Review: FUNimation's Dragon Ball Z Kai

Written by: SilverPlaqueVII

Ironically, FUNimation has released Dragon Ball "Z" Kai because I decided to do the review even though I only have DBZ Season 1 for keeps. Because I walked home from school after my Student Council Meeting, I decided to do the review, so shall we begin?

Name Change, Anyone?

I hate to be a freak but I might get to know the name so easily. Dragon Ball "Kai" is a revised version of Dragon Ball Z done for it's 20th anniversary that was premiered on April 5, 2009. The word "Kai" itself literally means Revised and Refreshed. At some point they decided to re-use the footage and get rid of the filler material so they can get the story faster to match with the manga of the series that it was the way meant to be seen for Japanese high-definition television. But believe me, FUNimation got the license for the series and Rojas. a representative from FUNimation added "Z" to their moniker and logo for their release. But hey, they do the ideas for the series, I don't do this plan.

Not exactly. A quick note, FUNimation did a nice job doing the series and treated the same way like the scripts which you will read later in my review. Over 80% of the fans prefer the Japanese version and being accurate at all times. Speaking of which as I said above, they kept the logo on the English dub's first episode of their DVD release. FYI, check out my episode guide. Till then, move on please.

Title Cards and Comparisons

For my part, the title cards are always are essentially a total mess but in my opinion, natural translations are likely inaccurate altogether but in my part, title cards are such hitchhikers to this one for instance. Among this, FUNimation uses Goku rather then Son Goku, even they used Frieza rather than Freeza. I'd say "Sai-yan", but sometimes many majority of English dub fans used "Say-yen" at all times. The Japanese always used "Saiya-jin", but there's more issues about the names coming later in my review (keep reading). However, the latter is so pointless when they shorten the title cards for Dragon Ball, Dragon Ball Z, and Dragon Ball GT.

That was so close to the Japanese cards. But Kai did the minor fix to taste the perfection of the Japanese version. In the event of cropping the screen from 4:3 to 16:9, FUNimation has hit themselves with the hammer as they did to their crappy season sets and soften their hammer a little bit. Toei did theirs 4:3 from their broadcast 16:9 for their DVD release in Japan just like the Dragon Boxes are in 4:3 ratio. But me, they did the same fate in their standard ratio beating themselves in the head with the remastered releases of Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball GT using the same ratio. ^_^

As fans complained about the ratio problems, MistareFusion said on his video that comparisons are such a total failure. The customer is always right, but yes a lot of fans choose the English version over the Japanese version. I have my TV cropped 4:3, and standards can't rely on it. There's is a 16:9 ratio for their fancy HDTVs for their so-called orange bricks. Kanzentai has the reviews here about the packing, etc... and here about the Japanese TV's aspect ratio.

English dub

We here has a large amount of the English dubbed fans wanted over this thing. But namely in my conventions, most character attacks will regain their correct and untranslated-proper-noun announcements in the unedited dub (Makankōsappō for Special Beam Cannon, Kienzan for Destructo Disk, Taiyo-ken for Solar Flare, etc). Some other names that have always been engraved in the English dub will remain the same (namely the pronunciation of "Saiyan", Tenshinhan's adapted name "Tien", etc.). Dialogue is being treated with much more respect than ever before for an English dub of a Dragon Ball product unlike the previous versions of the releases which is almost inaccurate. 

There are minor alterations, Colleen Clinkenbeard re-casts Stephanie Nadolny's Son Gohan, Travis Willingham (who was in DB Raging Blast) re-casts Dameon Clarke's Cell, and so on. But eventually, FUNimation almost stopped using the silly names due to copyright issues I assume.

At some point, the music by Kenji Yamamoto is kept in the English version, if it wasn't for the freakin' English fans wanted the Bruce Faulconer score on Kai. So the music will not be on DBZKai. Moving on. The music is only found on their remastered bricks only. Not even the Dragon Boxes.

Conclusion

I'd safe to say that the domestic release version of Dragon Ball Z Kai is so unique. But new generation of Dragon Ball fans will enjoy the experience of the series as many Japanese fanbase enjoying it at all. However, I started to enjoy the Japanese version in my opinion. Many folks old and new have this next generation experience of Kai around the world. There's more discussion about my review that I wrote that can be found on Daizenshuu EX's podcast #0220 by VegettoEX, Meri, and Hujio. 

Buy this DVD

DVD is available for Region 1 and 4 release:

DVD - CDN $36.99Amazon