CaptainScarLeg

@crylion: @cheesus: This was news to me so I did a bit of research and the Final Chapters portion of Kai was originally planned to have 69 episodes but for whatever reason was cut down to 61. Weirdly enough you can watch all 69 episodes in Japanese on the international blu-rays but only the cut down 61 episodes were ever released in Japan. What a mess.

Discussed here: http://www.kanzenshuu.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=36648

I love this part of DBZ, highly underrated. ALSO ASG IS BACK MY MONDAYS ARE GOOD AGAIN.

@cannibaltooth: There are a couple more differences (the Z sword is more ornate with a green gem-looking thing on the end of the handle and the blade sort of flares out at the base while Trunks' sword goes straight down) but at a glance they are very similar. I've seen other people assume they were the same before.

Future Trunks has a sword in Super that's slightly different, but it's not as cool looking.

@cannibaltooth: It sounds like you're under the impression that the Z Sword is the sword Future Trunks has. It's not, they're different swords.

Although fun fact: in the Dragon Ball Super manga Future Trunks is the one to train on the Planet of the Kais with the Z Sword since Gohan isn't around in that timeline. I can't remember what the reasoning was, but Babidi didn't show up until several years later in the Future timeline.

BoG and Resurrection F are definitely the best of the bunch and worth a watch. BoG in particular introduces some really cool concepts that expand the show like the different universes and Gods of Destruction and God ki and stuff. It's also very Toriyama in the way it has lots of goofy stuff mixed in with the fighting. Oh, and it introduces Beerus and Whis, the best new characters to come along in a long time.

The non-canon movies mostly just reused ideas from the show and made cool looking fights. Resurrection F is a little closer to those I guess, but still better than the non-canon stuff.

What makes the difference is having Toriyama deeply involved in these movies. He's working on the upcoming Broly movie and from the previews it looks like it may well end up being the best Dragon Ball movie of them all.

@enored said:

Hot take: while I like a lot of what DB Kai did (much better English dub, shorter running time), I think it looks like shit. The quality of some scenes is really inconsistent and looks like it's been put through a smoothing filter:

Certain frames/scenes like the comparison shot you posted looked that way because the original cells they were restoring/remastering from were damaged or dirty, so they traced over them digitally in a very quick and cost effective manner which is why those shots looks like they're from a flash animation.

I love Kai, but it sticks out like a sore thumb and I've always hoped someone would use footage from the Dragon Box DBZ releases (very high quality DVDs) and cut it up to match with the Kai audio, but that would be a huge project and we'd be stuck with DVD resolution. I did hear recently that they are fully restoring some of the DBZ movies in Japan (using a proper remastering process better than anything used for any Dragon Ball content before) and there are rumours that they might do the entirety of DBZ after. If it happens that would be incredible and I can only hope they'll get around to making a Kai release with that footage.

Of course you have to keep in mind that Kai in Japan and Kai in the US/West are two very different things. Kai in Japan was just a fun anniversary project rather than this "definitive recut and redub version" for the English release. The Japanese dub and script was always high quality from the beginning (at least in terms of accuracy and voice acting, not so much audio quality) whereas there is a massive quality difference in the scripts and voice acting in English.

That turned into a long post but I hope it explains why Kai looks like garbage in some scenes.

I haven't watched History of Trunks in a long time, but hearing their perspective on it made me realize, like they said, just how much better it could have been. I guess it seemed better as a TV special aired closer to those episodes on TV because Future Trunks' timeline had always been this mysterious unseen thing and getting any look at it at all was really cool. Already seeing Future Trunks go back to his time and fuck up the androids in Kai probably made this extra underwhelming for Jeff and Dan.

I want to hear their thoughts on the Bardock special too, though I'm now a little worried they might ruin that for me too, haha.

I'm SO excited for Sabat coming on at some point, that should be a blast, love that guy.

I'm baffled that you're baffled. Sure, they made so much more after the Cell Saga, but the point is the end of the Cell Saga wraps pretty much all of Dragon Ball up nicely:

• Piccolo reaches his endpoint - having reunited with Kami
• Vegeta reaches his endpoint - giving up on surpassing Goku
• Future Trunks reaches his endpoint - helping in the present timeline and finally saving his own timeline
• The other Z Fighters all seemingly reached their limits training in the time chamber
• Gohan realized his potential as the strongest warrior, which was an ongoing subplot since the beginning of Z
• They defeated the ultimate amalgamation of all past threats in Cell, a perfect "Final Boss"
• They also finally ended the Red Ribbon Army tying back to the beginning of Dragon Ball
• The Z Fighters ultimately defeat Cell together as a group effort
• Goku dies and decides to stay dead for the greater good
• Goku passes the mantle of Earth's protector down to his son
• Gohan finally has a chance at a normal life, which Goku actually encourages
• Goku even gets to continue doing what he loves in the afterlife, training with dead warriors

Honestly the end of the Cell Saga wraps things up so perfectly I can understand why lots of people wished it ended there.

@ravelle said:

@redking56 said:

For reference:

That's gohan after being in the HBTC though, so it's a bit 11(+2) or something.

He only spent one year in the chamber, and most sources say he was 10 when he went in (the Dragon Ball Wiki says 9 for some reason) so Gohan is only physically 10 or 11 during the Cell Games. Goku was notoriously short for his age as a kid before he had a growth spurt though. Bulma thought he was much younger than he was when they first met in Dragon Ball.

Don't worry about it though, they screw up physical aging WAY more in Super. Very mild Super spoilers: Goten and Trunks are supposed to be 13 and 14 now and still haven't grown since DBZ when they were 7 and 8. It's especially dumb when you realise that's how old Future Trunks was in the early parts of the Z Trunks Special (when Future Gohan was still around) and that Trunks is way bigger than Trunks in Super at the same age.

Another fun fact: at the beginning of Super because of all the time Goku spent dead he was technically 42 but physically 35 while Gohan was physically 22. The physical 22 year gap between them was reduced to 13. Weird when you think about it. Goku's physical age is much closer to what it should be by the end of Super though because he goes into the chamber a few more times.

Of course none of that even matters because pure Saiyans like Goku stay in their physical prime until around 80 sooooooooooooooo.............

That sounded ridiculous so I just checked and nope, that was a Z dub-only line (in other words nonsense, like lots of lines in those old scripts). They are strong, seemingly around Vegeta and Trunks' level, but not as strong as Cell himself.

From the Dragon Ball Wiki:

"In the dubbed anime, they are said to have the same strength as Cell himself, albeit with substantially less durability (this claim never being made in the manga)."

Unfortunately there were lots of instances of this sort of thing in the old dubs, thankfully Kai is so much more faithful to the Japanese scripts.