Dragon Ball Z Kai (Anime Review)

So guys, this is a pretty interesting entry for me to make because I decided to make an anime review for Dragon Ball Z Kai. I say this is interesting because I was wondering for a while if I actually wanted to make a review for this since I was wondering if I would really have that much to say about this, but, after thinking about it a bit, I decided to. Anyway, as for this series, Dragon Ball Z Kai was a series created in 2009 by Toei Animation where they decided to rerelease and kinda remake Dragon Ball Z. Not necessarily, but something kinda like that. They basically did this as a way to shorten the original series and make it more like the manga. The reason I got into this series, beyond being a Dragon Ball fan and wanting to check it out at all, is because the DVDs for this series began coming out here and in 2020, especially due to the Coronavirus, I was able to get a lot more anime and I was trying to get into more series, which I did with a few others like Yu-Gi-Oh! GX and 5D's, Hunter x Hunter and some other ones too. But, yeah, it was just a nice oppotunity to try to get into more shows and this was one of them. Actually, this is something else that's really interesting for me to think about because Dragon Ball Z Kai was actually the very first thing Dragon Ball related I ever heard of back in 2012 or 2013 because, sometimes, I would go out to my Nan's house and I would watch TV and there was an ad for the series on KIX and I saw it few times. I obviously didn't know what it was back then or know anything about it and I never watched it back then, I just remember seeing the ad a few times and thinking it was just another children's cartoon. It's pretty funny thinking about it years later because of how far I've come in understand it and anime as a whole. But, anyway, back to the series itself, like I said, this was a shortened version of Dragon Ball Z because what they did is that they took the original series and took out the filler and shortened other events as well to make the series flow a lot better and give it a better pace. So, instead of being 291 episodes, they managed to make it 167. Not only that, but they also touched up the animation to make it look better and cleaner and make it more modernised. So, this helped make the series much more manageable and accessible. Also, the series is easier to get for a few reasons like being cheaper to get overall and there's only seven seasons for the whole series instead of nine. So all this just helped make going through the series way, way, way easier. So, when watching specific moments in the series, this series made it easier to watch them and it didn't make them feel like they overstayed their welcome so that made it more welcoming and actually helped make some moments feel a lot more epic in my opinion. But, onto the series itself, there's so many things that I can talk about in regards to what it improved. For one, it does look a lot nicer because what they did for the animation was that they apparently traced over the original animation to make it look cleaner and nicer looking. And, not only did they rerelease it in English, but it was redubbed as well so a lot of the old actors from the original Dragon Ball Z returned and some new ones joined the cast too and this also helped make the dialogue and acting from everyone way better, especially Sean Schemmel as Goku. He's always incredible as Goku, but his performance as him here was definitely an improvement over his version in the original. Not only that, but the new actors they got helped elevate the material more too like Chris Ayres as Frieza who helped make him even more fun than he already is. Speaking of, like I said, the lack of filler helped make going through this series a lot more managable and helped make the Sagas like the Frieza Saga easier to go through and made them even more enjoyable, and a lot of that has to do with the improved pace which means all the events that felt like it was moving at a snail's pace in the original are reduced so you can get to specific moments in the story way quicker and they're not interupted with either terrible filler episodes or annoying jokes like in the original. Really, I just feel like this is the superior way to experience the entire Dragon Ball Z story, like you don't really have to worry about a lot of the problems people like me have had about the original Dragon Ball Z for a long time with it either having annoying filler arcs and a slow pace that could make trying to get through it feel insufferable sometimes. Also, since the series still keeps everything about the original since it's still technically the same animation, you still get the same iconic action scenes the way they were originally and the animation on them is touched up so that can help too so we get a lot of great moments like this.

So when we reach huge moments in the story like these and watching characters like Goku, Vegeta, Gohan and everyone else doing what we know they're gonna do, the feeling of being able to go through the story the way it's supposed to just makes these moments feel all the more satisfying and all the more enjoyable. However, something I found really weird about this series is the ending because, for the Majin Buu Saga, the whole thing was three seasons long again like in the original. I realise they did cut out a lot the stuff from the original that was just filler, but it was still kinda tough to have to go through that part of the series considering a lot of this was already in the manga so all that was still tough to get through since I still don't like this Saga at all and, even with a couple of small improvements from Kai, it still overstays its welcome and goes on for way too long. Yeah, the ending fight with Goku and Vegeta vs. Kid Buu is really awesome and it's still the only good part of it in my opinion, but, just trying to get through everything else still feels like a chore. But, overall, Dragon Ball Z Kai is definitely a huge help for anyone trying to get into the series and being a great intro into for people for the first time. The fact that it's way shorter also just helps make the series great for binge watching too. It's really great to see these moments with these characters have so much more weight in my opinion because of how much this helps and, in my opinion, I think this really should be the only way people should watch Dragon Ball Z because it's a significant improvement over the original. You get to see a lot of these characters get to specific moments way faster and just hearing the new performances from everyone is a huge benefit too. I just loved watching this and I think this does serve as a great way to watch it. Also, I could wrong, but I think even Dragon Ball Super acknowledged this as the canon version because I think they used clips from this version in Dragon Ball Super when they were rememebering specific instances. Again, could be wrong, but that's what it felt like to me. But, anyway, yeah, I do love Dragon Ball Z Kai way more than I do the original and it helped me love the series way more than Z did. Also, I know this'll probably never happen, but what I think would be really awesome would be if a lot of other anime took this route and did this similar thing of doing kinda like a remake of an anime by taking out filler of an anime and just leaving in the canon stuff. The most obvious ones I can think of are the entire Naruto franchise, One Piece, Bleach and some other ones too. But, again, probably not gonna happen, it would be really awesome though. Anyway, overall, I had a great time with Dragon Ball Z Kai and it might be my favourite entry in the entire Dragon Ball franchise. Not sure about that, but it's a possibility and I really do think you should check it out if you're a Dragon Ball fan yourself. I know this review was pretty different from my usual anime reviews, but I just felt this was kinda necessary and I really wanted to give my thoughts on it overall. And so guys, that's my review for Dragon Ball Z Kai. Thank you all for reading and please comment down below to tell me what you think.