Akira Toriyama’s Dragon Ball revolutionized the shonen sphere forever, imparting influence on many mangaka and their creations. The original series, Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z hold a special place in the hearts of many fans. While most people discount this connection to nostalgia primarily, there’s no denying that Toriyama’s execution of a simple idea was highly impactful. Moreover, the feeling of adventure and the extraordinary power-ups were definitive of thrill.
However, there are some flaws, especially in Dragon Ball Z that led to a diluted experience compared to the manga. These flaws were somewhat fixed by Dragon Ball Z Kai, a remastered version of Z that was released as a part of the 20th Anniversary Celebration of the series. Many fans consider Dragon Ball Z Kai better than the original. Here are 3 reasons why that is the case and what sets apart Kai from Z.
3) The Voice Acting is Better
One of the striking elements is the superiority in terms of voice acting. From the dialogue delivery to capturing the characters’ emotions, the voice acting in Kai’s dub is better than Dragon Ball Z. Many fans believe that the actors’ inexperience during the original is the reason why they didn’t sound as well in it.
With time they got better, and the experience showed in their performances in Kai. However, there are some characters like Gohan and Bulma, who sounded better in the original, whereas Frieza’s voice was much better in Kai.
2) It Cuts Down on the Filler Content
Out of nearly 300 episodes, around 40 episodes of Dragon Ball Z are filler. While they can be easily avoided, there are many episodes that blend the filler content with the canon events. Toei Animation is notorious for doing this with One Piece as well. The fight scenes are extended with filler scenes and it happens in many episodes.
It affects the pacing, making it feel more dragged and slow. Dragon Ball Z Kai gets rid of the filler content and fixes the pacing issues. However, there are many original scenes or filler scenes in Kai as well. But nearly not as much as Dragon Ball Z.
1) Its More Accurate to the Source Material
Dragon Ball Z Kai changed the script to be more in line with Akira Toriyama’s manga. The dialogues were also changed. These changes guarantee an experience that is closer to the source material. Dragon Ball Z adds excessive humor that sometimes strays the characters from their original writing.
Kai avoids doing that by sticking to the source material as closely as possible. Up until the Cell Arc, Kai is better in terms of pacing and accuracy. As the story progresses into the Majin Boo Arc and the Final Chapters, the fillers and accuracy are as bad as Z.
So, the primary differences between Dragon Ball Z and Dragon Ball Z Kai are the lesser amount of filler content in Kai and its faithfulness to the source material. The animation quality of Kai looks more polished but they didn’t reanimate the whole thing, just remastered it. The changes they made in the writing, make the characters in Kai feel closer to their manga counterparts.
Kai handles the humor well without overdoing it. The soundtrack in both series is also different, with most fans preferring the Bruce Faulconer theme in Z. To sum it up, Kai is a shorter and slightly more accurate version. But there’s no beating the original Z when it comes to nostalgia!
Dragon Ball Z is available to stream on Crunchyroll, whereas Dragon Ball Z Kai is available on Hulu.
