Audience reviews
20 · Sample from the first available page, separate from the total number of ratings.
jprau29
As a proper Latino, I watched Dragon Ball when I was a kid, besides playing Budokai Tenkaichi 3 and 2 for hours. Since I hardly remember anything about Dragon Ball Z, I decided that instead of rewatching it, I'd watch what is supposed to be the remastered version.
Nobody can undermine the impact Dragon Ball has on anime; it's an inspiration for most modern anime and holds great importance now and in the future. But being completely impartial, from a perspective of treating it like just a normal anime, it leaves a lot to be desired compared to modern anime...
Story: 6.7
DBK's story is simple: a villain arrives on Earth to conquer or destroy it, is much stronger than the group of heroes, so they have to train. After training, they beat him. That's roughly how the three sagas of Vegeta, Fr…
Read at the source_Bubassotto_
A reimagining of Dragon Ball Z!
Dragon Ball Kai is nothing more than an "optimized" version of Dragon Ball Z. Its biggest difference lies in the removal of drawn-out scenes and excessive filler, making the narrative advance much faster and more fluidly. Events unfold at a faster pace, but this doesn't harm the story or the impact of important moments. On the contrary, in many cases, the work becomes even more direct and engaging.
It's important to make it clear that this version doesn't intend to reinvent the work or add major new features. Aside from the opening, endings, and some remade animations, Dragon Ball Kai presents practically no new content. However, this is far from being a problem, since that was never the project's objective. Kai exists precisely to condense Dragon Ball Z,…
Read at the sourcefcbjeeon
Oh, Dragon Ball Z Kai, where do I even begin? The reason why I am writing this review, the reason why I am on this website, the reason I love anime, the reason why I even convert oxygen to carbon monoxide every day, is because of you.
You were my first true love. Coming home after elementary school, and you were always there on my television, I would leap into your arms. Begging my mom to buy me a hoodie with the Z Fighters on it, playing Battle of Z on my psvita, spiking my hair up to make it seem like Goku's hair. You were my childhood.
To this day, I defend you like you were my own family member. You are the father of shonen, you changed anime forever. The voice acting, the gritty colors, the chemistry between characters, iconic villains. We get comedy, romance, fights, depression, twi…
Read at the sourceAngeVNs
In my original Dragon Ball Z series review, I mentioned that as much as I love the series—and think either the original Z or Kai are great ways to experience it—if you drop the nostalgia and judge it by modern anime standards, especially in English dub form, Kai is easily the better choice.
Dragon Ball Z Kai basically fixes two of the biggest issues with the original Z: the filler episodes and the overall slow pacing. Sure, the series is still long—certainly longer than your average battle shonen—but the way it gets to the point much faster makes it way more enjoyable. You don’t have to sit through episodes of unnecessary padding and events that are never referenced again in any Dragon Ball series.
Now, do these changes suddenly make Kai a perfectly paced series? Obviously not. Even with…
Read at the sourceREC3
My review for Dragon Ball Z Kai. Dragon Ball Z was already one of my favorite anime series, before watching this series. Yes, I watched all of Dragon Ball Z before watching this. Kai is the definitive version of DBZ up to the Majin Buu saga in my opinion. I'll probably just watch the Majin Buu saga on Blu-ray full screen edition and not the chopped up DBZ Kai Final Chapters widescreen edition. Like other old TV Series the best way to watch DBZ is full screen edition. Because unlike movies they were meant to be viewed on the television screen. The reason is movies are sent first to the movie theater and are filmed in widescreen format, except for really old films like The Wizard of Oz and Peter Pan where widescreen theater exhibitions didn't exist. Television series only became widescreen a…
Read at the sourceProfane_Vestige
This is a distilled version of DB that only has, and this cannot be stressed enough, ONLY FIGHTING. The animation is one of the best to experience the original DB fights and cutscenes with the hype and exceptional voice acting from the english voice actors. Though that is all this version does well. Do not expect good character quips, character building, and overall good stuff from the original DB series. A lot of content has been cut and some of it is good and some of it is bad. An overall better experience would be the original DB series if you can stomach the longer watch time.
Read at the sourceKnuxxie
Long time fan, new Kai viewer.
I did not watch Kai when it initially aired, rather just recently watched the blu ray releases from Funimation. Kai is definitely my preferred method for subsequent rewatches. Pacing is outstanding, although some scenes do lose a little suspense due to the increased pacing. While I didn't miss most of the filler, I do enjoy the driving test episode. Unlike most I find the Garlic Jr Saga somewhat enjoyable also. Other than that the filler isn't missed. Music is OK, Bruce Falconer's OST would have came in clutch in this for sure.
The initial run of Kai only included up to the end of the Cell Saga, which is a solid conclusion to the series. But watch The Final Chapters also. Enough rambling, if you've seen Dragon Ball Z before, give this a watch. If not.. Hones…
Read at the sourceEthernet
Better don't watch it and go on to watch Dragon ball Z.
The main story is all the same but you miss so much about the characters and so on. Then the story is all flat - just endless fighting without any sense. One of my favourite arcs - adult Gohan and young Trunks/Goten, but there is nothing about that. So sad.
I've started watching DBK just because the amount of DBZ episodes is too much, to rewatch it again, but it was a mistake so don't make it too. Because in that case you will lose a lot of joy or much of your time watching DBZ after DBK.
Read at the sourcelamaraptor
It's just Dragon Ball again.
But really, I love the idea behind doing an edit like this. Lord knows Naruto needs it. This is a project I could see fans trying to create with existing footage. Heck, Takahata101 from TeamFourStar even called this show out for being "four years late to that party." The fact that we got an official re-release and re-edit at all is pretty cool when you think about it.
Unfortunately it isn't without it's flaws. Rather than leave the aspect ratio alone, which I think old 4:3 shows should just do, they decided to do a dumb bad crop job. Don't try to force widescreen on footage that wasn't made for it. You're cropping out nearly a third of the screen for no reason, and making what's left blurrier for it. That and "digitally remastered" footage that ends up lookin…
Read at the sourceOtakuAdam
The first part of Dragon Ball Z covered in DBZ Kai is, in my opinion, a masterpiece.
While initially the show starts off a little slow, it very quickly picks up the pace, most significantly due to the fact that this show cuts out most of the filler content from the original version of the anime.
Gone are the days of watching Goku run on Snakeway for 16 episodes, and meaningless development of Gohan that is instantly revoked as soon as the saiyans arrive because... that development didn't happen in the manga. No, instead we get a shorter, more true telling of the Dragon Ball Z story, as if you were reading the manga.
Now that isn't to say that all of the filler is cut out, It really isn't. There are some things that the anime did that would be impossible to cut out in order to make Ka…
Read at the sourceUser-Name
Dragon Ball Z (or for short DBZ) sure made the merchandise called Dragon Ball (or for short DB) the most popular anime merchandise in the word. It starts from manga, 2 anime adaption (DB and DBZ), couple spin-offs (DBGT, DBS), lots of movies and lots of games, and it seems that this merchandise that exist for over 30 years now doesn’t going to fade soon, with every other year new item in this merchandise is appearing even though the story is so old and in fact so unuqdated that even the general opinion seems divided by two major opinion (by my eyes at least) - The first, the fans who are still loving the story no matter how much time will go, it’s still will be saved in their hearts as their childhood series or rather great anime of all times. But the second opinion is realistic, and sees…
Read at the sourceItsR0b0tNinja
As a relativly new anime fan I have a mental list of shows that are 'classics' with people of around my age, DBZ being one of them. Now I have (or had. thanks Pandemic) limited time so sitting through nearly 291 episodes, where the meme is that a single power up attack can take 4 episodes, didn't sound appealing. Then I heard about Kai. A cutdown, anti-fluff edit of a classic with cleaned up images and a newly recorded dub. I was sold and purchased the BluRays. Now onto the review.
The story was solid, a little childish (it is a kids show) but sometimes repetative and drawn-out in places, while also being rushed in others. I'm not a big fan of action for the most part so some episodes just made me mentally wander off and read something while it was on in the background. Vs Frieza and Vs C…
Read at the sourcePrOxAnto
Even though the Kai series was a step down for me personally ... I just love the Dragon Ball series so much!
As for why it was a step down;
As the first thing I was exposed to was the dub on TV, the soundtrack is the first thing that comes to mind.
The Ocean and Faulconer soundtracks for me were way more impacful, you could feel the dread and pain or even the hype during fights, the soundtracks of Kai didn't have the same strength.
Just looking at Goku's first transformation with the Faulconer track vs the Kai track or even Gohan's power up to SSJ 2 during Cell.
The new animated scenes and art just stuck out like a sore thumb, it didn't fit the original scenes at all and it just takes you out of the moment, especially during the Freeza saga.
The faster pace at times did help but at other…
Read at the sourceAstraea_
EDIT: I recently made a video review of Kai on my Youtube channel which is heavily based off this review. If you'd rather watch it in video format instead of reading it, then you can check it out here
https://rumble.com/vs5j8x-dragon-ball-z-kai-is-epic.html
I've been a fan of Dragon Ball for 6 years now and I finally decided to sit down and watch Kai to see how it would compare to Z and the manga.
Also this is a review for the first season (97 or 98), 2009 Kai, or whatever you want to call it. Just know that this does not include 2014 Kai (Buu Saga) as I will review that once I complete it in the coming weeks since my score will most likely be different from this one's.
Story: 9
As for the story, Kai is basically the exact same in terms of plot when compared to Z and the manga with so…
Read at the sourceMelian_El_Otaku
This is the Dragon Ball Kai that should have arrived in LATAM and not the Dragon Ball Z Kai.
If you want to see Dragon Ball Z in the best possible quality and without filler, as well as a new soundtrack as good as the original and with a better set of voices, check out this series.
I do not recommend watching Dragon Ball Z Kai, since it has a poor voice cast, music is added in places where it should not go, it is censored (although that depends on the country) and other things.
Just watch the original Kai from Japan to enjoy the series.
Read at the sourcecaesarsalad4361
DBZ Kai... It removed much of the filler from the original show (though there is still some remaining) and it's paced better overall. Though the pacing is still one of my issues with this show compared to modern anime shows.
The other issue for me is the art in DBZ Kai. They largely touched up the anime style from the original show which aired in the 80's and 90's and used a different style altogether for some scenes. These two different artstyles clash a lot, especially in the earlier arcs and that prevents me from giving the show a slightly higher rating. Use one artstyle or the other, but not both. Some frames were lacking in detail as well, it reminded me of early DB Super.
Overall, still enjoyable and more digestable compared to the orginial anime with all its filler and dragged o…
Read at the sourceChizzyIzzy
Wow. This has to be one of the most fun anime I have watched as a child. Started watching right as NickToons began pumping out episode in 2009. I didn't even know about DB until DBZKai, and a gateway of cool fighting scenes, following the development of Goku and the Z Warriors, and becoming a young fan of the franchise was opened. I was born in 02 and missed DBZ and GT, but Kai had me searching for videos on YouTube and sites where I could find the episodes for free, so I knew Gohan would turn ssj2 when NickToons was airing the finale of the Frieza Saga lol.
All and all this began my introduction to anime, even though my first anime was Inuyasha (watched it in preschool on Toonami). But knowing what anime really was, I dove more into Pokémon, another anime I was watching at the time, and…
Read at the sourceImGoodAtCalculus
For many people that don't know about Dragon Ball Kai, this is essentially just the original Dragon Ball Z with changes such as the removed filler, new dub, better resolution and touched up art and animation. Because I don't actually want to review this version and The Final Chapters, I'm going to be reviewing all of Dragon Ball Kai. Dragon Ball Z (for its time) was a masterpiece and considered by many as the godfather of shonen. Dragon Ball Kai takes the original product and remasters it. I'm going to review Kai, and explain to you guys why you should be watching Kai over the original Z. Let's get started
Story: 8
A lot of people might wonder "Why did this man put the story of Dragon Ball Kai as a 8?" Well, there's a pretty simple reason which is that I'm a very simple man. The story o…
Read at the sourceBroPo
In my opinion, Dragon Ball Z was a series that desperately needed a directors cut, due to the large portions in between the main story sections. I feel that Dragon Ball Kai covers everything at a reasonable pace, with the show sometimes feeling like it's rushing along to reach the next main point in the story. However, it does a fantastic job of cutting down the story till the end of the Cell Saga, and is a fantastic alternative to watching the original Dragon Ball Z. The new intro is quite upbeat and energetic, along with much better animation, that serves to make Dragon Ball Kai not feel as outdated as its original predecessor.
Read at the sourcehiddenhokage
[This review is for the Japanese version of Dragon Ball Kai.]
DISCLAIMER: This is a review from the perspective of a "first time watcher" of the show. I read the manga when I was extremely young and, while watching the show, had very little memory of it save for the first two arcs. In short, I don't feel nostalgic about this show in the slightest.
[Story – 6/10]: The storytelling of the show lacks some of the depth that I've come to expect from other series that I've watched. A villain that's stronger than the previous villain shows up, both the good guys and the villain power up several times, good guy eventually beats the villain, rinse and repeat. It's still enjoyable to a degree but leaves very little room for further analyzation. Everything is, more or less, exactly how it appears o…
Read at the source
