Dragon Ball Kai

Five years after the events of Dragon Ball, martial arts expert Gokuu is now a grown man married to his wife Chi-Chi, with a four-year old son named Gohan. While attending a reunion on Turtle Island with his old friends Master Roshi, Krillin, Bulma and others, the festivities are interrupted when a humanoid alien named Raditz not only reveals the truth behind Gokuu's past, but kidnaps Gohan as well.

With Raditz displaying power beyond anything Gokuu has seen before, he is forced to team up with his old nemesis, Piccolo, in order to rescue his son. But when Gokuu and Piccolo reveal the secret of the seven mystical wish-granting Dragon Balls to Raditz, he informs the duo that there is more of his race, the Saiyans, and they won’t up an opportunity to seize the power of the Dragon Balls for themselves.

These events begin the saga of Dragon Ball Kai, a story that finds Gokuu and his friends and family constantly defending the galaxy from increasingly more powerful threats. Bizarre, comical, heartwarming and threatening characters come together in a series of battles that push the powers and abilities of Gokuu and his friends beyond anything they have ever experienced.

Son, Gokuu Main

Nozawa, Masako Japanese

Vegeta Main

Horikawa, Ryo Japanese

Son, Gohan Main

Nozawa, Masako Japanese

Piccolo Main

Furukawa, Toshio Japanese

Kuririn Main

Tanaka, Mayumi Japanese

Future Trunks ing

Kusao, Takeshi Japanese

Freeza ing

Nakao, Ryusei Japanese

Trunks ing

Tsuru, Hiromi Japanese

Bulma ing

Tsuru, Hiromi Japanese

Muten-Roushi ing

Satou, Masaharu Japanese

Sabat, Christopher Producer, ADR Director

Cook, Justin Producer, Theme Song Performance

Jouno, Masato Producer

Kimura, Kyoutarou Producer

Reviews

Feb 3, 2025

AngeVNs

Recommended

In my original Dragon Ball Z series review, I mentioned that as much as I love the series—and think either the original Z or Kai are great ways to experience it—if you drop the nostalgia and judge it by modern anime standards, especially in English dub form, Kai is easily the better choice.

Dragon Ball Z Kai basically fixes two of the biggest issues with the original Z: the filler episodes and the overall slow pacing. Sure, the series is still long—certainly longer than your average battle shonen—but the way it gets to the point much faster makes it way more enjoyable. You don’t have to ... sit through episodes of unnecessary padding and events that are never referenced again in any Dragon Ball series.

Now, do these changes suddenly make Kai a perfectly paced series? Obviously not. Even without filler, battle shonen series tend to drag out certain scenes and arcs longer than necessary. But Kai at least trims things down to a more compact, digestible format, which helps a lot.

In my original Dragon Ball Z review, I focused more on the macro level—how the fight scenes are consistently great and, more importantly, how much I love the character growth and interactions. Goku’s love of fighting, Gohan and Piccolo finding their places in the group, Vegeta’s drive to sur his rival—these elements all add depth beyond just the action.

Now, for this Kai review, I want to give more specific thoughts on the various arcs.

The Saiyan Saga is a great way to introduce the ever-expanding scope of Dragon Ball. Before this, outside of Piccolo’s introduction and Goku’s tail becoming irrelevant, the series was pretty grounded in of power progression. The reveal that Goku is an alien was the ultimate retcon in the best way possible. Toriyama opened up the world in a way that explained Goku’s powers beyond just being mysterious. Plus, the Saiyan Saga had real stakes before Dragon Balls became ridiculously overpowered, which added a layer of tragedy that later sagas lacked.

The Frieza Saga, while iconic, is honestly a bit overhyped—or, as the zoomers say, “glazed.” Once the fight with Frieza starts, it’s amazing. But everything leading up to it drags, even with Kai cutting the filler. I like the idea of Gohan, Krillin, and Bulma having to strategize to survive while different groups hunt for the Dragon Balls, but there’s just too much running around that ultimately leads to nothing. This saga also kicks off the annoying trend of sidelining characters while waiting for Goku, to the point where they have to keep knocking him out just so he doesn’t end the arc too early. The Cell Saga at least fixes this by keeping more characters involved, but watching just Gohan, Krillin, and Vegeta go up against various enemies gets dull fast. That said, once Frieza himself finally enters the battle, the long, grueling fight to take him down is incredible and serves as the ultimate payoff to everything set up since Raditz’s arrival.

The Android and Cell Sagas are widely considered the best parts of Dragon Ball Z for good reason. Pacing-wise, they’re the best of the longer arcs, though this happened somewhat by accident due to Toriyama’s editor constantly pushing him to change the main villain. Despite these changes, the saga still feels cohesive, which just shows how good Toriyama is at improvising and making things work with his simple yet engaging writing style. The Cell Arc serves as a necessary turning point for characters like Goku, Vegeta, and Gohan, showcasing their flaws and forcing them to learn from their mistakes. Cell himself is an awesome villain—genuinely terrifying in his early forms and hilariously cocky once he’s perfect.

That said, as much as I love this arc, I have issues with it that keep it from being the “perfect” arc many fans claim it is. The constant villain changes, while interesting, make it hard to take each new villain seriously, knowing they’ll be replaced in 20 episodes. Similarly, while I like the idea of negative character development leading to growth, there are too many moments where characters act downright stupid just to drag the plot out. Characters like Krillin, Android 18, Android 16, Vegeta, Goku, and even Piccolo and Trunks make baffling decisions that stretch things out unnecessarily. It’s entertaining to watch the train wreck that leads to Cell reaching his perfect form, but it’s also frustrating how much of it happens purely because characters act dumb. Also, while this arc tries to keep non-Saiyan characters relevant, it’s obvious Toriyama was struggling. Tien’s Tri-Beam, Krillin’s attempt to deactivate 18, and even Piccolo’s brief power boost all feel like last-ditch efforts before those characters become completely outclassed.

This review might sound a bit harsh for a series I’m ultimately rating very highly, but that’s just because I’m ionate about it. Dragon Ball Z Kai is still one of my favorite anime to just pick up and watch anytime. I just wanted to point out that it’s not flawless, especially since so many fans overhype the pre-Buu Saga arcs.

Regardless, Dragon Ball Z Kai is easily one of my favorite anime of all time and is hands down the best way to watch the series from start to finish—unless you’re really attached to the old-school delivery of certain quotes in the original English dub.

Reviewer’s Rating: 10

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Apr 28, 2022

Ethernet

Mixed Feelings

Better don't watch it and go on to watch Dragon ball Z.

The main story is all the same but you miss so much about the characters and so on. Then the story is all flat - just endless fighting without any sense. One of my favourite arcs - adult Gohan and young Trunks/Goten, but there is nothing about that. So sad.

I've started watching DBK just because the amount of DBZ episodes is too much, to rewatch it again, but it was a mistake so don't make it too. Because in that case you will lose a lot of joy or much of your time ... watching DBZ after DBK.

Reviewer’s Rating: 5

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Nov 1, 2015

Luquillo

Not Recommended

I should have trusted my instincts when I decided to give Dragonball Kai a watch. It does sound quite intriguing to watch Dragonball Z again, only this time minus the filler episodes that really didn't add much or anything to the storyline; but with one change though, must come many, because for some reason writers always must omit something else that can feel almost equally important as the thing they wanted changed originally. I guess this is just one of those cases where you simply can't satisfy everyone, because DB Kai left me with a very bitter taste, and I actually prefer the original series ... by Funimation than this.

The story to DB Kai is no different from the original series. The Earth is paid a visit by a being named Raditz whom claims to be Goku's brother; Raditz reveals to him that he's not even of Earth, instead he comes from a different race called the Saiyians whom lived on Planet Vegeta. They eventually battle, and Goku as well as his allies learn that Raditz isn't the only one out there from that race, nor is he even close to the strongest. They then prepare themselves to battle against the last two warriors of the Saiyan race.

I will mention now that the removal of various filler such as Snake Way, Garlic Jr., and various other things was definitely a plus. The show moves quite better without the constant distractions; but the truth is, even without the filler, DB Kai can still be a chore at times with situations dragging along for too much time, and the outcome simply not being a good enough pay off for some of the waiting. In any case, the overall story is fun, and DB Kai works its way up to the final battle against Cell.

DB Kai manages to keep the action well paced enough, and character personalities are fleshed out. However, things could have been so much better had the only change to the show been the various filler. One thing DBZ did well was its voice acting for the English dub and character interactions. Some serious fans will catch the removal of some dialog and it may bother them, it sure as hell bothered me because Vegeta especially had some good lines, like his threat to beat on Yamcha for practically no reason. The changing of voice actors got on my nerves as well; Colleen Clinkenbeard is annoying as hell as Gohan, and had I never seen this before I would have been wishing for his brutal death at the hands of Frieza. Now speaking of Frieza, they have Chris Ayres playing him. I hate everyone Ayres, Chris and Greg Ayres have a very annoying, whining, saccharine feel that gets on my nerves quick. Colleen Clinkenbeard also voices Android 18, and she just feels all types of wrong here. Meredith McCoy is by far the best to play her; she brought a sinister yet sexy appeal to 18 that carried over to her facial expressions and even fighting.

Another thing DBZ always did amazingly well was introduce intense music scores. Funimation's BGM is probably this anime's best quality and they know it, yet for some reason they use boring elevator music, with no variation or anything new through out the entire duration of the show. Vegeta and Piccolo's addictive themes that described their characters so well? Gone. The terrifying BGM of death when Frieza goes off to kill Vegeta while King Kai narrates this is the evil Prince's last stand? Jettisoned... for some irritating trash that doesn't enhance the scene at all. I can list plenty more examples, but this proves to me that not everyone understands the effect music can have during some scenes.

The animation and artwork appears to be remastered, but the only thing actually new is the opening. I don't have much of a problem with this, still this could have been better updated. At least DB Kai delivers the action well enough and there's plenty going on that can turn a new comer into a fan. There's loads of fisticuffs and brutal beatings to go around.

As I look around there are plenty of people that really enjoyed Kai more than DBZ. I can honestly say that I understand that because it does trim a lot of the fat and focuses more on character and story development, along with action which is the main selling point. Unfortunately for me, I look for other things in my anime and music means a lot to me; a great soundtrack can actually mask flaws in a work, and DBZ was full of them yet the BGM smoothed things out making it more tolerable. In addition, there are things that seems changed for the sake of it. None of the voice actors from the original died while this was in production, so I see no reason for the change in cast, nor the removal of some lines.

Despite my dislike for this remake, if that's what it is, I still recommend it to fans so they can see it for themselves; but I highly advise to be prepared for these various changes. I already know plenty of individuals who had the same issues with this as I did.


Highs: Some of the removal of filler does work, enjoyable action

Lows: Altering of cast and BGM is a huge blow for me

Reviewer’s Rating: 3

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