Dragon Ball Z Kai: The Final Chapters - Part One

FINALLY, after first discovering Kai, I can complete my collection with these sets! I'll dispense with the details. Basically, Kai's a recut of Z Toei had commissioned for the 20th & 25th anniversaries of Z for both parts. When it was brought over to the States, this gave FUNimation a second chance at getting an actually great dub of the show out, as the original Z dub is...less than good, to say the least. If you ever run into an original Z dub fan, take a grain of salt if they automatically praise the dub, as it's not that good & can be legitimately awful at points. Kai's dub is much more consistently well-translated, scripted, & voice acted. No extraneous dialogue, very little, if any, translation errors, & a heaping pile of greatness. Seriously, THIS is how the show should be seen from many different angles.I've been waiting YEARS for this saga to get the Kai treatment. Unfortunately, it's not 100% perfect, but I'd still recommend it over any FUNimation in-house remaster by a LONG shot, that's for sure. It has a green tint, for some reason, due to Toei's remastering work, is selectively cropped, & not as sharp as the first part. Not to say that's really bad. The Buu Saga's always had decent track record of most masters being well-preserved, even with FUNi's masters, as it has the least amount of animation flubs, film age, & other stuff. It still looks good, considering the film stock's over 20 years old at this point & the animation's VERY mid-90s anime.The pacing's also majorly improved. As mentioned in another review on this product, it's greatly improved from Z & even the Japanese broadcast, which wasn't planned, & even cut down further, mostly with the earliest episodes. Here, I'd absolutely recommend watching Z through this version. The beginning of the arc is a little slow, as it's just setting up a new status quo after a timeskip from Cell, but once it gets going, it's a really fun ride. The beginning 13-14 episodes move at a decent pace, being very episodic before the main plot kicks in afterwards. First we're seeing Gohan navigate high school life & we see his home life, then he becomes Great Saiyaman, gets found out by Videl, then trains & enters the tournament. Each mini-plot is given a few episodes each to be fleshed out as much as needed, then it moves to the next. It's a breeze getting back into Kai after several years of only seeing the first part. Unfortunately, once the overall plot kicked in, I noticed some pace slow-down, but once it picks up again after a few episodes, it really gets going again. I'm really happy with how the pacing turned out. If there is filler left in, it seems very minimal & just helps with pacing the episodes, as with the first part of Kai. That's the brilliance of it. Yeah, I would've wanted them to reanimate the show from the ground up, but I don't mind this approach because I think it's a good alternative route to take, especially if Toei's working for cheap. I DO wish Q-Tec worked on it, as I would've wanted it to be in 4:3, but oh well.I'll take a moment to gush about the voice acting in the English dub. it's phenomenal! The dub was recorded between 2014 & 2015, the same years that Battle of Gods was finally dubbed & Resurrection got dubbed & released, as FUNimation got the episodes. Everyone who returns does a great job, as always. Standouts are always Sean Schemmel, who's come a LONG way from the rookie he was in the early 2000s, Chris Sabat, Kyle Hebert, Kara Edwards, Laura Bailey, & Sonny Strait. Then there's the other actors I'm not sure the name of for Babidi, Supreme Kai, Dabura, & Kibito. They're all great. Sabat's also the dub director & knows how to direct his actors, as well as how to have the dub be scripted, so it's all his doing. The dub is definitely the highlight of the show overall.So, overall, if you're going to wanna watch Z, get the Kai releases. While they're not 100% perfect, they're MUCH better than every single current FUNimation release, that much I can guarantee. I rate this set a 9.5/10.

Amazing dub. It's truly wonderful to hear the original cast with their acting chops at the pro level. The level of nuance is spectacular and immediately noticeable; everyone sounds better and the script is worlds better too. That being said, the actual content of the Kai international cut for the buu saga is awful.Up until this point, Kai cut out about 90% of fillers and kept the pace quick but not unbearably so. This new kai is about 50% filler left in and very little improvement in pace - leaving in countless seconds of dead air inbetween frames and including unnecessary filler shots and extended cringe moments like the chi-chi/videl tongue off which ran on loop for a solid minute. It kind of defeats the purpose of choosing Kai over the original. They actually cut more of the action shots to make them seem faster, which looks choppy a number of times - but still choose to keep scenes drawn out when not in immediate conflict. Not sure why they decided to be so lax this season - it's a big drop in quality. This is, of course, not on funimation but on toei. Funimation did a fantastic job with what they were given. Just a shame to see one of my favorite series get a cheap cut for its end run. My only other complaint is the choice for Toei to make the last season cropped widescreen. I much preferred the 4:3 original ratio remaster. Worth it to complete the series, but it's much closer to the pacing of Z than the previous 99 eps of Kai.

This edition of kai is fantastic. The dub is unbeatable and easily the best dub of the Majin Buu saga ever released in english. I noticed another reviewer said that the color pallet seemed off. I didn't think so at all. I have watched through all the episodes and the color seems to be great. It is a fantastic and crisp HD blu-ray experience. I do have two minor complaints however. The first being the change in aspect ratio. I much preferred 4:3 over 16:9, but its honestly not a deal breaker and not very noticeable if you're not actively thinking about it as you watch. I also noticed that there is more filler left in when comparing to the other kai releases. This does slightly alter the pace and makes the world martial arts tournament feel like an eternity, however overall, the pacing is still much faster than the original Z. Overall this release is fantastic and I highly recommend it over the original Z release of the series.

Finally, years after we'd received hints at the dub being produced, we're finally getting the conclusion to KaiAll actors, both new and old, perform wonderfully in this dubLarge amounts of filler material not present in the manga or relevant to the story have been cut, though not quite to the extent of the previous arcs of Kai. Most filler remaining relates to the Great Saiyaman, so if you're a fan of that, it's not too badThe only "Cons" to this release are that the video has been Cropped to 16:9, removing footage from either the top or bottom; However, this was done selectively (Unlike Funimation's Orange Bricks of the Z series) and by Toei themselves, leaving it out of Funimation's control, and that their is an odd muffling of sound effects and the narrator, not present on the Japanese Stereo voice track. Supposedly this is only an issue on stereo systems and is negligible on Surround, though I have not had the chance to test that myself. There is also a very slight Green tint to the footage as a result of Toei's remastering process but it doesn't detract too much from the overall look of the footageOverall I definitely think this set is worth the price, especially for the number of episodes you're getting per set, with this set stretching from the start of the Seven year skip to immediately prior to the Majin Vegeta fight (All of Season Seven and part of Season 8 in Funimation's releases of Z)

When you hear DBZ Kai, it IS NOT what you see on TV broadcast. this DVD is uncut and not the silly edited stuff people see on Nicktoons (that shouldn't exist)For people that Like the English Dub, This version is the best. It's MUCH better than the version that was made in the 2000s. (The Voice actor's experience shows through)BUT For dedicated fans (Like me) though, Funimation ALWAYS manages little changes to mess up their releases and screw it up.1. WHY does this need to be in 16X9?!?!?! The other versions of Kai was their TRUE 4X3 Aspect Ratio THIS IS THE ISSUE I (and many fans) HAVE WITH FUNIMATION!2. The popup menu looks so terrible that you can't read it unless you're very close to the TV. (Why put Blue text on a grey background???)3. The physical case and the sleeve are much LOWER quality than what came with Kai Part 1-8. Funimation released this with lower quality for the same price.Even though it's small issues, I know there are fans of the series that will view the 1st point as a huge issue.Too bad Funimation wasn't allowed to use the Team Four Star guys for the blimp Cell Games movie, that would have been greatMy advice is to only buy this on sale. Don't pay full price because it isn't worth the same as the previous Kai releases, both in packaging quality and remastering/rendering quality.

Finally! North America is getting The Final Chapters! Love the faster pace of Kai as usual but the change of aspect ratio, from original 4:3 in the first 2 seasons of the Kai discs to the optimized 16:9 is kinda jarring. THIS ISN’T FUNIMATION’S FAULT. Toei added the subtitle «The Final Chapters» to signify this was a different animal from the first 2 seasons. No new animation here (outside of the opening, credits and commercial breaks), it uses the optimized 16:9 aspect ratio created for the Blu-Ray release and a few minor re-casts. Honestly, Kai is an EDITED version of DBZ so I see nothing wrong in the aspect ratio selection. The menus on these discs are very, very ugly and Funimation is still force feeding un-skippable trailers on every disc to Dragon Ball collectors who just want to watch the show. Funimation is continuing the long standing tradition of omitting Marathon Play on every other Dragon Ball Z release here which is a facepalm of epic proportions. The video mastering is…. Fair. It feels a little cheaper than even the DBZ Blu-Ray release and definitely below Kai’s first and second seasons. The sound quality is fine (it’s a teenage action show folks) and the new voice over is remarkably well made, adding some zingers I wasn’t expecting. All things considered, I’m glad we finally got DBZ:K-TFC in North America but I wish we had skipped the «parts» and just had the season released in one go. Recommended for fans.

everything is in the case, nothing broken inside either (one of my previous orders of an earlier season had the case broken inside). only downside to this one was that it did not have a sleeve to go around the case like all the other ones i have bought from here. All my other blu rays of this show from here have a sleeve and this one does not for some reason, makes the OCD kick in a little bit lol

Esta era el ultimo Bluray que me faltaba así que estaba muy emocionado cuando lo compre. Por desgracia el empaque del Bluray llego un poco lastimado, algo que un coleccionista no permite, pero ya no podía pedir otro debido a que fue el ultimo que tenían.

Great series, great price on the item. Fast shipping, my only complaint is it did not come with a slip cover, all of the other dragonball kai blu ray releases come with a slip cover. Not sure the reason.