@ravelle: Kai had several scenes digitally touched up, but all of them look bad like that.
That's the thing, the release I'm watching didn't have that. Maybe only the blu-ray's had that? But then Dan and Jeff would mention it which I don't think they do? They're talking stuff looking bad but I'm not sure if they're talking about this bad?
Pretty sure every version of Kai has this stuff. The way they made Kai was they sourced the footage from the original Japanese DBZ masters (imagine the huge film reels from cinemas) and when they came across frames that were "too damaged to restore" they digitally traced over them. The problem was they did this fast and cheap, that's why it looks like flat flash animation.
Find the same scene in the sub you're watching. You should notice the difference between that scene and scenes that weren't digitally traced over. Maybe the sub you're watching isn't very high quality so the difference isn't as apparent? Unless maybe there's a version out there that uses footage from DBZ DVDs instead of the actual Kai footage, but I've never heard of it.
Regardless, Jeff has stated at least once in these that he's watching the blu-rays so they definitely have this stuff in them.
@bisonhero: You might want to cover that screenshot up. It is from DBZ, but it's after Frieza bulks up to 100% full power, which is why he looks like that.
But yes height still varies from scene to scene based on various factors.
Freeza in his final form is definitely as or nearly as tall as Goku.
Nope. He might gain some height when he bulks up later, but otherwise he's about Vegeta's height.
But again, height is pretty inconsistent in Dragon Ball. In particular Vegeta is generally depicted taller later on in the series. I was just looking up screenshots and saw a namek saga shot with Vegeta shorter than Bulma, and an early Super shot where he's a bit taller than her. The designs kind of just change over time.
Also sometimes it's just inconsistencies between different animators/artists.
@onemanarmyy: I wonder how many people are aware that Dragon Ball was supposed to end on Namek but due to popularity and Akita Toriyama being given tons of money to keep doing it they kept the series going. If you think about it the series ending here would’ve made sense.
About the same amount of people who will believe things without doing any fact checking.
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In fairness I believed that when I was younger too.
The way the Freetza thing has morphed from what was almost certainly just Dan being Dan into a very subtle yet devious in-joke is kind of the best. I'm pretty sure Dan is now saying EVERY character name correctly (except maybe Recoome?) and Jeff is the one saying Freetza and is now saying Nails even though Dan corrected him.
Sneaky buggers.
Also I look forward to this more than anything all week. My favourite TV shows and web content are second to Jeff's retelling of DBZ Kai. All we need now is someone to cut together the scenes as they discuss them in a DVD commentary style and it will be perfect.
@daniel_newton: ... I'm not telling anyone to do anything, because I can't tell anyone what to do , it was just a suggestion; I wholly think the original voices are way better, they change the meaning of too many things with the dub, plus the aforementioned nonsensical bad characterization, and yes, the main problem was the way he speaks, because that's what they got hung up on, plus he pretty much doesn't do much so..
I'll admit I never experienced the kai dub though, I'm basing it off the original.
But really, 9 out of 10 times, original voices on an anime are superior, so I don't even bother with dubs anymore.
I realise you were making more of a passing comment about the Japanese version rather than being super obnoxious about it, but they mention in almost every episode of this podcast how they're watching the English Kai dub and aren't remotely interested in watching any other version of the show, be it Japanese Kai or any other version of Z. They've been very clear about it but people still keep suggesting they watch it this way or that way and it's one of the reasons people think the All Systems Goku comment section is the worst comment section on the site. The other main reason being people making other anime recommendations, which they've also stated they aren't remotely interested in.
Anyway, I totally understand your reasoning for preferring subs for anime in general and I'm with you but if there's any exception to the rule out there it absolutely is Kai. English Z and Japanese Z are two very different products as like you say they changed lots of meanings and characterization, not to mention the music and feel of the show in general. Kai is an entirely different beast. Aside from having a few holdovers from the Z dub (like the way Yamcha talks) it's very faithful to the Japanese script and keeps the Japanese soundtrack. In the uncut blu-ray dub they're watching it even keep swearing in and fixed the "over 9000" line to the original over 8000. They even changed some of the attack names back to the original Japanese ones like Makankosappo instead of Special Beam Cannon, though I can't remember if they were consistent with that, they may have gone back to the English names later on.
My point is there was 110% more effort put into the Kai dub to keep it faithful to the original while Z was altered to cater to the western market. Basing your comparison on the Z dub just isn't fair.
Regardless of how they're watching it I'm just happy they're enjoying it so much. This podcast is incredibly entertaining to me so I hope we can all just let them continue watching it the way they've chosen to and enjoy listening to their thoughts on it.
I love how their beef with Yamucha is mainly because of the horrible English dub, watch it in japanese guys...
Also Dan... please man, it's FREEZA
How many times do they have to ask you to stop telling them how to watch DBZ before you guys will stop? You could have made the same point by saying "I think Yamcha is voiced better in the Japanese version, he comes off as less of a douche" or whatever without telling them how they should watch the anime.
Also the Z dub varies in quality over it's run and some of the script is garbage (didn't matter to me as a kid but does now) but the Kai dub is fantastic. Like, objectively so, in terms of actual quality. The main guys had been voicing those characters for years and years, the script is super faithful and Chris Sabat really wanted to do it "right" that time around since he was in charge and didn't agree with some of the decisions made during the original Z dub. You're perfectly entitled to your opinion on which version you prefer but anyone should be able to tell the voice acting and script in the Kai dub is top notch stuff.
Also-also I'm pretty sure their main problem is the way Yamcha acts and the things he does rather than the way he speaks, the surfer dude/bro voice is just the cherry on top I think. They disliked him as soon as he arrogantly took on the Saibamen and got his ass blown up.
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