zach7fours said:
No. I refuse to believe Kai was a good idea. There couldn't have been one person in the editing room saying, "EVERY SINGLE PERSON WILL LOVE THIS." Guys, you remember the scene where Vegeta get the snot kicked out of him by Recoome or where he kills Guldo? When Guldo gets his head chopped off, it just flat disappears. And then Vegeta blows up a random ground spot. And blood? as the editor said," Just make all blood on the body brown. No one will notice." This series is a mockery of the original.
...Were you watching the TV version? I recall the uncut DVD version having the same amount of Recoome bloodily pummeling Vegeta and Guldo visibly losing his head.
On topic, speaking as a person who grew up with Dragonball Z from the very first saga all the way to GT, I have to say that Dragon Ball Z Kai is a supierior version of the original. People seem to hate on Kai solely for the fact that they changed the voice actors, that it cut out filler, and that it has a new modern orchestral soundtrack.
What people forget was that the most of the characters were voiced by staff members, also known as people who have no experience voice acting. The original dub was filled to the brim with translation errors, awkward pauses in between words due to lip flaps, and flatly delivered dialogue.
In Kai, the characters are voiced by people who actually have experience and the older cast of voice actors actually put in more effort this time around. With the horrible dialogue taken out, lines such as "SAD FOR YOOOOU" or "MOAR LIEK... BURNT TOAST", you can actually take the show seriously this time.
Some argue that the filler gave more character development to some of the characters. The thing, though, was that some of the filler actually mischaracterized people like Krillin who was made out to be more cowardly than he really is or like Gohan who was made out to enjoy fighting when he really didn't at all. As for the other characters like Tien and Yamcha, their backstory and character were all already established in the previous series, and it wasn't like they needed it in Dragon Ball Z since they were pretty much demoted to extras.
As for the new soundtrack, well I guess that depends on what you kind of music that you enjoy, honestly. The new soundtrack that was composed by Kenji Yamamoto, in my opinion, actually gives Kai a refreshing feel musically, as well as giving the show a more heroic, mature tone. Take the scene where Vegeta is killed by Frieza on Namek. Bruce Falconer's work on the original dub was by no means bad, but it was far from good. More often than not would Bruce's music inappropriately drone on endlessly during certain scenes, lacking the emotional impact thats supposed to go along with what's happening. Take a look at this scene from Kai where Vegeta is killed by Frieza on Namek.
Bear in mind that this is the TV version of Dragon Ball Z Kai, so all the swearing and blood is replaced with different words by the actors. Admittedly, this was the clip that got me interested in Dragon Ball Z Kai in the first place.
