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Picking up Dragon Ball Z again, need some direction
Topic Started: Apr 6 2013, 04:25 AM (160 Views)
Lasci

So, I've recently become inspired by the tournament to run through DBZ anew for the first time in years. I'm fairly certain that I'm only going to watch it up until the end of the Frieza saga, seeing as even as a kid I felt like the series fell off a little bit afterwards. Whatever the case, my understanding is that there's three different ways to go through everything pre-Frieza: the original DBZ episodes, the uncut and digitally remastered version still labeled DBZ, and finally Dragon Ball Kai. In terms of episodes, the uncut and remastered version seems to have the most, while Kai seems to have the least. I'm mulling over whether or not to stick with the original version. Kai seems unnecessarily short, and the remastered/uncut version unnecessarily long. The thing is, I'm not entirely sure whether or not the filler in the uncut and original versions are worth it. Any recommendations? In the original version, 39 episodes apparently gets well into Namek, while that only accounts for the very end of the Saiyan saga for the uncut version. That's a pretty large gap. Are the extra episodes worth the view, or just complete filler?
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Dende
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You could read the manga: it's the original source therefore it's the whole content as the author intended. Plus the events flow better in general, without the dragging and fillers that come with the animated series.
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Warden of Wisdom
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The universe seems neither benign nor hostile, merely indifferent. -Carl Sagan
I'd go with the original remastered. The filler isn't unbearable, and to me, Kai cuts out too much.
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Squee913
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to add to Warden, the music in the uncut is leaps and bounds about the original Japanese soundtrack Kai uses. It is such a big difference I can't stand kai because of it.
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Himmelgeher
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Kai is much truer to the manga, and it cuts out all the pointless filler. It really depends on which language you're watching it in though. If you are watching it in English, Kai is superior in just about every way. Better voice acting, animation, pacing, more natural dialogue, better localization. I was watching the first few episodes of DBZ with my nieces today and the voice acting prior to near the end of the Cell saga is horrendous in the original, not helped by gimped scripts due to differences in Japanese and American censorship standards at the time. Really everything except the music is great. Faulconer's music is fantastic, and it's so well matched to the emotional tone of nearly every scene I can't believe it wasn't reused. Now, I know a lot of people have fond memories of the original Funimation and Saban dubs, but these are also the versions that tarnished the franchise's public image for years before Team 4 Star and Dragon Ball Kai rebuilt its reputation. And there are reasons for that. Pretty much the only good things about the original English version compared to the Japanese is the music. Nearly every serious moment in the original Japanese is reduced to pure narm in the English version due to bad voice acting and localization.

If you're watching it in Japanese, the original version is probably the way to go. To me at least, the voices match the characters better. While the pacing could certainly use some work, otherwise the filler works better than the English version. I'd recommend skipping over the episodes that are entirely filler (there should be guides for it around the web, there are certainly quite a few to watch Bleach and Naruto without filler, so it would be extremely weird if there weren't any for DBZ), but other than that it's pretty decent, even by today's standards. Also, Japanese censorship standards have tightened since the original DBZ, so a lot of the violence is toned down in Kai.

Like Dende, I would also recommend reading the manga. It has the best pacing, and the fewest plot holes. However, it's a fighting manga. Obviously, fights are always going to work better in animation than in still black and white images (see: Yu Yu Hakusho, Rurouni Kenshin). Also, "as originally intended" is kind of a tenuous term here. While I think it certainly works the best, Toriyama was quite up front that he never planned more than one or two chapters ahead at any given time, and the chapters were generally written and drawn within a few days of the deadline. Also, this is the man who just plain forgot who one of the series' major villains was. He makes it work though, so let's just call it "quirkiness."
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Warden of Wisdom
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The universe seems neither benign nor hostile, merely indifferent. -Carl Sagan
I personally prefer the original's voice actors by a long shot, but voice acting is really like any form of art in that its beauty lies in the eye (ear) of the beholder. I would recommend skipping the Garlic Jr. Saga, and the High School Gohan Saga if you watch it, though.
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megamike15
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i recommend kai as well it's much better paced the frieza fight never goes to 20 episodes. i really want to see what they do with the buu saga in kai because that thing was the most poorly paced arc in the series.
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Lasci

I've been tentatively going with the remastered version so far. I wanted a more full experience that adheres to what I remember from when I first watched the series, so I've gone with dubbed instead of subbed.

Himmelgeher, how do you feel about the remastered dub? The voice actors appear to be radically different than the original English dub ones. It might just be my nostalgic acceptance of any bad voice acting, but it doesn't seem too awful so far. Gohan still feels whiny, but I think that's something that I'd have to accept with any version, whether dubbed or subbed, that I watch.
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