it's going to work out badly.
A balance is needed. The early parts of the original series had this down pat; they added stuff with the Pilaf crew to both add breather time, and bring some interesting new stuff into the middle of stuff that might have otherwise gone on too long.
Bulma calmly explaining what the Dragon Balls are? Kinda neat. Bulma saying she'll explain what they are, then we cut to our villains as they get a ball, and excitedly chat about what they'll do when they have all 7? Much more interesting.

Point is, anime is not manga. You can't just say "it wasn't in the manga so it's bad" or "but it was like this in the manga! they changed it, so it sucks". It's perfectly valid to say, for instance, that they should have cut certain scenes that make the pacing draggy, kept certain stuff that helps the story, etc. But just criticising purely on the basis of whether or not it was in the manga is just a frustratingly baseless nitpick, in my view.

- Bad editing (Bulma mouth was moving but she didnt talk, fixed in English dub at least, Chi-Chi lying at Kame House (Scene of her arrival there was removed)

Having said the above... Yeah, some of the editing in Kai was a little sloppy; I'm on-board with that criticism.

The production of Kai was a bit of a mess. Like, basically all the redraws that happened in the 4:3 version were unnecessary and look pretty awful. And sometimes they just made a dumb mistake like a mouth still moving when there's no dialogue there.

[KBABZ]

Having done my own Kai edit of the original Dragon Ball, sometimes you need to have filler scenes in there in order for an episode to reach it's required broadcast runtime. I was able to get away with some due to my "flexible runtime" clause, but Toei would be at the mercy of broadcast requirements. Sometimes when you remove all the filler from two episodes, you wind up with a 32 minute long show when it's supposed to be 22. So there's not much you can do except include some of the filler to put the episodes back in sync, or do that awkward thing where the ending of an episode quite obviously occurs in the middle and you keep going anyway.

[VDenter]

. Some even say it's as bad as FUNi Z dub. Yeah, right.

I don’t think anyone has ever said that. Period.

For real, that's a gross exaggeration. I've never seen that. This just seems like you're looking to make trouble / have an argument for no reason.

This is my favorite Freeza dialog example I always point to. The delivery in the original is unmatched in its ferocious at-wits'-end, whereas in Kai Nakao plays it almost... straight? There's so much like this in Kai. It's fine, but it doesn't compare.

I see what you mean and i agree with this as i do prefer the original. That said i think part of the reason Kai tends to feel so "underwhelming" compared to the original is because you can compare Kai to the original. Just for the sake of argument, say if there was nothing to compare it to then i honestly don't think the performances in Kai would be getting nearly as much flak as they do currently. The cast does about as good of a job in Kai as they do in Super but you rarely hear anyone complain that they aren't great in Super. It's mostly just Kai that tends to get singled out.

Like i said i agree with you but i just feel that the voice acting in Kai gets a undeservedly bad rep at times IMO. For all the problems Kai had, i don't think voice acting was one of them.

[MasenkoHA]

Like i said i agree with you but i just feel that the voice acting in Kai gets a undeservedly bad rep at times IMO. For all the problems Kai had, i don't think voice acting was one of them.

It does.

The fact that the Japanese cast gets blasted for their performance in Kai while the Funimation cast gets praised for theirs just astounds me. Like reprimanding an A+ student for getting an A- while praising a D- student for getting a C+ I suppose.