Dragon Ball Z Kai aired on Nickolodeon tonight. All the trailers promised a brand new series, but showed images of the original Dragon Ball Z. I actually hoped it was a new addition to the series, but was let down. I have to say, I was relieved when it was the old show. I never had a chance to watch it from
begginning to end before. But now I realize this isn't just the old show. It is a completely remastered (and in some cases redubbed) version. The only complaints I have are that they took out the blood of my favorite anime of all time, and took the cussing out of the show that taught me to cuss when I was little. Example, instead of Raditz saying "What the hell" in episode 2, he said "What the hack." yes, hack.
Well, Kai is just DBZ made 16x9 (in Japan, at least) and with all the filler cut out. For instance, the first SSJ transformation happened in the old series at ep.80; in Kai it happened at the end of ep.47.
Are they going with the music that the old series had in the US? I haven't seen any of the Kai dub, and Dragonball Z in the US has a very different (and, to me, preferable) soundtrack in comparison the the Japanese original.
Dragon Ball Z Kai corrupts the artistry of the original series. Kai is a mere condensation of the original with nothing new to offer the Dragon Ball Z palette. For example, damaged frames are removed and scenes cropped to 16:9 ratio in the name of "HD quality". The storyline is shortened. If you subscribe to the philosophy, "less is more", then Kai may be right for you but from my perspective "less is less" and Kai is nothing more than a bad money grab. It fails to even offer the supposed "improvements" other remastered works possess.
Well I think they are making it more in-line with the manga. The only reason there is so much filler in DBZ is due to the fact that it was being made during the same time the manga was being made.
So sometimes they would catch up to where the manga was then have to wait, so they would throw in some filler episodes or episodes where not much happens. A lot of the episodes where the whole episode is a bit of fighting with powering up and taunting is classic filler.
I think that the fact the whole DBZ series is being condensed into less tha 150 episodes shows just how much filler the series really had currently we are in the start of the Android (cell) Arc and the numbering still hasnt broken into the triple digit realm.
Personally I am liking the new Japanese Intro (even the Ending songs have been mild and subtle much more pleasing to hear than the originals imho).
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Quote from »
Call me old fashioned, but an evil ascension to power just isn't the same without someone chanting faux Latin in the background.
Oreo, Glazing people better than Dunkin' Donuts since 2009
That is not dead which can eternal lie. And with strange eons even death may die.
Dragon Ball Kai, or Dragon Ball Z Kai as it is known as in North America is a condensed version of Dragon Ball Z that promises to develop more speedily. Thats pretty much all it promised. It also mentioned that it would follow Akira Toriyama's manga more closely, though this doesn't mean that all filler would be removed. Some of it is still in Kai and some material in the original manga has been removed from Kai.
The presentation aspect is that the series is broadcast in Japan in 16x9 due to Japanese broadcast standards. The original Z print was gone back to and the art was extended to fit the 16x9 frame. The 16x9 broadcast is created by taking the 4x3 and cropping so that only the most useless parts of the frame are removed, similar to a pan and scan. The DVD release in Japan is the 16x9 and the Blu-Ray release is the 4x3. The 4x3 is what Toei wanted to broadcast, but Japanese broadcast standards prevented this from happening. There is no word on why the DVD release in Japan is 16x9. Kai itself has been estimated to be only 100 episodes.
In North America, Kai itself is released in 4x3. The Blu-Ray and DVD releases are in 4x3. The DVD and Blu-Ray releases have an uncut dub with accurate translations and the original Kai music. Certain Americanization of names and attacks were retained, while others were reverted back to the original names or pronunciations. The opening and ending songs for Kai are dubbed versions of the Japanese versions.
From what I understand of the Nickelodeon version, the version shown will only be shown on broadcasts on that channel. It is not on the DVD or Blu-Ray releases. It still uses the original music and scripts, but is censored.
As for my thoughts on Kai in general... I have no interest in the butchered Nickelodeon dub as it is censored. If I wanted to see that, I would watch the original Z dub from 1996, as it was similarly cut and edited.
As for the unedited version of Kai... well I don't care for the music as much as the original Z score, and by that I mean the original Japanese score. What is nice though that for the first time EVER, a Dragon Ball series is getting an accurate dub in North American. Z couldn't manage it. GT couldn't manage it. Dragon Ball couldn't manage it. Kai has managed it. And for that I am interested in hearing it. Hopefully Kai will actually air on a channel that will air it as it originally broadcast.
Did they change the voices for some of the characters? I was kind of excited to see it back on TV after 10 years or so. IIRC it was on Cartoon Network before. Toonami ftw lol. It seems like some of the voices are different, mainly Vegeta and Piccalo. Maybe im wrong.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
- Let's just say, I've been around since the Ice Age
Yeah it was on Cartoon Network as the first US release. In Japan it was a TV show from the late 80s early 90s for the Japanese audience. US was mid 90s to early 00's.
Although I think I may prefer the original, you must consider this: the show is aimed at young audience. I remember being young, I didn't want to watch a show of Goku complaining in the rejuvenation tank while Freeza is also rambling for about 20 minutes. Was it worth the 2 minutes of fighting? So the new series may be focused on more action and story, and that is what a lot of the young american audience is tuning in for.
I mostly tend to just read up on the comments of others but felt compelled to mention a few things about this Dragon Ball Z Kai in a place where others could easily find it.
I have been a fan of the Dragon Ball series since the first time I accidentally saw it at four in the morning back in 1996. The series hooked me and I have been a devoted enthusiast ever since. When I heard of Dragon Ball Kai's release I got excited. First I should probably list a few of my expectations which of course were doomed to be disappointed.
When I heard that Dragon Ball Kai would be a rehash of the Dragon Ball Z story line (and then I went and saw the series opening and closing credits on youtube) I got my hopes up thinking this would be an composed of entirely new animation. The old Dragon Ball Z story, less filler, and awesome current animation and shading! What wasn't to get excited about? Of course that is not what happened at all. Dragon Ball Kai uses almost frame per frame from the original DBZ with some cleanup and touchup and cuts and edits. First strike. Funimation in the US had already basically done this with their DBZ DVD release. In fact Funimation pretty much one upped Kai by having the cells aspect ration professionally converted to 16x9 rather than just stretching and bloating or cutting the original 4x3 image. Even on Blueray in 1080p Dragon Ball Kai still appears in 4x3 aspect.
After watching the first DVD set of Kai to be released in the US, I find the addition of new scenes to be again very disheartening. There was a decent addition to the very first episode which basically explained how Gohan got stuck on the tree growing out of the cliff side and foreshadowed his hidden powers. After that I really could hardly find anything new. There's a few glimpses of King Kai fighting Goku during his training in Other World, same thing with the other Z-Fighters training on earth. Nothing that stood out.
One addition that stood out like a sore thumb I must point out was Vegeta. In the original series, the animators had no idea of Vegeta's color scheme when he made his first appearance after the defeat of Raditz, so they painted him kind of green and orange. Well in Kai they decided to fix this by painting a new Vegeta OVER the old Vegeta. I'm a multimedia person myself with a specialty in animation, so perhaps I'm just overly sensitive to this, but the newly painted Vegeta doesn't match the surrounding frame at all. The colors and shadings are bright and detailed, far more detailed than the surrounding image. Not to mention it is plain to see the new Vegeta is computer animated while the surrounding image is hand drawn flip animated. What that basically means is that no matter how good the old by hand animators were at making fluid animations, it's impossible for a human being to make as smooth a transition from frame to frame of animation as it is for a computer to do. You get a frame jump effect which if you look closely makes the picture look like it's shaking ever so slightly. So in this scene even Nappa suffers from this old style animation shake. Vegeta, who is standing right next to Nappa in the same frame, is perfectly smooth and suffers from no such shake. In my eyes it stands out horribly.
Dragon Ball Kai, first DVD set, and already three pretty big strikes against it in my book. The reason I'm posting this at all is mainly in the hopes that I'm not alone in saying this show deserves better! Dragon Ball Z made these studios an incredibly amount of money, has a huge devoted fanbase, in America it is THE show that got so many of us into anime in the first place... The series deserved much more than a mediocre attempt to milk the market for more dollar. I'd like to see more entirely new episodes, hopefully with better writing and more solid story concepts than the one we got a year ago with Vegeta's little brother... (How do we have such a young character who came from the planet that was destroyed right after Goku was born?) A new saga could take place in just about any time line gap in the series and could be done well! I want to support the studio's efforts in coming up with new Dragon Ball content, but the message must be clear that they must do a better job than this!
Sorry for the rant... next time I'll just blog it lol!
I am actually recording all of them. the Orginal airing of the DBZ had 291 episodes. most of which were filler as the manga series was being written at the same time. so they had to stop and wait for the manga to finish.
so the company made a bunch of fillers.
the Kai series gets rid of the non-important fillers and keeps those that are some what in line with the story. the Kai series get shrunk to 150 episodes which is close to the orignal story line.
to me it is much faster paced and much more exicting than when it aired the first time.
as for new episodes that is not going to happen. as far as toryama (sp?) is concerned the manga is complete and there won't be anymore GT was the last installment of the manga.
i think the new stuff isn't so much about new episodes as saving the orginals much like they did with star wars. the film itself was fading and needed cleaned up and restored.
they did introduce new scenes as there were issues and tears in the film.
overall it isn't bad and i think the improvements on the episodes and color make it better. fixing vegita in the begining was a good thing i my book.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Thanks to Epic Graphics the best around. Thanks to Nex3 for the avatar visit ye old sig and avatar forum
In fact Funimation pretty much one upped Kai by having the cells aspect ration professionally converted to 16x9 rather than just stretching and bloating or cutting the original 4x3 image. Even on Blueray in 1080p Dragon Ball Kai still appears in 4x3 aspect.
I'm going to stop you right there. While it is true Funimation did have a professional company convert their 4x3 print of DBZ to a 16x9 one for their Orange Brick Season sets, the method they paid the company to use is the following.
They paid Video Post and Transfer, if I remember the companie's name correctly, a sum of money to take their 4x3 print of DBZ, and run it through a number of automated processes. These automated processes were intended to remove grain, film noise and to convert the 4x3 print into a new film print of 16x9.
The only problem with this is that it is impossible to just make a 4x3 print completely fill a 16x9 box. So what the automated process did was cut the top and the bottom of the frame off, for a net total loss of footage of around 25% per frame. This loss of footage is necessary for the 4x3 print to be converted to the 16x9 frame without the use of stretching. This 16x9 print does actually allow around 5% more footage than was previously viewable on the left and right side of the frame, however this footage cannot be seen due to overscan on T.V.s, which is around 2.5% on all sides on average.
Overscan negates any gained footage on the sides and what you end up with is a 16x9 print where you have lost a quarter of the total image and only a straight crop of the top and bottom has been done. Yes, the 16x9 bricks are anamorphic widescreen, so they fill your HD T.V.s, however you have heads cut off, scenes which aren't framed right, and that's just getting into the aspect ratio of the Orange Brick sets.
To sum all of this up, Funimation got their 16x9 print by cutting 25% of the 4x3 print.
The beginning DBZ footage is 21 years old at this point (20 when they first started airing Kai). It was animated in 4x3. It was always intended to be viewed in 4x3. The only reason Kai is being broadcast in Japan in 16x9 is because of Japanese broadcast laws that make them do it.
To get into some of your other points, the new computer animation does stand out pretty bad, and it doesn't look all that good.
The special about Vegeta's brother was an excuse to finish the name pun. Vegeta and Table. It was kinda of stupid, but that was all it was intended to be. At that point in the series when the special is set, they are all so over powered that they all make light of it.
They paid Video Post and Transfer, if I remember the companie's name correctly, a sum of money to take their 4x3 print of DBZ, and run it through a number of automated processes. These automated processes were intended to remove grain, film noise and to convert the 4x3 print into a new film print of 16x9.
Okay... insert foot on my end. While it is true that it's technically impossible to make a 4x3 just fit a 16x9, I spent several years in school learning techniques on how to define and skew images at non essential areas to fill in the gaps and not make the image look distorted. Even Adobe products have a lot of nifty features that make such processes possible and not overly difficult. I would have hoped that if someone was going to have a popular series such as DBZ "professionally" updated to 16x9 that they would have gone all out and actually had it "professionally" done and not cut or bloated as I mentioned before. I don't own any of the orange brick sets so I haven't compared it yet, I had just made the assumption (bugger...) after hearing Funimation brag so much about what they went through to get it done.
As far as new episodes go... I mean how many comics, new episodes, and completely new renditions have been made for Superman that Jerry Siegal had nothing to do with? One can keep their hopes up. But no, I was hoping Kai would be the same story with fresh animation.
So many of the "filler" cuts are just lazy. Here's another example: During the saiyan fight on earth, Kai cuts out all of the "Spastic Chichi" scenes. I have no problem with that, but then suddenly we cut to the inside of Kame House and Chichi is lying on the living room floor passed out with a cloth on her head. Someone who's never seen the original series would have no idea what happened, why she's there, or when she even got there! It's just one scene without out her... and then boom she's passed out on the floor, no explanation. Lazy!
So now I'm left with the conclusion that none of these companies actually care about the series. Funimation didn't care enough to have their aspect changed right, and Toei didn't care enough to spend the time on their project to clear out so many of these issues with Kai. I just needed to vent because I feel like they're slaughtering one of the precious pieces of my childhood all in the name of a quick buck.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
begginning to end before. But now I realize this isn't just the old show. It is a completely remastered (and in some cases redubbed) version. The only complaints I have are that they took out the blood of my favorite anime of all time, and took the cussing out of the show that taught me to cuss when I was little. Example, instead of Raditz saying "What the hell" in episode 2, he said "What the hack." yes, hack.
What do you all think?
Thanks to Highlight studios for the sig
Are they going with the music that the old series had in the US? I haven't seen any of the Kai dub, and Dragonball Z in the US has a very different (and, to me, preferable) soundtrack in comparison the the Japanese original.
静
So sometimes they would catch up to where the manga was then have to wait, so they would throw in some filler episodes or episodes where not much happens. A lot of the episodes where the whole episode is a bit of fighting with powering up and taunting is classic filler.
Feel free to bid on my cards here!
Personally I am liking the new Japanese Intro (even the Ending songs have been mild and subtle much more pleasing to hear than the originals imho).
Dragon Ball Kai, or Dragon Ball Z Kai as it is known as in North America is a condensed version of Dragon Ball Z that promises to develop more speedily. Thats pretty much all it promised. It also mentioned that it would follow Akira Toriyama's manga more closely, though this doesn't mean that all filler would be removed. Some of it is still in Kai and some material in the original manga has been removed from Kai.
The presentation aspect is that the series is broadcast in Japan in 16x9 due to Japanese broadcast standards. The original Z print was gone back to and the art was extended to fit the 16x9 frame. The 16x9 broadcast is created by taking the 4x3 and cropping so that only the most useless parts of the frame are removed, similar to a pan and scan. The DVD release in Japan is the 16x9 and the Blu-Ray release is the 4x3. The 4x3 is what Toei wanted to broadcast, but Japanese broadcast standards prevented this from happening. There is no word on why the DVD release in Japan is 16x9. Kai itself has been estimated to be only 100 episodes.
In North America, Kai itself is released in 4x3. The Blu-Ray and DVD releases are in 4x3. The DVD and Blu-Ray releases have an uncut dub with accurate translations and the original Kai music. Certain Americanization of names and attacks were retained, while others were reverted back to the original names or pronunciations. The opening and ending songs for Kai are dubbed versions of the Japanese versions.
From what I understand of the Nickelodeon version, the version shown will only be shown on broadcasts on that channel. It is not on the DVD or Blu-Ray releases. It still uses the original music and scripts, but is censored.
As for my thoughts on Kai in general... I have no interest in the butchered Nickelodeon dub as it is censored. If I wanted to see that, I would watch the original Z dub from 1996, as it was similarly cut and edited.
As for the unedited version of Kai... well I don't care for the music as much as the original Z score, and by that I mean the original Japanese score. What is nice though that for the first time EVER, a Dragon Ball series is getting an accurate dub in North American. Z couldn't manage it. GT couldn't manage it. Dragon Ball couldn't manage it. Kai has managed it. And for that I am interested in hearing it. Hopefully Kai will actually air on a channel that will air it as it originally broadcast.
* sr20's Trade List *
Feel free to bid on my cards here!
Alliance of Rogue Deck Builders Member. Check us out!
http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=157704
ex-Moderator
Legacy love.
I have been a fan of the Dragon Ball series since the first time I accidentally saw it at four in the morning back in 1996. The series hooked me and I have been a devoted enthusiast ever since. When I heard of Dragon Ball Kai's release I got excited. First I should probably list a few of my expectations which of course were doomed to be disappointed.
When I heard that Dragon Ball Kai would be a rehash of the Dragon Ball Z story line (and then I went and saw the series opening and closing credits on youtube) I got my hopes up thinking this would be an composed of entirely new animation. The old Dragon Ball Z story, less filler, and awesome current animation and shading! What wasn't to get excited about? Of course that is not what happened at all. Dragon Ball Kai uses almost frame per frame from the original DBZ with some cleanup and touchup and cuts and edits. First strike. Funimation in the US had already basically done this with their DBZ DVD release. In fact Funimation pretty much one upped Kai by having the cells aspect ration professionally converted to 16x9 rather than just stretching and bloating or cutting the original 4x3 image. Even on Blueray in 1080p Dragon Ball Kai still appears in 4x3 aspect.
After watching the first DVD set of Kai to be released in the US, I find the addition of new scenes to be again very disheartening. There was a decent addition to the very first episode which basically explained how Gohan got stuck on the tree growing out of the cliff side and foreshadowed his hidden powers. After that I really could hardly find anything new. There's a few glimpses of King Kai fighting Goku during his training in Other World, same thing with the other Z-Fighters training on earth. Nothing that stood out.
One addition that stood out like a sore thumb I must point out was Vegeta. In the original series, the animators had no idea of Vegeta's color scheme when he made his first appearance after the defeat of Raditz, so they painted him kind of green and orange. Well in Kai they decided to fix this by painting a new Vegeta OVER the old Vegeta. I'm a multimedia person myself with a specialty in animation, so perhaps I'm just overly sensitive to this, but the newly painted Vegeta doesn't match the surrounding frame at all. The colors and shadings are bright and detailed, far more detailed than the surrounding image. Not to mention it is plain to see the new Vegeta is computer animated while the surrounding image is hand drawn flip animated. What that basically means is that no matter how good the old by hand animators were at making fluid animations, it's impossible for a human being to make as smooth a transition from frame to frame of animation as it is for a computer to do. You get a frame jump effect which if you look closely makes the picture look like it's shaking ever so slightly. So in this scene even Nappa suffers from this old style animation shake. Vegeta, who is standing right next to Nappa in the same frame, is perfectly smooth and suffers from no such shake. In my eyes it stands out horribly.
Dragon Ball Kai, first DVD set, and already three pretty big strikes against it in my book. The reason I'm posting this at all is mainly in the hopes that I'm not alone in saying this show deserves better! Dragon Ball Z made these studios an incredibly amount of money, has a huge devoted fanbase, in America it is THE show that got so many of us into anime in the first place... The series deserved much more than a mediocre attempt to milk the market for more dollar. I'd like to see more entirely new episodes, hopefully with better writing and more solid story concepts than the one we got a year ago with Vegeta's little brother... (How do we have such a young character who came from the planet that was destroyed right after Goku was born?) A new saga could take place in just about any time line gap in the series and could be done well! I want to support the studio's efforts in coming up with new Dragon Ball content, but the message must be clear that they must do a better job than this!
Sorry for the rant... next time I'll just blog it lol!
so the company made a bunch of fillers.
the Kai series gets rid of the non-important fillers and keeps those that are some what in line with the story. the Kai series get shrunk to 150 episodes which is close to the orignal story line.
to me it is much faster paced and much more exicting than when it aired the first time.
as for new episodes that is not going to happen. as far as toryama (sp?) is concerned the manga is complete and there won't be anymore GT was the last installment of the manga.
i think the new stuff isn't so much about new episodes as saving the orginals much like they did with star wars. the film itself was fading and needed cleaned up and restored.
they did introduce new scenes as there were issues and tears in the film.
overall it isn't bad and i think the improvements on the episodes and color make it better. fixing vegita in the begining was a good thing i my book.
Thanks to Epic Graphics the best around.
Thanks to Nex3 for the avatar visit ye old sig and avatar forum
I'm going to stop you right there. While it is true Funimation did have a professional company convert their 4x3 print of DBZ to a 16x9 one for their Orange Brick Season sets, the method they paid the company to use is the following.
They paid Video Post and Transfer, if I remember the companie's name correctly, a sum of money to take their 4x3 print of DBZ, and run it through a number of automated processes. These automated processes were intended to remove grain, film noise and to convert the 4x3 print into a new film print of 16x9.
The only problem with this is that it is impossible to just make a 4x3 print completely fill a 16x9 box. So what the automated process did was cut the top and the bottom of the frame off, for a net total loss of footage of around 25% per frame. This loss of footage is necessary for the 4x3 print to be converted to the 16x9 frame without the use of stretching. This 16x9 print does actually allow around 5% more footage than was previously viewable on the left and right side of the frame, however this footage cannot be seen due to overscan on T.V.s, which is around 2.5% on all sides on average.
Overscan negates any gained footage on the sides and what you end up with is a 16x9 print where you have lost a quarter of the total image and only a straight crop of the top and bottom has been done. Yes, the 16x9 bricks are anamorphic widescreen, so they fill your HD T.V.s, however you have heads cut off, scenes which aren't framed right, and that's just getting into the aspect ratio of the Orange Brick sets.
To sum all of this up, Funimation got their 16x9 print by cutting 25% of the 4x3 print.
The beginning DBZ footage is 21 years old at this point (20 when they first started airing Kai). It was animated in 4x3. It was always intended to be viewed in 4x3. The only reason Kai is being broadcast in Japan in 16x9 is because of Japanese broadcast laws that make them do it.
To get into some of your other points, the new computer animation does stand out pretty bad, and it doesn't look all that good.
The special about Vegeta's brother was an excuse to finish the name pun. Vegeta and Table. It was kinda of stupid, but that was all it was intended to be. At that point in the series when the special is set, they are all so over powered that they all make light of it.
Okay... insert foot on my end. While it is true that it's technically impossible to make a 4x3 just fit a 16x9, I spent several years in school learning techniques on how to define and skew images at non essential areas to fill in the gaps and not make the image look distorted. Even Adobe products have a lot of nifty features that make such processes possible and not overly difficult. I would have hoped that if someone was going to have a popular series such as DBZ "professionally" updated to 16x9 that they would have gone all out and actually had it "professionally" done and not cut or bloated as I mentioned before. I don't own any of the orange brick sets so I haven't compared it yet, I had just made the assumption (bugger...) after hearing Funimation brag so much about what they went through to get it done.
As far as new episodes go... I mean how many comics, new episodes, and completely new renditions have been made for Superman that Jerry Siegal had nothing to do with? One can keep their hopes up. But no, I was hoping Kai would be the same story with fresh animation.
So many of the "filler" cuts are just lazy. Here's another example: During the saiyan fight on earth, Kai cuts out all of the "Spastic Chichi" scenes. I have no problem with that, but then suddenly we cut to the inside of Kame House and Chichi is lying on the living room floor passed out with a cloth on her head. Someone who's never seen the original series would have no idea what happened, why she's there, or when she even got there! It's just one scene without out her... and then boom she's passed out on the floor, no explanation. Lazy!
So now I'm left with the conclusion that none of these companies actually care about the series. Funimation didn't care enough to have their aspect changed right, and Toei didn't care enough to spend the time on their project to clear out so many of these issues with Kai. I just needed to vent because I feel like they're slaughtering one of the precious pieces of my childhood all in the name of a quick buck.