If you've never seen Dragon Ball Z, this is the version to watch. Asides from a preference to American dubbing, Kai's better focus by cutting out filler does wonders. The hand drawn and remastered animation without a doubt still hold up, the fight scenes still feel visceral and impactful. There's not much to say, it's Dragon Ball Z without filler and without that crappy Funimation music job. There's nothing here that's going to blow your mind, but there are many moments engraved into anime culture that's worth watching it for.

While it's better than the Z version for the filler that was removed, Dragon Ball Z Kai: The Final Chapters is a poor sequel to the original Dragon Ball Z Kai that we received a few years ago. After the end of DBZ Kai with its lower than expected ratings, Toei did not plan to make a Kai for the Majin Boo arc of the series. Investors wanted it for the overseas audience, thus they went ahead with it after all. But since this was never planned to air in Japan and the first Kai got low ratings, Toei half-assed this as much as they possiblycould. The filler removal is less than I would have hoped for. If I remember correctly, Kanzenshuu said that the international cut only removed 25% of the filler from the series while the cut that actually did air in Japan removed only 33% (it got 9 less episodes than the rest of the world did). Right off that bat, the biggest point of a Kai version for the Boo arc is mostly gone. For reference, the Majin Boo arc for DBZ began at episode 200 and lasted to 291--91 episodes total. Here, the arc begins at episode 99 and goes to 167--69 episodes total (international version, not Japan version that aired on Fuji TV). The first Kai took episodes 001 to 194 of Z and turned it into 98 episodes. This arc could've had much much much more filler removed than it did. The remastering process was gimped as well. Whereas Toei paid QTEC to remaster the footage for the first 98 episodes of DBZ Kai, this version's remastering was done internally at Toei. The quality has a HUGE drop with a crop to 16:9, haloing, poor framing in certain scenes, bad DNR that removes detail, and for reasons unknown to this day a green tint over the video excluding the OP, ED, and eyecatches. So now the two biggest points of a Kai version for the Boo arc are gone: less filler removal and a remaster that hurts the eyes and dishonors the vision originally intended by the people who worked on the original version of the show. While the audio for the characters was re-recorded and a new score composed by Norihito Sumitomo (who scored Battle of Gods, Resurrection 'F', and now Super) was done, this version of the show isn't something you truly need to watch. The Funimation dub is VERY similar to the original dub they did for Z, as by the time they reached the Majin Boo arc originally they had gotten more accurate in their translations. If you liked Kikuchi or Faulconer's scores, you could simply save money by buying the Blu-ray remasters and skipping filler content to save some money. In the end, this is a negligible version of the series and you are better off watching the original Z version and simply skipping the filler scenes. Most of them were not removed for this release anyway. All in all, I think everyone would've been better off had this not been made the way it was. It's simply not worth it in any form.

A continuation to the filler-removed Dragon Ball Kai, this makes the same changes that Kai did to the first two arcs, to the Buu Saga. Animation has been improved vastly and also cut down 100 episodes to about 61, so if you are on a tight schedule, this will definitely be a better option to watch. The voice actors are quite good and don't detract from the experience at all. Overall a great adaptation of the Buu Saga. If you were worried about some characters losing their "character", fear not, because Dragon Ball Kai: The Final Chapters does a good job of keeping everyone'scharacter the same.

EDIT: I recently made a video review of DBZ Kai 2 on my Youtube channel which is heavily based off this review with the script being nearly identical. If you want to watch it instead of reading this then check it out here https://rumble.com/vt3vwq-the-buu-saga-is-disappointing.html After finally finishing the first season of Kai I of course had to watch its second season which retells the Buu Saga. Normally I'd just write one review for a series that has multiple seasons but sometimes the quality of a season can be slightly or even notably different whether thats for the better or for worse, and unfortunately this is the latter.Obviously this is a review for Kai 2014/Buu Saga/Season 2, or however you want to call it, but for simplicity I'm going to refer to Frieza and Cell as Season 1 of Kai and this, the Buu Saga, as Season 2 of Kai. Also I highly recommend reading my previous review of Kai Season 1 since I'll be referring to it in this review which you can find here. https://myanimelist.net/reviews.php?id=371058 Finally this is spoilers for all of Kai so if you've somehow not seen Z or Kai or any Dragon Ball then go watch them first. Story: 7 DBZ Kai 2 is supposed to be exactly how the first season of Kai was: a condensed and edited version of the original Z anime which trims a lot of the fat and removes a heavy chunk of filler in order to speed up the pace and adhere more to the manga. Season 1 did a pretty damn good job of completing this task even if there were still some scenes that could've been removed and lowered the episode count down to a few episodes. Still, season 1 cut out 96 episodes worth of content which basically cut the run time to half of what Z was to get to the end of Cell. Since the Other World Tournament was filler that was cut of course which left a remaining 92 episodes of Z to be re-edited and trimmed down for season 2. Here we get a total of 69, yes 69 episodes, not 61 which is listed here on MAL. I honestly have no idea why this is so confusing and why the number of episodes is different. On the Wikipedia episode list page apparently some episodes are cut from original Japanese airing which doesn't really make sense but now that its technically complete it's a total of 69 episodes and not 61 which is all you need to know. By the number of total episodes its clear that something feels off. This makes for a total of 33 episodes less than the total of what it was in Z which is a notable difference, however it's clear that they could have cut another 10 or probably even 20 episodes out and speed up the pace in some areas. This is probably due to the fact Toei themselves produced and edited Season 2 of Kai and it sadly shows. For Season 1, Toei paid a company called QTEC to re-edit Z and turn them into Kai episodes and like I mentioned, they did a pretty damn good job at it. With Toei doing the work themselves, Season 2 has an episode count that should be significantly lowered from 69 to about 50 or even 55 episodes, footage that is cropped and now a slight green tint during its entirety (which I'll get to in the art section later on). Toei has always gotten a lot of slack and hate over the years and I'm not sure if they deserve it or not. It's either Toei Animation themselves to blame for this or Fuji TV which airs their episodes on their network. Either way one of them is extremely greedy and wants to milk and get as money out of their series as they can possibly get which is why there's more episodes than needed. I will say this though, there is clearly talent, love, and care at Toei. The directors managed to include decent and well thought out filler sections in Z's original run, character stills are usually good, and its clear that their animators can do great things when they have enough time. Look at Dragon Ball Super during the Tournament of Power, a ton of the arc looks great which is because Toei gave their workers much needed time to complete episodes while also adding more staff and teams to assist. What I'm trying to say is that Toei has talented and respected workers but either the higher ups or/and Fuji TV's owners are greedy bastards who prevent their workers from creating even better works. After all of that blabbering I think its time to talk about the pacing and why its very bittersweet here in season 2. Clearly a cut of 33 episodes means the pacing is quicker, certain filler is removed, and the runtime is a fraction of what it once was. At the same time, there are still certain scenes that definitely could have been cut, fights and scenes that could have been speed up, and I can't believe this but even EPISODES that are filler. Yes, I was shocked that Kai: the series that is supposed to cut filler, has some filler episodes. It's only 2 out of 69 but there's no real reason for them to be here. The first one is of Gohan and Videl saving a dinosaur who's been kidnapped, and the second one being a celebration party after Kid Buu's defeat. They aren't bad episodes but there's no excuse for them being here considering all of the runtime for them is filler and shouldn't be included. I mentioned in my review of Season 1 that I was usually fine with Z's pacing and that the only real time I thought it was going too far was on my rewatch of the Frieza fight which is notorious for being way too long and dragged out. I don't mind if certain scenes and fights are a bit of the slow side but still including filler moments like characters monologuing on the sidelines explaining what's going on in the fights could have been removed especially considering this is what Kai is supposed to be after all. Overall however, watching the Buu Saga is about the same compared to how it was in Z, maybe a bit better here since the runtime is less. In my S1 review I touched on how the big moments in the series were overall better in Z and the payoffs were too such as Frieza and Cell's defeat, Goku turning Super Saiyan, power ups and transformations, etc. Here, due to the slower pace this really isn't an issue. The only scenes I'd say for sure that's better in Z is Vegeta's Sacrifice and Goku turning Super Saiyan 3 which is like 5 minutes of just nonstop screaming and its awesome. Here in Kai its MUCH shorter and isnt nearly as cool. Thankfully other moments such as Gotenks introduction, charging the Spirit Bomb, and Kid Buu's defeat are pretty much the same in terms of impact and payoff. But all in all, the upgraded pacing isn't what it could have been but its still faster paced than Z which is to be expected. It's basically just receiving the bare minimum of what'd you'd expect from a re-edit and nothing more if that makes sense. Now onto the story which there's a good amount to talk about. The Buu Saga can be divided into four sections or arcs which I'll refer to as 1. The Great Saiyaman/World Martial Arts Tournament 2. Majin Buu 3. Super Buu 4. Kid Buu The season starts off which the Great Saiyaman which leads into the World Martial Arts Tournament. After seven years since Cell's defeat, Gohan is now 17 (or 18 if you count the year in the Chamber, Toriyama kind of messed this up), and he begins to commute to his new life as a high school student. At the same time, Gohan wants to dress up as a Superhero and be known as the Great Saiyaman in order to not get his identity revealed. While doing so, we also get introduced to Hercule's (or Mr. Satan's) daughter, Videl, who befriends Gohan but also believes that he's the Great Saiyaman and wants to find out the truth. This whole arc is much more slice of life and laid back than everything we've seen since the beginning of the series which is been long overdue. It's great to just see Gohan and Videl live a somewhat normal life while saving the day by doing superhero deeds. Shortly after is the Worlds Martial Arts Tournament which is pretty good too. It's nothing special but again, its a much needed tone of being very low stakes while just seeing the cast enjoy themselves. This is until towards the end of the arc where Spopovich beats the crap out of Videl, which is one of the better fights in the series honestly, and then ends off with Gohan getting his energy drained by Spopvich and Yamu. Overall this arc is pretty solid and is probably the second best arc of the saga. Next is the Majin Buu which which is technically where the saga starts. It's sort of like the Saiyan arc in the Frieza saga; some refer to it as a saga where others refer to it as an arc since it heavily leads to the Namek and Frieza saga. But anyway I could say for sure that this is where the saga and Buu aspect ultimately begins. Unfortunately this arc is easily the weakest of the four which I'll be going over. The arc's hook is nothing compared to Frieza and Cell's openings. In Frieza we get our minds blown learning that Goku is a being of an extinct race since his brother comes to Earth in order to destroy. This causes the evil Piccolo and Goku to team up to defeat Raditz which results in Goku dying at the beginning of the series which was insane. In Cell we start with Frieza and his father, King Cold, coming to Earth in order to get revenge on Goku which had me shit myself the first time I saw it. This unease ends abruptly since a new mysterious Saiyan comes, turns Super Saiyan which was cool for the time, and defeats Frieza and his father without breaking a sweat. This set the bar for how much more powerful the next villains would be from then on out. Here, the arc starts with the Z fighters finding and entering Babidi's lair, but beforehand are left with Kibito getting killed, and Krillin and Piccolo turning into stone from one of Babidi's minions Dabura. This leaves us off with Goku, Vegeta, Gohan, and the Supreme Kai left to deal with Babidi and his minions. This whole segment is probably the worst part of the original series. It is better here in Kai but not by a whole lot due to the pacing not being as fast as it should be. Goku and Vegeta kick Babidi's mionion's asses easily and Gohan is seen struggling with Dabura because he's out of practice. The fights aren't that interesting and Babidi's minions aren't really interesting to begin with either. Shortly after there's the fight between Vegeta and Goku which is really damn good and exciting which then brings us to Majin Buu being resurrected. Vegeta fights Buu but then realizes he can't win normally so he decides to sacrifice himself in order to save the entire world which is a fantastic moment in the entire series. Of course Buu survives because the arc can't just end as soon as it starts and Babidi and Buu start to destroy everyone on the planet which is where the problems start to show. I'll go into more detail later but one of the main downsides of the arc is its cast and Babidi is probably my least favorite mainline or B tier character in the original series. I enjoy Buu but he's one of the biggest problems with the arc too. A decent amount of time is spent with Babidi and Buu destroying cities and people and it isn't anything special. This is the sort of violence and terror that Vegeta and Nappa could've done in the Saiyan arc. Sure, Buu probably managed to destroy more cities and kill more people in a much quicker time but that's really the only thing he has going for him. Babidi even says it should take around 5 days before everyone on Earth is dead. The stakes don't feel nearly as high as it was with Frieza or Cell and tonally it's not easy to take seriously when you're main villain is a fat pink blob who turns people into candy. It's just difficult to take seriously but then again it is something different and I think having another Frieza or Cell would feel a bit recycled but we'll get to that soon. While this is going on, Goku soons goes Super Saiyan 3 against Buu which I already mentioned was one of the best moments of the saga, and then leads into Goten and Trunks learning fusion. This is where the pacing slows down by a ton for a decent amount of episodes. During this time Majin Buu kills Babidi and then spends more time destroying cities and people but then ends up building himself a house. Goten and Trunks send a few episodes learning fusion and then Hercule soon meets up with Buu. This whole section is just very slow and it doesn't feel like much is happening during these episodes. Once Hercule and Buu become friends it gets better and is honestly a really well written idea having Buu become nice while also giving Herucle a nice side as well, showing that he isn't just a loudmouth coward. This whole arc overall is decent and kind of sums up the arc as a whole. It has some great moments and ideas such as Super Saiyan 3, Vegeta's sacrifice, and fusion, but when you actually sit down and watch it, it's not the best. This is mainly due to pacing issues and a lack of great characters. Next is the Super Buu arc which is just a fight with the new evil Buu who swallows and absorbs fat Majin Buu. I'd say this arc is mainly just Toriyama being told that he needs another villain that is more on the line of Cell and Frieza and that the arc is more similar to what we've seen before whether that was for better or for worse. Here we get to see Super Buu fight Gotenks, Gohan, Goku, and Vegito. Most of these fights are good although the Gohan fight is very frustrating. Gohan has been spending this entire arc on the land of the Kais after his defeat with Buu earlier ago. Here he has been messing around with the Z Sword which is said to grant any warrior a huge amount of power but ends up with him just sitting around for 25 hours standing and sitting doing absolutely nothing but gaining power without having to doing anything at all. And after all of that time spent gaining power, he fights Super Buu for a few minutes kicking his ass, but then gets overpowered after Buu absorbs Gotenks and Piccolo. First, having Buu gain the upper hand is fine but Gohan can't do anything after this happens. It would've been a lot more interesting if they were at least equal now with Buu maybe having the advantage but instead its a complete 180 in the span of only a few minutes and its really annoying and disappointing to see this. Second, Buu absorbs Gotenks and Piccolo, and eventually Gohan too and gains some of their appearance, knowledge, intelligence, and of course power. This is literally just a carbon copy of Cell at this point. I'm fine with Buu surviving Vegeta's blast by having some of his body remain intact even if its exactly how Goku died for nothing against Cell but I can let it pass since Buu is a very unique fighter. I could even let it slide with Evil skinny Buu absorbing fat Buu since they're both Buus sort of like how Namekians can merge to become a stronger being. But this is basically just Cell without the cool terrifying transformations, and of course without Cell's personality. After absorbing Piccolo Buu feels and acts like a bootleg Cell until after his fight with Vegito which is another one of the best fights in the saga. Finally, the arc ends with Goku and Vegeta entering Buu and removing the fighters he's absorbed including Majin Buu which leads to him transforming back into his original form which is known as Kid Buu. Finally we get to the end of the saga where Kid Buu destroys the entire Earth with everyone on it. First off its great to finally see an attack actually destroy the planet. Ever since Goku vs. Vegeta we've heard nonstop of how everyone's power or attacks shook the planet and how their number 1 move was too powerful and would destroy the planet. Here we finally see it and now the stakes are risen to a new level that we haven't seen before which is kind of ironic to say since that's what every new villain is suppose to represent. But here just having everyone die and the planet destroyed just feels fresh since its never happened before. Second, it doesn't make any sense why Buu is more powerful after Majin Buu gets disconnected from his body in his brain. If I have this right, two of the Kais got absorbed by Buu which weakened him and made him more childish and less destructive. However, wouldn't that mean that by absorbing Piccolo, Gohan, and Gotenks, he would become more restrained and less powerful? It's very confusing and I think its just a massive oversight and flaw that isn't explained well or even at all. Besides that, Kid Buu ends up fighting with the last remaining fighters on the land of the Kais which is against Goku, Vegeta, Majin Buu, and even Hercule. This entire arc is just a fight too but its probably the best in the entire saga just because we get to see Goku, Vegeta, and Buu switch places and take their shot and holding off Buu. The finale is great and is one of my favorite moments in the entire series. Goku charges up the Spirit Bomb and needs to energy of everyone on Earth and even characters from other planets and worlds such as Namek and Other World. During this we get some nice call backs to early Dragon Ball such as Nam, Suno, Upa, and even Launch. The idea of having literally everyone on Earth and everyone else in the series giving all of their energy into one giant attack just shows how grand and epic this finale is and its great. I'm not sure if this was intentional or not but it sort of reminds me of Goku winning the Martial Arts Tournament for the first time at the very end of Dragon Ball. There is took him two times of failing but finally winning in the end on his third attempt. The Spirit Bomb has failed him against Vegeta and Frieza so its a nice touch that it finally ends up working here since the saying is third time's the charm. Overall its a great finale to the arc and having callbacks to a lot of previous characters makes it so much better as a sendoff to the series. This is pretty much the end but there's two more episodes that take place ten years after the defeat of Buu which is held at the Martial Arts Tournament again. It's extremely short but is still a nice way to se these characters one last time even if its a bit depressing seeing them all old. I'm still mixed on the decision to have Goku leave his friends and family at the very end though. It's a very Goku thing to do and it fits his character, especially having him become a teacher now, but it just doesn't sit right knowing that the series ends with Goku not being with his friends and family. To sum up the Buu Saga, all in all its probably the weakest in the entire original series but its still a good and solid arc despite some of its glaring flaws. It's still an above average and enjoying arc, although it's very clear that Toriyama was already worn out while writing it. Art: 6 Just like with Season 1, Kai is just a re-edit and sort of remaster of the original footage from Z. There are a few key differences here though. For starters, the big change is that Kai is cropped in order to fit new widescreen TVs. I'm not too big a fan of this decision but I also don't necessarily mind it. When I rewatched all of Z a few years back I watched it all on the Blu Rays which are cropped in order to fit the entire screen so I'm fine with watching it cropped. I still believe it should be in its original format since we a re technically missing parts of the screen but most of the time I don't notice it too much. Second, there's the weird new green tint thats on screen which I don't understand at all. It makes the show just look worse but its not a huge probably, its just very confusing why its there in the first place. There's also some minor censorship that was done by Toei themselves and not licensors such as Funimation. It's not a whole lot but basically middle fingers are removed, the one dude at the Tournament who gets his head blown up by Babidi is covered up, and Babidi's blood is now changed to be purple. These are all minor changes and complaints. I'm fine with Babidi's blood being purple since that is his blood color after all so its more of a color correction but removing the dude's heads getting blown up and removing middle fingers is a bit of a letdown. As for the art itself, Dragon Ball has always struggled with its animation. I went into detail defending the art to an extent in my season 1 review so I'm quickly recap my thoughts. In terms of animation, Z or Kai is kind of shit. There are some well animated fights but a majority of the fights don't look good and feel lazy. Fortunately, some ground is made up to compensate for this. Toriyama's character designs are fantastic in original Dragon Ball and especially in Z and for the most part characters were on model and were well drawn in Z and Kai before. Here in the Buu saga however, characters look even better than ever. The art is more consistent and the still shots look amongst the best they ever had. Despite the series lacking in the animation department, this is still the best looking Dragon Ball has been during its original run for sure. Sound: 6 Soundtrack: 5 I was very astonished and confused during my view of season 2. I'm no music expert but if I can call out big flaws in the sound area then its clearly a problem. Let me just say this, I don't hate or even dislike the OST for season 2. Here we get an entirely original new track which ended up being used for Super too but unfortunately we don't get any returning tracks either. The original Japanese track was pretty good, I didn't love it while I wrote my season 1 review but its slowly starting to grow on me, especially since its league better than these new tracks. The new songs we get are fine, I will say that. There are some solid tracks here but overall its nothing special. The main issues are that they aren't too great in general, they're repeated quite a lot and are very noticeably, and worst of all they don't even fit half the time. This was by far its worst during the Majin Buu arc. You'd think I'm joking, but during the filler where Yamcha, Chi Chi, Bulma, and everyone else are collecting the dragon balls, one of them being from a giant fish, we hear the same epic music that plays when a villain shows up. Its ridiculous with how unfitting these songs can be placed in and just shows how little they made. The question is why not just reuse some, if not then a good chunk of the original tracks. That's what Kai did and it worked out pretty well. But there isn't a single reused track besides the Battle of Gods mix of Cha La. After the Majin Buu arc, tracks get repeated still but it's the tracks tonally fit when used most of the time. It's really just during the Majin Buu section where the sound design when down the shitter. Voice Acting/Dub: 9 I've always loved the English dub of Dragon Ball and season 2 is a bit better than season 1. All the voices return from Kai which I have no problem with. Kid Gohan and Frieza were the only voices I highly preferred the original Z voices for and since they aren't here, besides Frieza with literally a few lines of dialogue, I don't really have any complaints. I failed to mention in my season 1 review but Bulma's voice also changed going from Z to Kai and I'm fine with Monica Rial as Bulma. I still prefer the original VA for her in Z but I've gotten use to Monica and she does a good job as her. They also got Oolong back who had a really shitty voice in Kai so thats something even if he also only has a few lines. But yeah no real complaints, Dragon Ball dub is great as always. Characters: 7 Dragon Ball has always been known for having a great cast of characters but unfortunately the Buu saga's cast adds some of the weaker and less likable characters to the series. Let's start off with the good additions. Videl is great and giving Gohan a sweetheart works, and then there's the new Kais which are pretty fun to watch even if they're basically a replacement for King Kai. As for the returning cast they're for the most part good. Vegeta is fantastic in this saga and he gets a ton of development here from him sacrificing himself, fusing with Goku, and even coming up with the idea for the people of Earth to save it themselves. Piccolo works as a mentor figure which gives him some good moments, and Goku is still Goku. I especially like how he purposely doesn't defeat Majin Buu while up against him because he really wants to push his belief for having the new generation fight off the coming dangers and villains, but I'll get to that soon. There's also Hercule who gets some great development with Buu for awhile. As for other returning characters, they're sort of mixed. Krillin does nothing in the entire saga which sucks after seeing him on Namek and even having him fall in love with 18 in Cell. Tien makes a decent entrance against Super Buu but then gets one shot and serves no purpose whatsoever so it defeats the purpose of him even being there to begin with. Other characters have no real roles anymore but it would've been nice to see 18 at least try and fight Super Buu since she has unlimited energy after all. Finally, there's of course Gohan who can get a lot of hate here and I'm mixed on him. Let me just start by saying I'm not one of those people who are upset that he isn't a badass like he was against Cell while being Super Saiyan 2. Gohan's character is all about how he doesn't want to be a fighter and how he just wants to live a normal life being a regular everyday working man. This along with Goku's perspective of having the next generation fight for themselves could have worked out really well together and could have given the arc a lot more potential. Throughout Dragon Ball we've seen characters such as Krillin, Yamcha, and Tien who picked up fighting and martial arts as a hobby. We then have characters like Goku and Vegeta who fight mainly to become stronger since they strive to a good fight. Some of Goku's motive is to protect and now the same applies to Vegeta but having a character train and fight sorely to protect others while also not enjoying fighting could have been fresh and interesting. We could have seen Gohan train not out of enjoyment of fighting but as a duty in order to protect people like Videl. But instead we get most of the arc with him sitting around for an entire day, getting more powerful, and then getting his assed kicked after a couple of minutes of winning. The whole idea of the next generation moving forward also gets forgotten since the arc ends up with Goku saving the day which sort of ruins what the entire Cell fight represents. When you take a glance and the Cell fight it's very simple in terms of structure and may not be one of the best fights in the series; Goku fights Cell, Gohan fights Cell and gets his ass kicked, they reuse the concept of the Saibamen, Gohan kicks Cell's ass, Cell kills Goku, and Gohan kills Cell with everything he has. Its a very one sided fight most of the time but the meaning behind the fight is what makes it so good, also Gohan being a complete badass but that not the point I'm trying to make. The fight represents Goku passing the torch onto Gohan and leaving the fate of the world into the hands of the next generation. It was also really ballsy of Toriyama to replace Goku with Gohan and have him take the spotlight which is why its so disappointing to see how he was handled in this saga. You see, Toriyama planned for Goku to become a side character sort of like how he was against Buu as Super Saiyan 3 but got a lot of hate from fans early on in the saga which is why Gohan just stops being in the spotlight after the Tournament. I know I got a bit side tracked but now I'll get to some of the new characters that aren't bad but are kind of mixed. First is Trunks and Goten. They're kids obviously so they're going to act like kids and can be a bit on the annoying side sometimes. They're fine but the main issue with them is that they can overstay their welcome which I'm thankful for in Super by the way, where they are mostly just side characters and don't really do much. Gotenks is where the bigger probably arise. Since Gotenks is the fusion of Trunks and Goten he's of course going to be two kids into one which doesn't sound very good. Again, I can tolerate Gotenks but the main issue is again, he overstays his welcome a decent amount of the time and can get on the annoying side. It's also really frustrating seeing him not take his fight against Buu seriously especially after Goten just watched his mother die in front of him and turned proceeded to take his training seriously for once. Next is Majin Buu who I actually quite like as a character but from a story view he brings in problems that I mentioned. Yes, I do enjoy an appreciate that he's one of the more unique characters in the series, especially coming as the main villain for a decent amount of the saga but its difficult to take him seriously when he's a fat pink blob who usually kills people by turning them into candy and eating them. Buu is a good character but not a great antagonist. Super Buu on the other hand is a worse character but a better antagonist. Super Buu doesn't have much of a personality besides being a bit stupid and evil. I can enjoy him up until he starts absorbing people since at that point he basically just becomes worse Cell without having what made Cell so great of a character. Lastly there's Kid Buu who's the best antagonist in the saga since he's the most threatening but as a character he's just evil and a bit stupid, basically just a more extreme version of Super Buu except that he talk, only screams. I can let this pass somewhat since he is Bibidi's creation and his sole purpose was to destroy everything so having the mindset of being purely chaotic does make sense, it's just not very unique or interesting. Lastly there's Babidi and I really don't like him. He represents everything wrong with the characters in this saga that I have fixed feelings with. At first I'm fine with Babidi as a character; he's a short, loud, and powerful wizard that relies on magic to achieve what he wants. The problem is just like with Gotenks, he overstays his welcome way too much and can get annoying very fast. This is mostly due to him shouting all the time and its just frustrating hearing him boss Buu around when we know Buu could easily kill him. When Babidi finally dies its not great, its more of a finally moment. He's probably my least favorite character in the original series but I've seen worse in other shounen so I don't HATE him per say. I'll take him over half of Fairy Tail's cast any day. The characters in the Buu Saga aren't the best the series has to offer but at the same time there still are a good amount of likable characters that sort of make up for it. Enjoyment: 7.5 I love shounen, its one of my favorite genres and of course I love Dragon Ball. I can watch a lot of shounen episodes in one sitting such as over 10 episodes so it makes it easy to binge some of these longer shows. I still have a very time watching Dragon Ball and I do enjoy this saga. It might have some pacing issues, story flaws, some mixed characters, and a confusing soundtrack at times, but overall I still unsurprisingly had a pretty solid time watching the series again. Even if some moments are repetitive, and some episodes aren't the great, I still love this series which is why even with its weakest arc, I'm still able to have fun watching it despite its short comings. Overall: 7 DBZ Kai Season 2 is a disappointment. This is due to the "Kai" aspect being not as well done as the first season which extends the runtime longer than it needs to. The other problem is of the saga itself which couldn't really be helped considering a lot of problems here are canon issues. Besides that, season 2 of Kai is still good. It may not be as well made as the last season, and the arc itself may be notably worse in comparison, but at the end of the day its still the final saga of the original Dragon Ball, so even at its worst, this is still a solid season despite some of its glaring problems.

This is the second part of Dragon Ball Kai, also known as Dragon Ball 2014, or Dragon Ball Kai: The Final Chapters. The Art : The animation is good, and the unique art of Dragon Ball, as we all know it is still there. I haven't noticed any animation issue while watching it. The Story : The anime follows the story of Majin Buu, which is a simple and monotone one. The Sound : I enjoyed the Opening so much! The soundtracks are diversified and awesome. And sometimes the use of them really changed the atmosphere of the scene, whether it is to make it sad or funny. TheCharacters : As you might except from the characters of Dragon Ball, they are very unique and distinct from each other. Though the design of Buu, Dabura and Babidi was kind of childish. The Enjoyment : I have enjoyed the first part of it, but after that the story line has become so slow, and a fight lasts maybe 5 eps or more. I have finished it forcing myself to do so, the last episodes were so slow, that I have started thinking of other things rather than watching the anime. this is what happened to me a long ago, after I've finished watching Kai, I moved to the 2014 version, and because it was so slow, I dropped it - it made me even drop anime.

Still recommended but... The pacing isn't nearly as good as the original Kai run. This could be due to the fact that the Buu Saga is just really bloated to begin with. While it's still a very solid cut/remaster of the original, I found myself kind of feeling impatient by the end. That being said, there are still some really epic moments in this. Kai is still my preferred method of rewatching from this point onward. Unless I just WANT to watch some of the filler(looking at you Driving Test episode). Music is ok. You don't get the jarring parts from the redrawn scenes, because theyare nonexistent in TFC. Although alot of those looked spectacular in the original run of Kai. I've probably brought nothing to the table with this review, more or less for my own reference. Kthnxbye

Kai is really only for people who like the English Dub. Not to say that the Japanese version is BAD, but the original Z is way superior in the Japanese Version. Kai however was the first time the English Dub actors got to play their roles as pros. I was glad I didn't have to listen to Colleen's Gohan anymore in this season. That was the only casting choice that truly bothered me to the core for part 1. But it really is a fantastic experience for English Dub fans. I wish Q Tec continued remastering the episodes for this season as well but the finalproduct actually looks kinda clean. The International Version is what I watched. Sumitomo's soundtrack falls in place really well for this modern retelling of the classic Z. And it had the same vibe as Battle of Gods which is like my favourite DB movie. He aint no Kikuchi but he's done well here. His work in Super (TV) is questionable tho. Bottomline, if you watched Super and liked it and want to revisit the original Z, Kai gives you similar performances (in both JP and ENG). The music is similar as I mentioned earlier (TFC not Part 1).

Just an amazing story no matter how many times I've seen it. Sadly this remake is even worse than the previous Kai series. Reasons for it being worse (for me at least); - The "HD" which is basically just a cropped version of the original Dragon Ball Z because they had to make it 16:9. - Also removing a lot of detail from the scenes which just makes some scenes look bad. - The soundtrack and especially [Dragon ball Kai 2014 OST - 19. Effective Attack] it felt like I was watching some sort shitty action movie from the 80's / 90's. Another one that got on my nerveswas the intermission part, even though it's short it felt like I was watching a sitcom. - I have no idea what happened to Chi-chi's VA but from the moment the 2014 Kai series started you could notice the raspy voice, especially when she starts shouting at people. - Didn't mind it as much after a while. - The sound in general was overall bad from time to time, I have no idea how to explain it other than it sounding "tinny". With that I just can't recommend the 2014 Kai series to anyone, if only for their "HD" marketing, at least the first Kai had redeeming qualities, especially for a newer viewer.