I don’t plan on making it a habit of blogging about Dragon Ball Kai, but seeing as I reviewed a very “special” remake yesterday, I felt I should talk a little about how the other, inarguably better remake is doing.
For those of you who don’t know, Dragon Ball Kai is an HD re-mastering of the original Dragon Ball Z with new audio recorded (both music and voices) and, most importantly, all fat trimmed to make the show more streamlined and in-pace with the original Toriyama manga. Three episodes are out so far, and it should give a good indicator as to how the show will fare later on.
Dragon Ball Kai accomplishes in three episodes what took the original anime five, and early Dragon Ball Z wasn’t even that filler-laden! At the pace they’re going, the show may end up feeling it’s never dragging. That is, unless perhaps the manga dragged in certain areas as well. It’s an interesting conflict, being “true to the manga,” because should you be true to it, bad parts and all? Probably the main difference in pacing that will be seen is that in the manga powering up hardly takes any time. It’s the classic cliche of Dragon Ball Z that entire episodes are spent “powering up,” and it’ll be funny to see that stereotype smashed. It’ll be even funnier when the Namek saga takes significantly less time, and the inevitable jokes will occur which go, “Are they still on Nam- oh…I guess not. Carry on!”
Unlike that other thing, there’s really no point to discussing whether or not Dragon Ball Kai is true to the spirit of Dragon Ball. While this is clearly going to make them massive piles of money to roll around (and to sleep on top of with lots and lots of beautiful women), it’s still, I feel, a labor of love to a certain extent, even if it’s simply a repackaging of old material to seem new and fresh. I’m cool with that.
I just have to wonder if this mean that for all the young kids who are watching Kai before Z, will they be unable to ever watch the Z anime when a superior alternative exists?
OGIUE MANIAX 
I had seen DBZ back when local tv was the only source for anime, and it took so long and had so many reruns of the same arcs I never got to finish it.
I can’t recommend the original series over Kai, unless Kai manages to not show very important scenes/arcs etc.
Of course I’m coming from the perspective of a fan who just wants to see a completed story, so my opinion may not apply to most.
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Toei seems to have lost their balls somewhere. Dragon Ball Kai is pretty heavily edited and not in the good way that everyone was looking forward too. The giant holes that should have been going through both Goku and his brother in episode three are missing leaving nice big purple Death Bruises right below their ribs along with about six gallons of blood. Toei has also taken the opportunity to cover up Goku’s baby willy.
The action scenes however in episode three look wonderful, maybe they’re saving all the gore for the DVDs.
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NO U
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Yeah, the editing of the blood strikes me as odd.
Also, the HD remaster helps nothing :/
What also makes things weird are the parts where they clearly re-coloured and re-drew things.
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