Review: Dragon Ball Kai 2014 (DBKai 99-159)

The year is 2011. The "refreshed" broadcast of Dragon Ball Z, titled Dragon Ball Kai, isn't performing as hoped with the Japanese market. With one storyline left to cover, the show is unceremoniously pulled from the air, to be replaced with the brand new Toriko anime. Smash cut to 2014. Toriko isn't performing as hoped with the Japanese market. With many storylines left to cover, the show is unceremoniously pulled from the air, to be replaced with... Well.

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Dragon Ball Kai (2014-2015)

Rating: Not Recommended

Surprise, surprise. Coming off of my less than stellar review of Dragon Ball Kai '09, what'd you think I'd give Kai '14? It's everything wrong with the original Kai, plus none of the good parts about that version. Originally this series was thrown together by Toei (in-house this time, instead of outsourced to Q-TEC) purely because the various International markets wanted more Dragon Ball Kai to air, but even that was a bust. In the States, at least, we're only now beginning to see Kai '14 air on TV, long after the swell of new fans and buzz created by Kai '09 died down. And it's being shown along side Dragon Ball Super, making the whole exercise even more moot. But we're not here to talk about International Kai '14 (which is a full eight episodes longer, because why not prolong the torment), we're here to talk about the "official" conclusion to the Japanese airing of Dragon Ball Kai.

It's a long, winding, confusing road as to how we got here. So let's break it down nice n easy.

Dragon Ball Kai premieres in 2009 and runs until 2011, with modest but respectable ratings.

"Not selling enough toys! Canceled!"

"Hey, guy. You gonna finish that show? It made us some good monies."

"Huh? Monies? Um. Sure. Yeah."

"Here you go."

"It's definitely not a cheaper, rushed version with way less edits meant purely to milk your international markets."

Toriko premieres in 2011, with modest but respectable ratings.

"Hm, yes, well. I suppose you'll do."

Dragon Ball Z: Battle of Gods premieres in 2013, revealing a new palette swapped Goku.

And then comes all the toys

toys

and toys.

Toriko is promptly canceled in 2014.

"We need more of that TOY MONIES! What've we got?!"

"A cheaper, rushed version with way less edits meant purely to milk the international markets."

"Perfect!"

And that's how we ended up with Dragon Ball Kai '14. A half-assed cash in meant only to be shown overseas, quickly turned into a "legitimate" continuation of Dragon Ball Kai. Because toys.

Animation Remastered

Kai '09 has really great remastering most of the time. The full aspect ratio was kept, though cleverly cropped for TV. The colors were bright and full of new life. The line work was preserved and upscaled to a new level of beauty. Barring the, admittedly too frequent, times in whichframes were redrawn, Kai '09 is gorgeous. Q-TEC really knew what they were doing. Toei's In-House work on Kai '14, on the other hand, leaves a lot to be desired. Everything is lazily cropped without any concern for the original framing. The colors are way over-saturated and covered in a strange greenish hue. And the line work is mushed into the crushed blacks, along with much of the detail in dark scenes. While not exactly Funimation "Orange Brick" bad, it's still pretty bad.

There's really no use even comparing it to the Dragon Ball Z Dragon Box, but there it is. Why is it so goddamn green?

Music Remastered

This is the one area where Kai '14 is at least somewhat comparable to Kai '09. Norihito Sumitomo's work on Battle of Gods, Resurrection "F", and Dragon Ball Super is pretty utilitarian; Which is to say, it serves a pure functional purpose of being music in the background and little else. By contrast, his score for Kai '14 is actually pretty good. Unlike the generic, wannabe Kenji Yamamoto stuff he's done in other works, in Kai he's throwing back to a sort of 1990s video game, 64 bit chip tune era. And it really works well a lot of the time. It's nowhere near as good as the original Dragon Ball Z Shunsuke Kikuchi score, and frankly I'd rather have just continued to have that -- but it's good, and sounds unique.

The vocal tracks are a bit of a disappointment. The opening theme, Kun Zen Zetsu Go, is awesome, as are the ending themes Galaxy, Don't Let Me Down, Dear Zarathustra, and Pure Heart (Oh Yeah!!! is trash, though, for real), but there's zero insert songs. Kai '09 was all about the new, great insert songs. That's half the reason to even bother with the show. Bummer, dudes.

Pacing Remastered

All my complaints about Kai '09 stand for Kai '14; By cutting apart episodes and stitching them into something new, you often lose the original thrust of the production. Kai '14 is even more amateur hour about this than its predecessor, though. Stuff is cut that is occasionally vital information, or things are left in that contradict with things that were cut out of the original Kai. Important, or just fun, character moments hit the cutting room floor, yet not a single punch, no matter how superfluous, is ever touched. The long, arduous middle section of the Majin Boo Saga has almost no cuts made to it. Yet the fun, snappy Great Saiyaman arc, and the sweeping, epic Kid Boo arc, are chopped up into bits. At least Kai '09 was trying to do something - become closer to the manga. Kai '14's cuts are just fucking arbitrary.

Conclusion

Dragon Ball Z isn't a perfect show, but it's a great show. Dragon Ball Kai, especially this 2014-2015 run of it, is a cheap, hollow cash in on DBZ's greatness. If you watch it, of course you're going to enjoy it -- it's fucking Dragon Ball Z. But if you have the option of watching the proper DBZ cut instead, why wouldn't you be? Dragon Ball Kai is, ultimately, redundant.

But I fucking said I'd watch every episode of Dragon Ball back in 2011. And even though these episodes didn't exist back then, I fucking did it, didn't I? Every single goddamn episode of Dragon Ball, Dragon Ball Z, Dragon Ball GT, and Dragon Ball Kai. And each series might have gotten a little less enjoyable than the last, but I finally did it.

Oh no.

Oh no.

Fuck me sideways.