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Dragon Ball Kai Official Thread

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riceandbeans said:
Started watching this yesterday. The pacing is so much better along and the english dub voice acting is better. Gohan is now tolerable. But man, watching this on Nicktoons is a fucking abomination. Toonami was decent on the censorship, but this is too much.

At least they had the decency to actually show the characters hitting each other. What the fuck is the point of airing a fighting anime if you're going to cut away every time someone hits each other?

The only voice acting I don't like is Trunks.
 
Seda said:
Home release? I'm not familiar with that terminology. Who has the home release? I only get the CW (Toonzai), which I believe is the cut release, but it's only up to Namek arch. Toonzai's website only goes in 13 episodes. Nicktoons is super cut.

I guess a simple question is...does a Uncut AND Dubbed edition of KAI even exist?

uncut= blurays/dvds
cut= what you see on tv
 
Seda said:
Home release? I'm not familiar with that terminology. Who has the home release? I only get the CW (Toonzai), which I believe is the cut release, but it's only up to Namek arch. Toonzai's website only goes in 13 episodes. Nicktoons is super cut.

I guess a simple question is...does a Uncut AND Dubbed edition of KAI even exist?

Just an fyi, the Toonzai broadcast is the super cut one. Nicktoons broadcast is still edited (as are the streams), but no where near the CW4Kids version. Afterall, that's where America debuted Blue Popo.

Seda said:
Ah. I wait for the complete kai series compliation on blu-ray

I'm fairly certain there's never been a 98 episode collection of an anime series in North America, so you may be waiting a while.
 
Zee-Row said:
Bruce Falconer's music was trash , it took them over 10 years to finally make that man unemployed.

like the original music was a masterpiece riiiight...
the few dozen truly great falconer themes
(compared to the rest being just "good" or "passable") are better then the entire original score
 
So, the newest episode did in fact have Kikuchi's score.

More interestingly, however, is that today's dub episode on Toonzai also had the Kikuchi score! I think it's safe to say that all future FUNimation releases of Kai will include the Kikuchi score, and they might even recall the already released sets.
 
If you really like the Yamamoto score I'd buy the Funimation sets now. While I don't think they'll do a recall, I guarantee you future reissues will not contain the original Kai score. Heck, a new printing of the current Kai sets could replace the score and none would be the wiser. Like Viz's ADD release of the manga that has volumes with the same cover art containing varying degrees of censorship.
 
I've been trying to keep up with this on Nicktoons. Even with the edits, this series feels ridiculously long. From a story perspective, I much prefer the manga, but I grew up watching the anime and it is still special to me.

This week should be the first unveiling of 17 and 18.
 
Do you really think it's long? The edits work wonderfully. I can't see myself going back to how it originally was prior to the edits. I tried rewatching some of the Frieza fight and it wasn't enjoyable to me anymore because there was too much talking/other nonsense in the way for half of the episodes.
 
Anth0ny said:
So, the newest episode did in fact have Kikuchi's score.

More interestingly, however, is that today's dub episode on Toonzai also had the Kikuchi score! I think it's safe to say that all future FUNimation releases of Kai will include the Kikuchi score, and they might even recall the already released sets.

At first I didn't know what you were talking about, but as soon as I watched the latest episode, I recognized the music immediately.

So what's the deal? Why the change in music? Are they planning on bringing back the original music score or something?

Takao said:
If you really like the Yamamoto score I'd buy the Funimation sets now. While I don't think they'll do a recall, I guarantee you future reissues will not contain the original Kai score. Heck, a new printing of the current Kai sets could replace the score and none would be the wiser. Like Viz's ADD release of the manga that has volumes with the same cover art containing varying degrees of censorship.

Got any examples?
 
ant1532 said:
fuck. ending of cell battle was fucking perfect. shit is so sweet seeing everyone going balls out at the end.

Yeah, it's awesome. Glad Kai chose to end there, really. Should have been Toriyama's original ending all along.
 
Now that I don't have to watch Buu over again, I most likely will definitely pick up the inevitable boxset for Kai.

.. And then in a year they'll announce DBZ re-drawn with 21st century tech.
 
Strider2K99 said:
At first I didn't know what you were talking about, but as soon as I watched the latest episode, I recognized the music immediately.

So what's the deal? Why the change in music? Are they planning on bringing back the original music score or something?



Got any examples?

Kenji Yamamoto plagiarized some of his scores from American movies like Terminator Salvation. Toei responded by completely removing all of the music he has made for Kai so they can completely dissociate themselves from him and not have to credit him. They didn't plan on doing this, and neither did FUNimation, but their Part 5 set which was gonna be released in April, got a surprise delay to June. It's definitely due to FUNimation taking out the music.
 
X-Frame said:
Now that I don't have to watch Buu over again, I most likely will definitely pick up the inevitable boxset for Kai.

.. And then in a year they'll announce DBZ re-drawn with 21st century tech.
And I will be there day 1! But that won't happen.
 
Maron said:
Kenji Yamamoto plagiarized some of his scores from American movies like Terminator Salvation. Toei responded by completely removing all of the music he has made for Kai so they can completely dissociate themselves from him and not have to credit him. They didn't plan on doing this, and neither did FUNimation, but their Part 5 set which was gonna be released in April, got a surprise delay to June. It's definitely due to FUNimation taking out the music.
Oh wow, didn't know about that at all.
 
Huge dissection of the financials of Toei and Bandai as they relate to Kai on episode 252 of the Daizex podcast. It will tell you why Kai is over when the ratings were so good.

Strider2K99 said:
Got any examples?

Certain print editions contains different editing. The first run of the Dragon Ball series had a good bunch of volumes that were completely unedited. Then Viz started editing, and future reprints of the manga would be with edits. The bizarre thing is that the edits can change between printing dates. For example, one graphic novel with Mr. Popo printed way back when would have Mr. Popo's lips, a reprint may contain thinned out lips, and a different one could remove the lips entirely (though I don't believe they've done that). The censorship also extends to nudity, and language (both verbal and physical). Though Viz's translation of the manga at times chooses bizarre names - why Vegerot (though it contains the name pun) and not Vegeto?

This thread on Daizex details some of the censorship in the versions of the manga. Warning though, it deals with censorship of Bulma's side boob.
 
I've held off on picking up Kai for financial reasons, but if this music thing turns out to change the whole thing... I don't think I'd be able to hold myself back.
 
Kagari said:
Yeah, it's awesome. Glad Kai chose to end there, really. Should have been Toriyama's original ending all along.
Eh, i disagree. Sure people have their opinions on when they thought it should end and no agrees even agrees. It's not like Star Wars were everyone knows the last 3 sucked. Kai should end it when it really ends. And they are.

This whole thing about them not doing the Majin Buu is so out of proportion its pretty stupid. The show is taking it break. It's how television works. "Takeshi Kusao, the Japanese voice actor for Trunks, has stated there are only four episodes of DragonBall Kai left but he hopes the also remake the Majin Buu story" You'd be a fool to think that one of the most popular cartoons of all time isn't going to get picked back up for another season.
 
wow this soundtrack stuff is pretty hilarious. it's funny to think that the dude that composed the music to super metroid would plagiarize like that.
 
andymcc said:
wow this soundtrack stuff is pretty hilarious. it's funny to think that the dude that composed the music to super metroid would plagiarize like that.

That's a different guy, same name though - and Dragon Ball Yamamoto has been heavily "inspired" since the 90's.
 
Kai sounds awesome in theory, but the voices, the music changes, the pacing. Most of the charm is lost. Also, Buu saga might not even be completed. I went ahead and bought the first three dragon boxes. Damn they are beautiful. About time there's a almost perfect release for the original japan version. It's pretty funny, but I never seen the full series in Japanese. I pretty much grew up on the dub, but I grew to hate it over the years. I'm in for a treat when I watch all the dragon boxes.
 
vocab said:
Kai sounds awesome in theory, but the voices, the music changes, the pacing. Most of the charm is lost. Also, Buu saga might not even be completed. I went ahead and bought the first three dragon boxes. Damn they are beautiful. About time there's a almost perfect release for the original japan version.
your crazy.
 
ant1532 said:
your crazy.

How so? I'm a purist, and I can't settle for a remade version of dragon ball. Also I'm of huge fan of older anime. I don't think I would like the subtle touch ups at all. Filler out is cool and all, but it's not a huge deal breaker to me.
 
I don't get it.

Goku transports cell to King Kai's planet.

Rather than BLABBLING FOR 30 FUCKING SECONDS, how about you just warp back to Earth while Cell explodes? Unless he wanted to die? But I doubt that since he told Gohan to finish off Cell quickly while he still had a chance.
 
Mikey Jr. said:
I don't get it.

Goku transports cell to King Kai's planet.

Rather than BLABBLING FOR 30 FUCKING SECONDS, how about you just warp back to Earth while Cell explodes? Unless he wanted to die? But I doubt that since he told Gohan to finish off Cell quickly while he still had a chance.
I was looking for an explanation for this, it seems like people go back and forth between "he didn't have enough time" and "he wanted to die". The second one is more believable, since he's pretty damn fast at that point, even without having to concentrate on teleporting. He could have grabbed King Kai and gotten pretty far away if he wanted to.
 
Takao said:
Certain print editions contains different editing. The first run of the Dragon Ball series had a good bunch of volumes that were completely unedited. Then Viz started editing, and future reprints of the manga would be with edits. The bizarre thing is that the edits can change between printing dates. For example, one graphic novel with Mr. Popo printed way back when would have Mr. Popo's lips, a reprint may contain thinned out lips, and a different one could remove the lips entirely (though I don't believe they've done that). The censorship also extends to nudity, and language (both verbal and physical). Though Viz's translation of the manga at times chooses bizarre names - why Vegerot (though it contains the name pun) and not Vegeto?

This thread on Daizex details some of the censorship in the versions of the manga. Warning though, it deals with censorship of Bulma's side boob.

Thanks for the info.

I used to have a few of the Viz books back then and I didn't notice any of those big censors, so maybe I was lucky and bought the right ones.
 
vocab said:
How so? I'm a purist, and I can't settle for a remade version of dragon ball. Also I'm of huge fan of older anime. I don't think I would like the subtle touch ups at all. It's like watching LOGH Laser Disc versus the dvd version. You miss a bunch of the hand drawn stuff since it's fused with computer tech.
i have no idea about LOGH(its probably another anime but the only anime I've seen is dragon ball) but everything your saying there seems pretty irrelevant anyway... :/

Saying your a "purist" is exactly the opposite. Why would the "purist" want to watch filler? Your seem to just be a nostalgic/traditional person...
 
Mikey Jr. said:
I don't get it.

Goku transports cell to King Kai's planet.

Rather than BLABBLING FOR 30 FUCKING SECONDS, how about you just warp back to Earth while Cell explodes? Unless he wanted to die? But I doubt that since he told Gohan to finish off Cell quickly while he still had a chance.

Never thought about that lol

WTF Goku...
 
Blader5489 said:
Ours was better. :P


not kidding.
The music in the English DBZ dub is superior to the original in every way. GT's English dub music is worse than both one hundred fold.

Mikey Jr. said:
I don't get it.

Goku transports cell to King Kai's planet.

Rather than BLABBLING FOR 30 FUCKING SECONDS, how about you just warp back to Earth while Cell explodes? Unless he wanted to die? But I doubt that since he told Gohan to finish off Cell quickly while he still had a chance.
Dragonball Z is full of bullshit like this. If you get hung up over this, you have to be hung up over just about every other fight in the series.

The series is case after case of characters having the ability to do one thing, but choosing to do another. Goku wanting to die is more than suitable enough of an explanation.
 
ant1532 said:
i have no idea about LOGH(its probably another anime but the only anime I've seen is dragon ball) but everything your saying there seems pretty irrelevant anyway... :/

Saying your a "purist" is exactly the opposite. Why would the "purist" want to watch filler? Your seem to just be a nostalgic/traditional person...


How is older animation, original voices (especially the voices that are no longer with us), and changed music irrelevant? You're right, filler sucks, but Kai sacrifices a lot of the qualities the original DBZ anime had. It has better pacing, but it feels a bit rushed most of the times. Hey, if you like Kai, that's fine. I got no problem. Dragon ball is Dragon ball.

Also, the original music is pretty bad. Hells bells is cool, but that's it. It changes the tone of the series way too much. I wouldn't of hated it that much if they would space the music out better, but there's episodes where the music does not stop. Thinking back on it, it feels a bit too much like 4kids One Piece. They ruin the immersion 100%
 
Mikey Jr. said:
I don't get it.

Goku transports cell to King Kai's planet.

Rather than BLABBLING FOR 30 FUCKING SECONDS, how about you just warp back to Earth while Cell explodes? Unless he wanted to die? But I doubt that since he told Gohan to finish off Cell quickly while he still had a chance.

This always drove me fucking crazy.
 
GT's US score is some really shitty techo hiphop hybrid that makes no sense with the show.

It's a shame it's like that too, since the dub for GT isn't bad, but this shitty rapping still remains when you turn on the Japanese BGM track on the green bricks despite those lyrics being a mile away from matching the background music.

Strider2K99 said:
Thanks for the info.

I used to have a few of the Viz books back then and I didn't notice any of those big censors, so maybe I was lucky and bought the right ones.

Viz's edits are generally pretty well hidden. Well, except when they do shit like this:

c4c9359f4d225a0d91e3db33eb34972f.jpg


I just have to lol (there's also a title page where the main cast sticks the middle finger to Cell, but in the Viz releases it's edited so no finger is stuck out. Shaking fists!).

Though, I guess I understand the nudity since last year the manga was compared to child porn by a school representative...
 
Anth0ny said:
I don't understand. Weren't the dub scores for Z and GT both just generic rock?

And the GT dub gave us this gem!
Sadly, they weren't all awesome like that song :P

There are a lot of terrible songs/pieces of music in the DBZ dub, but I'll take them gladly if it means I get to keep the good ones.

Ox King Consoles
The Dragon Theme
Gohan Fights Frieza
Super Saiyan Vegeta Theme
Mystic Gohan's Theme
Vegeta's Theme
Gohan's Anger 2
Babidi Casts Spell

Bruce definitely got a lot better as he went along. My biggest complaint for his music has always been that it is way too random, and at times, obstructive. It needs to learn to take the backseat and simply be background music. This song is a perfect example---it has a lot of great ideas in it, but they end up being thrown together into this jumbled mess that is damn distracting.

Rips off Cells Tail


I'd be really interested if someone would post some songs from either the Ocean dub or original Japanese that they think are good. I've never really gave anything else a listen, and am very interested in what the other versions came up with.
 
I'm a bit surprised you didn't post the Perfect Cell theme, since I actually really like that piece, lol.

The Shunsuke Kikuchi is a lot more slower, instrumental, and methodic than either the Ocean, or Funimation score. It has been years since I've seen the Japanese side of things, but from memory:

Genki Dama
A slow piece that gets bigger and bigger before turning into one triumphant blast. Quite fitting for the charging, and then execution of the Spirit Bomb/Genki Dama.

Great Warrior is Dead
A very desolate and depressing song that strikes home the loss of a great friend. It's incredibly effective since their isn't music played over the entire episode like it is in the Funimation dub.

Here's a selection of the Feeza vs. Goku tracks, and a selection of the Cell tracks. Both are very intimidating at times and suit the villainous roles well.

There's also a some good movie tracks that get reused in the series at times. Like Tapion's stuff from Movie 13, etc. But I can't not mention the Ginyu Force theme.

I enjoy the Japanese score because of the orchestral music. It builds up tension in a slow but very effective way. The Japanese score also ocasionally inserts vocal music. Where as the Funimation stuff is done on a synth, and is generally in your face. Including the stuff not done by Falconer, outside of Menza's music (which is in your face in a different way).

As for both Ocean dub's music, it's actually incredibly hard to find pieces. First off, both dubs used recycled tracks. Shuki Levy's era reused stuff from Power Rangers, and other Saban shows, and the later Canada-Euro Exclusive dub used a lot of stuff from the 90's Megaman cartoon, and Monster Rancher. However, there was original music composed for both. For the original Ocean Dub there was a 12 track soundtrack CD released in 1996, but that didn't cover all of the original music, so music had to be ripped from episodes, like this:

Goku's Arrival

For the later Ocean dub, no official release exists what so ever, so the music tracks I'm about to post are actually made from likely VHS rips of the episodes of the show when dialogue isn't spoken:

Standoff
Trunks
The Army/Awakening

These three pieces are used a lot in the later Ocean dub as original music was recycled often. As such, I'm pretty nostalgic for these songs since I remember them quiet clearly as that's what I grew up with. They're more on the Funimation dub side than the Japanese though.

But overall, I think GT's music is the best. I get chills when I hear DAN DAN role at the end of episode 64.
 
Vincent Alexander said:
Sadly, they weren't all awesome like that song :P

There are a lot of terrible songs/pieces of music in the DBZ dub, but I'll take them gladly if it means I get to keep the good ones.

Ox King Consoles
The Dragon Theme
Gohan Fights Frieza
Super Saiyan Vegeta Theme
Mystic Gohan's Theme
Vegeta's Theme
Gohan's Anger 2
Babidi Casts Spell

Bruce definitely got a lot better as he went along. My biggest complaint for his music has always been that it is way too random, and at times, obstructive. It needs to learn to take the backseat and simply be background music. This song is a perfect example---it has a lot of great ideas in it, but they end up being thrown together into this jumbled mess that is damn distracting.

Rips off Cells Tail


I'd be really interested if someone would post some songs from either the Ocean dub or original Japanese that they think are good. I've never really gave anything else a listen, and am very interested in what the other versions came up with.
Missed my favorite!

Gohan's Innocence/ Time Chamber
 
You know, episode 96 of Kai was deleyed for one week due to the terrible earthquake. However, it seems that they are not going to deley the beginning of Toriko on April 3rd, which means that now Kai has one episode less than the original plan. Probably they simply do not want to deley Toriko, but in addition, I guess that they have decided to skip the story of Future Trunks that shows ruined cities which remind people of the tsunami disaster.

http://www.toei-anim.co.jp/tv/dragon_kai/

The official site of Kai now says "Episode 97 (Final episode)", and the next episode preview is still in preparation. Maybe they are changing the preview to a new one that announces the next episode will be the end of Kai.

There is still no word whether they are going to include episode 98 on the future DVD/Blu-ray release or not.

via Kei17 from DaizenshuuEX

I'm speechless.

Understandable given the circumstances, but it's just never-fucking-ending with this show. First it's canceled, then the music thing, now they're not even going to air an episode. Crazy.
 
Maron said:
Kenji Yamamoto plagiarized some of his scores from American movies like Terminator Salvation. Toei responded by completely removing all of the music he has made for Kai so they can completely dissociate themselves from him and not have to credit him. They didn't plan on doing this, and neither did FUNimation, but their Part 5 set which was gonna be released in April, got a surprise delay to June. It's definitely due to FUNimation taking out the music.

Whoa, whoa whoa. Hold up. Hold the FUCK up. That shit is unbelievable. And so, they're replacing all the episodes with the original DBZ score by Shunsuke Kikuchi? Good god. :lol

On the one hand, I'm a little annoyed at Toei for taking a lazy route, but 1) It really might have been too much work and 2) If Yamamoto's work was any indication, they'd just hire some guy who's style of music was essentially the same as Kikuchi's and would bork it up anyway.

Yes, I know I'm in the tiny, practically insignificant minority, but I never cared much for Kikuchi's score. I mean, I thought it was professionally composed, and had many good themes, but the actual music style was something that resembled Godzilla movies from the 50s. It had no place in DBZ, though I suppose it was slightly more fitting for DB. Yamamoto's work was pretty decent too, but just like Kikuchi, the type of music was in the same vein as Kikuchi's, and as a result was disappointing. I always thought they should have gotten the dude that did the music for the first two Tenchi series. Now THAT was ballin.

As far as dub music goes, Shuki Levy (Funi/Saban/Ocean episodes, seasons 1 and 2) > UK Ocean dub >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Faulconer.

Yes, I despise Faulconer that much. He's the guy that made me start appreciating REAL musicians and composers in the first place. It's a crime that such a talentless hack had the privelage of working on a ~300 episode long series that happened to be the most popular show around when it aired in this cursed country.

I'll admit that his Pikkon, SS3 transformation, and Trunks themes were good, but he was horrendous on practically everything else. Especially the 'comedic' tunes. Ugh.
 
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