Dragon Ball Z Kai
- Thread starter Emmeth
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English version? Just average and I hate Gohan's voice. Japanese version is much much better IMO.
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Removing filler was a detriment for the Saiyan Arc as anime filler is what helped make Gohan's character development well paced rather than a sudden change between chapters, as well as the removal of the training for the humans and some of Goku's filler escapades made their journey and progression feel like less of an effort. It also doesn't help how heavily the blood was censored such as with Raditz getting fatally wounded. For the Saiyan Arc, Z was far better.
For the Freeza Arc, the point goes to Kai due to cutting out such wastes of time as fake Namek or the Freeza fight recap just prior to Freeza's defeat, though it did retain the pointless Bulma Ginyu filler and cut out the filler of Bulma's escapades that actually gave her something to do in the arc. Overall though, I'd say the pros of dealing with filler outweighed the cons here, especially if counting the Garlic Jr. events as filler for this arc, not to mention the decisions with insert songs prior to the Yamamoto ost scandal really helped elevate some scenes.
Cell Arc is where Kai finds it hard to justify its existence. It still removes filler, but significantly less than other arcs and retains the more contradictive filler such as Kuririn VS Cell or most of the Z-Warriors' performance against the Cell Juniors, whereas a lot of the filler that helped balance tones and heighten character interactions such as the driving episode and the peaceful days prior to the Cell Games were removed. It also doesn't help that unlike the Z anime which removed the line about #19 and #20 being the Artificial Humans in Trunks' timeline, Kai adapted this line from the manga and thus brought back a retcon purposefully removed from the original anime. That improvement the Z anime made to consistency being removed in favour of being more manga faithful shows it's sometimes best not to treat the source material as gospel. For that alone, Z is far better for this arc, and the expert use of Kikuchi's score in Z being used far better than in the Kai re-releases dosen't help Kai's case either.
The Boo Arc is basically the same case as the Cell Arc's incompetent cherrypicking of filler. Events such as most of the Great Saiyaman antics that helped give Gohan more grounded and relateable problems in the arc are removed whilst such inconsistent messes as Goku and Vegeta VS Gohan Boo or Goku stating Pure Boo was the strongest Boo remain, and it doesn't help that the Kai ost for this arc is mediocre even without being stacked up against the glorious Kikuchi score. When you do so little to be more manga faithful as to not even remove clearly contradictive material that the anime created, it really brings into question why the work even needed to exist. Z >>> Kai here.
As a whole, Z is the superior work. Kai was a good idea in premise and executed adapting the Freeza Arc well, but in being more manga faithful it lost sight of why some filler scenes were added in the first place and eventually did such a sloppy job at removing them that it ended up becoming nothing but a cashgrab.
For the Freeza Arc, the point goes to Kai due to cutting out such wastes of time as fake Namek or the Freeza fight recap just prior to Freeza's defeat, though it did retain the pointless Bulma Ginyu filler and cut out the filler of Bulma's escapades that actually gave her something to do in the arc. Overall though, I'd say the pros of dealing with filler outweighed the cons here, especially if counting the Garlic Jr. events as filler for this arc, not to mention the decisions with insert songs prior to the Yamamoto ost scandal really helped elevate some scenes.
Cell Arc is where Kai finds it hard to justify its existence. It still removes filler, but significantly less than other arcs and retains the more contradictive filler such as Kuririn VS Cell or most of the Z-Warriors' performance against the Cell Juniors, whereas a lot of the filler that helped balance tones and heighten character interactions such as the driving episode and the peaceful days prior to the Cell Games were removed. It also doesn't help that unlike the Z anime which removed the line about #19 and #20 being the Artificial Humans in Trunks' timeline, Kai adapted this line from the manga and thus brought back a retcon purposefully removed from the original anime. That improvement the Z anime made to consistency being removed in favour of being more manga faithful shows it's sometimes best not to treat the source material as gospel. For that alone, Z is far better for this arc, and the expert use of Kikuchi's score in Z being used far better than in the Kai re-releases dosen't help Kai's case either.
The Boo Arc is basically the same case as the Cell Arc's incompetent cherrypicking of filler. Events such as most of the Great Saiyaman antics that helped give Gohan more grounded and relateable problems in the arc are removed whilst such inconsistent messes as Goku and Vegeta VS Gohan Boo or Goku stating Pure Boo was the strongest Boo remain, and it doesn't help that the Kai ost for this arc is mediocre even without being stacked up against the glorious Kikuchi score. When you do so little to be more manga faithful as to not even remove clearly contradictive material that the anime created, it really brings into question why the work even needed to exist. Z >>> Kai here.
As a whole, Z is the superior work. Kai was a good idea in premise and executed adapting the Freeza Arc well, but in being more manga faithful it lost sight of why some filler scenes were added in the first place and eventually did such a sloppy job at removing them that it ended up becoming nothing but a cashgrab.
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generally I think Kai is the superior English version. While I prefer Falconer's score, the dubbing in Funi Z is pretty bad until the Cell Arc, and only really gets decent around Boo. You can tell by Kai the voice actors are all seasoned and more experienced than before, leading to better work. (better scripts and recording equipment help too)
apart from that, I like some of the changes and dislike others. Android 18 sounds fine but her voice is so much different than Funi, for example.
apart from that, I like some of the changes and dislike others. Android 18 sounds fine but her voice is so much different than Funi, for example.
