Dragon Ball Z Kai

2009

Seasons & Episodes

  • 6
  • 5
  • 4
  • 3
  • 2
  • 1
  • 0
8.3| TV-14| en| More Info
Released: 05 April 2009 Ended
Producted By: Toei Animation
Country: Japan
Budget: 0
Revenue: 0
Official Website: http://www.toei-anim.co.jp/tv/dragon_kai/
Info

Rejoin Goku and his friends in a series of cosmic battles! Toei has redubbed, recut, and cleaned up the animation of the original 1989 animated series. The show's story arc has been refined to better follow the comic book series on which it is based. The show also features a new opening and ending. In the series, martial artist Goku, and his various friends, battle increasingly powerful enemies to defend the world against evil. Can Earth's defender defeat demons, aliens, and other villains?

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Dragon Ball Z Kai (2009) is now streaming with subscription on HULU

Director

Yasuhiro Nowatari

Production Companies

Toei Animation

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Dragon Ball Z Kai Audience Reviews

Cathardincu Surprisingly incoherent and boring
PodBill Just what I expected
Glimmerubro It is not deep, but it is fun to watch. It does have a bit more of an edge to it than other similar films.
BelSports This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.
benjaminburt Dragon Ball Z Kai took what was already an overly-long, awkwardly- paced, zero-stakes anime that, admittedly, was a highly influential show and redid it better. The show was more sleek and at least watchable, but it still has major flaws.In short, I don't think Dragon Ball Z was great, but it was definitely important. It exposed a new generation of adults and children to a medium that was pretty fringe in the United States up until that point. However, no amount of cultural importance could really change the quality of that show. The show was plagued by unbearably long charging scenes, transformation scenes, reaction shots, and filler, not to mention stilted dialogue, bad dubbing, and unfunny jokes that are just really dated. Characters that were pretty paper-thin, a contrived plot that was sometimes compelling but moved along at a snail's pace, and the only saving grace (the action) was mostly interrupted by all these other terrible things that I mentioned.Dragon Ball Z Kai took an already flawed anime and made it a lot more enjoyable. Pull out all the filler, update the animation, and get some new voice-actors (most of which were superior, a few being inferior). It took out a lot of the choppiness and the show ended up an above- average show that's not a classic. But, you couldn't help but feel when watching it that they were just milking the cash cow to try to squeeze more money out of it, just like another show I can think of . . . it's on the tip of my tongue . . . GP? CT? No, that's not it, never mind. In conclusion, the show's fine, better than the original, but definitely not one of the 250 best television shows of all time.
gabkoost I am what you may call a Dragon Ball person.I started to watch the original series back in the late 80's when they were being aired in France before most other countries besides Japan itself.I was done with the all thing when it wasn't even being aired in the US.I watched it again and again and again along the years as well as all the movies and specials that exist.In fact, Dragonball was part of my youth and the benchmark for all animations afterwards.So, when i learned about Kai and the fact that they were cutting stuff off and leaving a lot of the fillers in th trash can i had a "purist" reaction and refused to watch it as i considered that the original work should be preserved intact in my mind.Nevertheless, with the appearance of the new movie Revival of F, i decided to give it a try as it was the only Dragonball material i had never seen.Well, i must say that this is a lot better than the original.Even if some fillers were fun and interesting, i agree that the pace of the Manga was much more proper for a Shounen anime of this kind. This Kai version shows this perfectly.This new version is action packed like it should have been and settles many stuff like plot holes and other inconsistencies created by the original Z series by the fillers.These fillers were being made up out of the manga because at the time, Akira Toriyama was actually late in the manga comparing to the anime. This show was so popular that the animation was ahead of the ink and they had to invent stuff and exaggerate the time of power ups and stare contests between fighters.The Kai version is so much better, I recommend everyone to see it and forget about the original because, well, a good 1/4 of it is made up material without story validity.Dragonball seems to be more alive than never with Kai reaching the end of the series and new movies of legit material being produced by Toriyama.It's staggering to see myself, 25 years after the first Dragonball episodes i saw as a kid, still trembling of joy at the sight of new Dragonball material.To me, this is undeniably the greatest anime franchise that ever existed.
Azura Racon Becoming a fan rather late into the game (After the original Toonami was dead and Gone), I thought I'd never have a chance to get to watch it. I started watching Z online, but the slow pace and constant filler breaks caused me to initially lose interest. Kai was the perfect remedy for that. After removing the filler, the end of the Cell arc of Kai was placed at 98 episodes. Literally HALF of the original's near 200. There still is filler (Gregory, the Frog Ginyu, and Mr. Satan's (Hercule in the Televised version) pupils) but far more condensed and only left in when the characters introduced could not be removed from the Animation. This made Dragon Ball Z Kai the extraordinary lightning-paced battle anime that you'd expect Z to have been. The majority of the English cast returned, with few exceptions where more fitting actors were found, or, in the case of Frieza, the old actors couldn't meet the Demand. The few changed actors are Incredible. Kai kept Frieza as the Chilling, Sadistic Villain he was in the Japanese version, and Chris Ayers provides the voice Talents to match.From what little I'd seen of Z, i knew the TV version was Censored, cutting out blood and, from the start of the Frieza arc, direct references to Death. But that was also solved with Funimation's release of Uncut DVDs. I was presently surprised to find that, along with mostly uncut footage (Some edits were made in Japan to fit new laws in place since it's original 1989 run), there was an uncut Dialogue track as well, reinstating all references to Death as well as introducing mild swears (Let this double as a warning to parents. If your seven-year-old son wants a copy of this Anime on DVD, you need to know this). This dispelled all rumors I'd hear that Kai was a just little kids show.All this was backed by an astounding new soundtrack, which I was saddened to hear was removed due to copyright infringement. (If you want as much of Kai with the removed score as possible, find the "Part" sets. the first four contain the Original Kai score)And those of you disappointed this version does not extend to the final arc, you will be pleased to know that it has been confirmed that it is in production, and is speculated to be released later this yearAll in all, I have to say that Kai is the best version of Dragon Ball Z yet. Aiming for new fans with a child-safe television dub, and catering to the old fans with its uncut DVD version. I was very pleased with it, and I think that if Old fans could take off their nostalgia goggles, they'd definitely agree.
Pirlo77 I read the manga 13 years ago. This Dragon Ball kai is the what in TV was called Dragon Ball Z, from when Goku appears with his son Gohan. I've always disliked DBZ for the very frequent and boring fillers it contains (DBZ is more than 200 eps in total) and I wondered how a "serious" adaptation from the manga would be since I've enjoyed the manga very much. Now this surprise, I'm much older but it is fun to see Goku&Co adventures again. I've seen about 30 episodes so far and I think a good cut and paste of the original DBZ is being done, even if there are occasions when some little fillers are still present and maybe others when they cut too much (not real fillers) but it was probably necessary.So this is a very rare possibility to see a popular long anime without boring and useless fillers and anyway it is a still very good fast paced action-fighting anime with energy blast and flying characters even if it has obviously outdated animation (about 15-20 years).