Avatar: The Last Airbender vs. Dragon Ball Kai: The Final & Lengthy Showdown

It's the long-fated battle!

No ATLA spoilers for you newbessies. I *will* throw Z spoilers in here though because fuck it it's as old as I am.

Like The Super Saiyajin Son Goku emerging to challenge Evil Lord Freezer, I never dreamed there could be two action shows as absurdly spectacular and as evenly matched as Avatar: The Last Airbender and Dragon Ball Kai. To decipher who truly was the stronger, I watched the two shows back to back over the course of a few weekends. For Kai, I only watched the first 53 episodes (Saiyan & Freeza arcs), as to present the best possible comparison.

First and foremost, it was an experience of unparalleled satisfaction and synergy. The two programs' mutual themes and styles made them flow perfectly together, but their fundamentally opposite episode structure allowed for the perfect balance. It's hard to imagine two shows that work better in tandem. ATLA focuses on concise storylines wherein a satisfying conclusion is reached every episode, while Kai tells one long, 53 episode story, so the two together effortlessly kept my attention without ever feeling redundant.

The two shows even mirrored each other in progression, with an exciting first arc, a slower second arc more focused on build-up, and a third arc that is the best of all. And sure enough, they were pretty much neck and neck. Both shows tell a brilliant story, with excellent animation and characters. ATLA has much better dialogue, with some of the smartest and best-written lines in TV history. But Kai has much better fighting, in fact it's in a league of its own. No show in history can even come within 50% of Kai's immaculate battle scenes.


Memories

Dragon Ball Z will always hold some of the most vivid and by far some of the most beautiful memories of my childhood. But Kai is only able to retain bits and pieces of that, for obvious reasons. If you could combine the nostalgic aspects of the Ocean Dub and the original Japanese Z into a series as good as Kai, that might be my favorite show of all-time. But ya can't.

Avatar: The Last Airbender may be a lot newer, and I may have been a cynical & depressed teenager by the time this show existed... but it was one of the frighteningly few unsoiled bright spots in an otherwise dark time. It was able to transport me back to those DBZ days and offer something genuine of its own as well. So I have a cherished wealth of ATLA memories too.

Of course, I've only just begun watching Kai. Memories of my first time watching Kai will surely be worth something someday, this is a pretty great period of my life in its own right. It took me a few years before I came to fully appreciate ATLA and likewise Kai is liable to improve on further viewings.


Mentor & Master, One & the Same?

One thing you must admit, gotta hand it to ATLA for getting it right the *first* time around. They took the bloated, filler-infested format so common among shonen anime like DBZ and Naruto, and made a perfectly-paced, virtually fillerless series. They took everything great about the classics and genuinely improved upon it.

Oh there's no question that ATLA was standing on the shoulders of giants. Had Dragon Ball Z not existed, you can be almost certain Avatar: The Last Airbender would cease to exist as well. Not only did ATLA take abundant influence from Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z, but without the immense success of Z in America, it's highly unlikely a series like ATLA would ever have been greenlit by Nickelodeon in the first place.

But I've never been one to value history over results. I'm not going to put Robert Johnson over Led Zeppelin just because Johnson was a pivotal influence. I still think Zepp made much better music and making good material is the primary objective and highest virtue. To me, the victor gets the spoils.


The Final Stretch

But the road goes both ways, you see? If I'm not judging ATLA for standing on Z's shoulders, obviously I can't judge Kai for doing the same. So we end up right back where we started: with Kai and ATLA being dead even, kneck 'n kneck, both at the top of every game.

It wasn't until the final stretch, with both series at the ultimate peak of their powers, when Avatar: The Last Airbender pulled conclusively ahead. Kai culminates in the most astronomically gorgeous deathmatch in the history of histories, the badass duel between two gods on a dying planet. And as it progresses it gets better and better, with Kaio-sama's fucking brilliant scheme to resurrect the Namekians & teleport them from Namek, Freezer's desperate measures, his tragic defeat, and that heartbreaking... confounding call from help, from such a creature as he. It's really satisfying when the final moments of a series are also the best moments by far. Dragon Ball Kai is definitely, easily one of the best shows ever made.

But it is in its final season that Avatar: The Last Airbender pushes its already prodigious ingenuities into maximum overdrive. Its episodic sensibilities become more supreme than ever, with outstandingly deep side quests like The Beach and The Southern Raiders. And yet, at the same time, all these little threads they've been planting throughout the entire series, are now weaving together in an prescient web of clever fullfilment. Things that at the time seemed like filler, all become pertinent and meaningful.


Supreme Ruler

The few complaints that I had about ATLA after my first viewing, have since become some of my favorite moments of the entire show. A couple things that seemed a little thin at first, were expanded on in The Legend of Korra and now they make perfect sense, and are some of the coolest goddamn shit ever.

As jaw-droppingly magnificent as Dragon Ball Kai's fighting is, the dialogue can get pretty stale -- even in Kai we still have to hear people repeat some things over and over. ATLA may not be able to compete with Kai on fighting but for crafting likely the most flawless, perfect program of all-time, it is clearly the better series.

Its intricacy is immense, it's almost on level with Neon Genesis Evangelion, it's so succinctly assembled. And not only does it boast some good wisdom, it's bloody hilarious as well. Avatar: The Last Airbender may well be the greatest show of all-time. It may be better than Neon Genesis Evangelion, it may even be better than Seinfeld.

Next time I'll have to pit it against one of those.

The Coffee Den Legacy

Now that I have a large iPod, I've been adding my huge CD collection to my computer. And I've been finding a lot of cool stuff I haven't listened to since I was a teenager.

One of my favorites is a duo of playlists I put together collecting all the best of the local music from around town. A lot of these CDs were totally "whatever" to me back in the day, because these were songs that I heard every couple of weeks at the Coffee Den's open stage -- why do I need them on CD? But 7, 8 years later it means a lot to me that I can have these tracks and that I'll always have them, even when I'm 80.

Cold Coffee

1. Wary -- The Primatives
2. When You Dance (I Can Really Love) -- The Primatives
3. I Am A Child -- The Primatives
4. Bridge of Sighs -- Zharth
5. Simpleton in Complex -- Guitar Zack & No Slack
6. Heal Forever -- The Rhodora
7. Toast to Life and Love -- Ron Boone
8. Liquid -- Cathasaigh
9. Drinking Herself Away -- Cale Darnielle
10. The Dragon's Song -- The Primatives
11. Never Again -- The Primatives
12. The Ballad of One Time -- The Primatives


Warm Tea

1. The Messiah Will Come Again -- Zharth
2. Lonely -- Winston Cook-Wilson
3. Love, Blood & Grace -- Mark Gramm
4. Sorry -- The Primatives
5. Needle For My Child -- Ron Boone
6. War -- Baghead
7. Whisper -- A Vulcan Circus
8. It's Not Easy Being Nude -- Ron Boone
9. Born a Stranger -- Mark Muretisch
10. Born Again -- Cathasaigh
11. How Do You Feel? -- The Rhodora
12. Mental Health Alternatives -- Bert Moore
13. Here Come The Primitives -- The Primatives


Thanks to my influx of refurbished old music, I've been able to put together other unique playlists as well. For me, playlists are pivotal. They aren't just something I might listen to once and then toss away, playlists have replaced the album-oriented culture that I grew up with. I return to them again and again over many years, likely for the rest of my life. So I've put a lot of work into making these as good as possible.

Here's one I did as a collection of the best OST and Background music... well, as far as the action/adventure genre goes. I was considering doing a more far-reaching thing but a lot of the good anime songs aren't available on iTunes (like, say S.E. Lains' theme). But either way, I still would have made this collection as well. It flows really well together despite its disparate sources.

Porunga's Vox

1. Cha-La HEAD Cha-La (Full Version) [Dragon Ball Z Theme]
2. Prologue & Subtitle I [Dragon Ball Z]
3. To The City, Artifical Humans [Dragon Ball Z]
4. Hardboiled...Afraid (Separate Ways) [The Legend of Korra]
5. Mind Power -- Kageyama Hironobu & Satou Yuka [Dragon Ball Z insert song]
6. The Monster Freeza vs. Super Saiyan Son Goku [Dragon Ball Z]
7. Makafushigi Adventure (TV Edit) [Dragon Ball Theme]
8. Battle to the Death ("Atma Weapon") [Final Fantasy 6]
9. "Satan's Lament" [DOOM]
10. Terra [Final Fantasy 6]
11. Come Out, Incredible ZENKAI Power! (TV Edit) [Dragon Ball Z Ending]
12. Korra Confronts Tarrlok [The Legend of Korra]
13. Fresh Air [The Legend of Korra]
14. Prologue [The Legend of Korra]
15. Rock the Dragon [DBZ Ocean Dub Theme]


Here's one where I collected all my favorite melancholic, bittersweet ruminations.

Contemplation

1. Eet -- Regina Spektor
2. Caught in the Hustle -- Immortal Technique
3. Atlantic City -- Bruce Springsteen
4. The King of Carrot Flowers, Pt 1 -- Neutral Milk Hotel
5. Visions of Johanna -- Bob Dylan
6. No Surrender -- Bruce Springsteen
7. Parting Gift -- Fiona Apple
8. You Know You're Right -- Nirvana
9. When I Die -- GG Allin
10. Nobody Home -- Pink Floyd
11. Two-Headed Boy -- Neutral Milk Hotel
12. Signs of Age -- Jake Holmes
13. High Hopes -- Pink Floyd

DBKS4 The Assassination of the Gentle Cell by the Vicious Murderer Son Goku

Rest in Peace, noble hero.

I have to say, while Kai Season 3 (comprising everything from Freeza's death to Vegeta outmatching Semi-perfect Cell) left me deeply impressed and changed my whole perspective on the Android/Cell Saga... Kai's final season unfortunately left me less than satisfied.

After the Freezer Saga, Akira Toriyama was in a bit of a pinch. The manga was much too popular to end it there, but he had just finished the most epic battle imaginable. What can he do for the next saga? Another battle against an insurmountable enemy would only pale in comparison to Freezer.

So I have to hand it to Toriyama, he clearly saw a problem and hit it with everything he could, crafting for Dragonball a new arc that was completely unlike the Freezer & Saiyan arcs, a story full of twist after twist after twist. It makes for the most complex arc in DBZ by far. Right up to the end, the Cell Saga is full of exciting subversions.

But I have to wonder if, in subverting his own conventions, did he make it a tad more morally ambiguous than was the intention? Goku, up until this point in the series, had been a kind and noble man, who offered mercy to his enemies. But this time he decided to murder Cell without giving it even a second thought, and what's worse... Cell wasn't an enemy at all.

I'm sorry to go into such a tirade about it. This isn't A Song of Ice And Fire -- nobody gives a fuck about my Dragon Ball Z conspiracy theory. But suffice to say, I'm convinced that Perfect Cell is a good guy. Or, at the very least, he's the most mild villain the Z warriors have ever faced, and they decided right from the get go to summarily execute him.

When Piccolo ascends to Kami's Palace and insists to Kami that they must merge together to face the overwhelming power of the evil artificial humans, Kami's response is that there's no proof the artifical huamns are evil. "You guys picked a fight with them." he says. And he was right, although the artifical humans declared their intent to kill Son Goku, it was Vegeta who confronted them and demanded a duel. After defeating the Z Warriors, the artificial humans allowed them to take senzu beans, and had no intention of killing them at that particular moment.

Three out of the four androids we're dealing with here turned out to be decent blokes, by all accounts. Why then is the fourth, Cell, assumed to be irrevocably evil without so much as a Q&A? Moreover, what did Freeza and Vegeta do to deserve mercy, while Cell was given no such chance?

Cell showed the exact same mercy and lack of malice that the androids did -- in fact he showed more so. As soon as Cell becomes Perfect, he no longer values killing or destruction. He is the spawn of Goku, Piccolo, and Vegeta, what Cell wants is to fight a good fight. After witnessing Trunks and Vegeta multiply their powers by tenfold in just one day, Cell decides to give the Z Warriors 10 more days to prepare. He's basically begging them to defeat him. Even when he defeats Goku in the Cell Games, he tells Goku to eat a senzu bean so they can continue fighting. What exactly is so violent, evil, or menacing about that?

The Z Warriors picked the fight with Cell, just like they picked the fight with the Artificial Humans. All the fuck Cell did was put on a martial arts tournament! Why did the Z Warriors have to decide to kill him? Why didn't they try to reason with him? Even if Cell wasn't a 100% perfect angel, he was nowhere near as bad as Piccolo or Vegeta were before they turned good, let alone Freeza who Goku still offered mercy to.

Cell's one and only crime is that he absorbed all the people in a handful of rural towns. Freeza probably averaged that many kills per second, considering he was the mastermind of a universe-wide genocidal organization, and Vegeta killed half of Goku's friends, plus countless people on countless planets -- not to mention the Earthlings killed in the city the Saiyans destroyed probably equals all the rural townsfolk Cell absorbed considering the disparity between rural villages and cities. And the final cherry is, Imperfect Cell is the one who killed the villagers. It stands to reason that Perfect Cell, as a more evolved being and as a being who contains the genes of great heroes such as Son Goku, Piccolo, Gohan, and Tenshinhan, obviously it's possible his Perfect form may be less barbaric and more open to reason. But did anyone bother to test this likelihood? Absolutely not, they just decided to murder Cell. Perfect Cell never did anything wrong until he was backed into a corner and facing certain death at the hands of his aggressors. And as a matter of fact, it wasn't until he lost #18 that he made any move against the Earth. In other words, Perfect Cell again is not the culprit.

Perfect Cell may have announced his plan to destroy the Earth if no one beat him in the Cell Games, but it was clearly an empty boast. Cell's intention was to stage an epic martial arts tournament and the only way to do that was to inspire fear. But even in inspiring fear, his attempts were feeble, lazy, and unambiguously facetious. Meanwhile, Artificial Human #16 clearly intended to kill Son Goku and was still entertaining notions of doing so even during the Cell Games -- he says as much right to Goku's face. Who is the real villain here, the guy who just wants a good fight and puts on a fucking martial arts tournament, or the soulless robot who wants to kill Goku? The bitter, cruel irony of it is that #16's death is what turns Gohan SSJ2, when Cell may well have saved Goku's life by killing #16. What if Cell is murdered and #16 remains alive? #16 has no other mission in life but to kill Goku.

And if you're fool enough to believe Cell really would have destroyed the Earth, why was he so visibly scared when Goku aimed his full-power Kamehameha at the Earth? Cell was more worried than anyone else, that the Eart would be destroyed. Cell is not an alien from beyond the stars. He has not destroyed planets. The Earth is his home, and his only mission in life is to have a good battle with a worthy opponent. He would never kill the Z Warriors, if he did his life would become meaningless. He needs them to survive for the same reason Goku spared Vegeta's life. Cell never enjoyed destruction the way that the evil #17 & #18 from Trunks's future did. What Cell gets pleasure from his from fighting with a WORTHY opponent. How is that nobody realized this? Goku literally begs Gohan to kill Cell as soon as Gohan has the upper hand. What happened to the Goku we know and love?

Cell was virtually begging for the Z Warriors to convince him to join the team. He demonstrated his mild intentions time and time again. He was a powerful foe who, like Vegeta and Piccolo before him, could easily have been turned into an even more powerful ally.

The obviousness of Cell's lack of malice is almost obnoxiously overwhelming. The ridiculousness of Goku's bloodlust towards Cell is so extreme that it makes me think less of Dragon Ball/Z/Kai. Mind you, Kai is still one of the greatest fucking shows ever made (probably top 5 all-time), but it's not as good as it should have been. If Toriyama wanted Cell to be evil, he should have made Cell evil, it's as simple as that.

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But other than that, the Cell Games Arc was a fun watch, and Kai represents an enormous improvement over Z, as always. The fighting, as always, was top-notch. Goku vs. Cell was a true joy to witness, without all of Z's original filler. And there was one scene I had forgotten, which was the best scene in Kai's whole latter half: when Piccolo stays behind to offer Vegeta a hand after Cell's death. Now... Piccolo has held a grudge against Vegeta this whole time, and understandably so: Piccolo died fighting Vegeta during his original visit. But Piccolo is also in a unique position to understand Vegeta. Piccolo WAS Vegeta. Piccolo fought to take over Earth, Piccolo lived to kill Goku, and Piccolo came around to the good side because he was shown the kindness of friendship. In offering his hand to Vegeta, Piccolo is offering Vegeta this same gift of friendship. It's devastatingly beautiful, and even if Cell was viciously murdered, I'm glad that at least some personal growth could come from it.

I'm also eagerly awaiting the Buu Saga. As long as they keep using Z's original music and they don't leave too much filler in, I'm sure seasons 5 & 6 will be better than season 4.

Dragon Ball Kai Season 3 -- Rethinking the Android Saga

I can't say I enjoyed Season 3 of Dragon Ball Kai (comprising the Android & Imperfect Cell arcs) half as much as I did Seasons 1 and 2, but that was never going to happen, it would have been impossible. Even so, Dragon Ball Kai has continued to roundly knock my socks off and in one fell swoop I've come to appreciate the Cell Saga in ways I never have before. I scoffed at it for a good while, but now I can proudly say that the Cell Saga is an incredible piece of work and every bit as worthy of being a part of Dragon Ball Kai as the Saiyan and Namek arcs are. It'll never be half as good as the first two seasons for me personally, but I finally understand why so many people... probably even the majority of people, consider this the best part of DBZ.

See, it occurred to me how much of my distaste for the Android-related arcs is more personal than perceptive.

By the time I got to this part of Z originally, I was a moody & depressed tween, unable to give myself fully to the show. Plus it was no longer something being shared with my brothers, so watching it was less fun and had less meaning. I also held a grudge against the Cell Saga because it begins with an utter emasculation of the Freezer Fight: reducing both Freezer, and Goku's transformation into the Super Saiyan, into hum-drum, garden variety fodder. This still pisses me off and it's still my least favorite part of DBZ and DBK.

But the biggest thing that kept me from enjoying this material the first time I saw it, is the fact that everything had been spoiled for me already. And looking at the Android arcs objectively today, I can see how.... butt-fucking unbelievable this storyline is. Are you kidding me? These plot twists are out of this world. I can't believe a show as generally straight forward as DBZ was able to pull off this many sleight of hands consecutively, I feel like I'm looking into my scouter and saying "It's a malfunction!" Hell, the number of times they spoiled the "hey kids, don't forget about the Super Saiyan thing! That's gonna become important later on" EVEN in Kai, I really wouldn't have thought DBZ/Kai could have done this but they really did.

First you have Freezer come to Earth, pretty straight forward story arc there. Now we'll repeat the pattern we see so often: everybody has to keep the enemy at bay while we wait for Goku to arrive. Nope! Somebody new is here to kill Freezer in an instant! Then he sets up a new arc: two impossibly strong androids are coming in 3 years. So everything goes according to plan, they train and the two androids aren't tough to beat. But, wait! Trunks comes back and those weren't the right androids. The real androids are way too strong to beat, but they're not pure evil... so what's going on here? How will this be resolved? Well, something ELSE has come back from the future and it's a freaking monster! Aaah! So here, finally, is the primary antagonist. But wait, Vegeta has him vastly outclassed, surely he will destroy him! Well, I wish he would have, but he doesn't.... yet another twist! While it doesn't form as good of an arc overall (the perfection of the Freezer Saga can't be beat), I'd have to say that strictly in terms of complexity this is the best-written portion of Kai by far. It's also great to see Piccolo be the strongest person on Earth again, even if only briefly, and the artificial humans are pretty cool characters.

Other things that annoyed me as a kid also make more sense as an adult. For one thing, Bulma & Vegeta's relationship makes a lot more sense. You see Bulma contemplate on Namek about how she really missed the boat not going for Goku when she had the chance, and choosing the perennial loser Yamucha instead. It only makes sense that Bulma would immediately jump on the only other Saiyan around, and the second most powerful person in the universe (at the time). I also used to decry the Cell Saga for having such a low body count -- I mean Future Trunks deserved to die (Freezer's Revenge), and #16 was a machine, basically a talking toaster. Freezer and Vegeta killed much more impressive people than that. But then I realized, since they unfortunately felt the need to remove the caveat in the dragon balls that meant you can only come back to life once, death has lost all meaning anyway. So why bog Cell down with a meaningless body count? It's just plain not necessary.

My only real complaint, here were some continuity issues that perturbed me. Generally I'm not quite such a nit-picking fanboy, but part of Dragon Ball Kai's purpose was to remove the glaring plotholes and give DBZ a flawless storyline. Dragon Ball Kai is indeed so close to being flawless that the few issues which do arrive, just seem so unfortunate.

Happily, a lot of the issues I had as a kid turned out to just be teen angst. Like, I used to think introducing the Room of Spirit and Time was dumb, 'cause why hadn't they used it before? Well, they couldn't have used it before, Goku and Kami were the only ones who knew about it. In fact, it *explains* the rather odd lack of training that Kami gave the Z warriors back in season 1. He probably brought them up there to see if they would be able to handle the Room of Spirit and Time, but none of them made the cut.

However still, there were a small few continuity issues that Kai probably could have resolved but didn't. The biggest, most jarring one is how Yamucha was wished back to life and was transported right to where everyone was, at Bulma's estate. Rather inconvenient how when it doesn't have any ramifications, people can just be transported anywhere. But Yamucha was at Kaio-sama's dwelling. Remember when Goku had to travel Snake Way, then be brought back by Kami to Kami's palace, and then travel to where the Saiyans were? Same dragon, same wish, what allowed Yamucha to be transported back and not Goku? Is Shen Long sadistic?

But those are minor things compared to the immensity of Kai's greatness. Silly me, I made the mistake of thinking I wouldn't want to watch the last season. I mean sure, the Cell Games isn't my favorite but how could I stop right in the middle of the storyline like this? Alas, I'll have to wait another week to watch the fourth season.

But now's a good a time as any to put a cap on my Kai review. I have to say, it's amazing... I came in this thing lamenting the fact that DBZ had aged incredibly poorly while pretty much everything else I watched as a kid had gotten 10x better. But Dragon Ball Kai really achieved what it set out to do, it brought Dragon Ball Z to its proper greatness. It's not just a good show, it's done me a huge favor in giving me back the Dragon Ball Z that DBZ deserves to be, and I can restore it to my pantheon.

Z vs. Kai -- In the Numbers

I wanted to see exactly how everything breaks down, so I counted the actual numbers per story arc for both Dragon Ball Z and Dragon Ball Kai.

__The Saiyan Saga__

Z total: 36 episodes (1 - 36)
Kai total: 17 episodes (1 - 17)

- The Fight Against Nappa & Vegeta, in Z: 15 episodes (22 - 36)
- The Fight Against Nappa & Vegeta, in Kai: 9 episodes (9 - 17)

__The Namek Arc__

Z total: 24 episodes (37 - 60)
Kai total: 10 episodes (18 - 27)

-- Space Adventures, in Z: 7 (37 - 43)
-- Space Adventures, in Kai: 1 episode (18)

__Ginyu Arc__

Z total: 16 episodes (61 - 76)
Kai total: 9 episodes (28 - 36)

__The Freezer Fight__

Z total: 31 episodes (77 - 107)
Kai total: 18 episodes (37 - 54)

- Holding Freeza at Bay, in Z: 10 episodes (77 - 86)
- Holding Freeza at Bay, in Kai: 6 episodes (37 - 42)

-- Freeza vs. Goku, in Z: 19 episodes (87 - 105)
-- Freeza vs. Goku, in Kai: 11 episodes (43 - 53)

--- Total Namek Saga, in Z: 72 episodes (37 - 108)
--- Total Namek Saga, in Kai: 36 episodes (18 - 55)

__Garlic Jr. Arc__

In Z: 10 episodes (108 - 117)
In Kai: 0 episodes

__Cell Saga__

Z total: 77 episodes (118 - 194)
Kai total: 44 episodes (55 - 98)

-- Android Arc, in Z: 22 episodes (118 - 139)
-- Android Arc, in Kai: 13 episodes (55 - 67)

--- Conflict with Cell, in Z: 55 episodes (140 - 194)
--- Conflict with Cell, in Kai: 31 episodes (68 - 98)

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As you can see, there really is a massive amount of filler being removed here, and yet you're losing very little of substance. A few arguably worthwhile subplots have been done away with, but the vast, overwhelming majority of cuts are to moments of pure fluff that I can't imagine much of anyone lamenting the loss of. A lot of continuity issues are resolved as well.

I'm a little wary looking at the numbers for the Cell Saga, though. They cut the Saiyan Saga by 53% and the Namek Saga by exactly half, but they only cut the Cell Saga down by 43% if I did the math right (which I almost certainly did not). If anything, I would want them to cut the Cell Saga down more than the Namek and Saiyan Sagas. 

But, I guess it's possible the first two sagas had more filler, I don't know off hand and it'd be near-impossible to calculate it exactly (because it's not just about filler episodes, but about stalling & etc. within each episode). In any case, Kai has impressed me so much thus far, I'm sure they'll impress me again with the Cell Saga. And worse case scenario... who cares if they didn't cut enough from the Cell Saga? They did impeccable work on the best part of Z and that's all they needed to do in the first place.

Dragon Ball Kai: The Freezer Arc(s)

Earlier I mentioned how DBZ doesn't measure up to Avatar: The Last Airbender. Well I would not hesitate to put Dragon Ball Kai right up there next to ATLA. Kai may not have the philosophical strengths of ATLA, but at long last it has a solid story, and it boasts the most supreme fighting you'll ever find. For years I've struggled over where to place DBZ, but I don't need to struggle anymore because Kai is as good as Z was supposed to be -- y'know, in my head, as the kid who worshipped the show on principle. That illusion of how good Dragon Ball Z was supposed to be, is how good Dragon Ball Kai actually is.

Dragon Ball Kai continues to earn my unmitigated esteem as I powerhouse through the series. While I consider the Saiyan arc to be the best part of Z and by extension Kai, because it is the best-written portion of the story, I find myself giddily enjoying the Namek and Freezer arcs (Z seasons 2 and 3, Kai episodes 17-52.) even more than what preceded it.

While there were one or two small things cut out of the Saiyan arc that I felt they could have included, there wasn't really a single removal which popped out at me as something with any reason at all to be kept in Kai's version of the Namek/Freezer arcs. They even included two of my favorite scenes which I expected not to see: scenes which don't further the plot much but which show Goku's emotional fatigue against the impenetrable power of Freezer. In the first, Goku imagines Freezer killing Chichi and destroying Earth. In the second, he hallucinates Vegeta's voice only to then realize that Vegeta is dead. Two beautiful, powerful little scenes that they had the good sense to keep, while cutting 6 idiotic episodes of space travel (how the fuck did the aliens know what Namek was going to look like anyway??), Goku fighting a star, countless scenes of Bulma putzing around on Namek for no good reason (get a job!), AND MOST IMPORTANTLY OF ALL: 10,000 minutes of people standing around staring at each other or powering up.

The battle against Freezer is quite probably the single most spectacular achievement in the history of action TV fights: a truly non-stop uphill fight against ultimate power that surely must outlast any other continuous battle on TV. Unfortunately, the endless stalling and filler in Z makes the fight drag on to the point when you wish it would just end already. I sincerely found myself forgetting that DBZ really had much fighting in it at all!

But with the stalling, replays, and filler removed, the Freezer fight becomes fucking exhilarating, truly bombastic. Goku fights Freezer for 5 straight episodes before going SSJ, and that means... five straight episodes of pure non-stop action! It was unfathomable! I wouldn't have thought something like this was possible.

The only part in Kai I didn't quite go gaga over was that one little segment, originally episode 94 of Dragon Ball Z. Why? because that's the part where Anime Labs and/or "Random Comicon Retailer #124" decided to start their Freezer Saga. Nobody on Earth will ever know why they started their Freezer Saga 92% of the way into Freezer's actual arc, 1 and 2/3rds of a season past when Freezer first appears and with 90% of the battle against Freezer already accomplished. But they did, and it was glorious, and I'll go to my grave with that episode as one of my fondest, most impenetrable, and by far most astoundingly impressive childhood memories. Burned spectacularly onto my retina, it was the most exotic thing I had ever seen, and I've probably watched it more than anything else in my entire life. So I know each frame pretty much by heart, and no matter what Kai was going to do with it, I was never going to be okay with any changes.

But other than that, to describe Dragon Ball Kai as glorious doesn't do it justice. As much as I dislike the rest of Z after Goku kills Freezer on Namek (don't even get me started! In my world Mecha Freezer, Trunks, and good-guy Vegeta will never exist!!) I'm definitely going to watch the Android & Cell sagas now... in fact, I'd be half way through them already if this damned snow storm didn't delay my package! And The Buu saga is also being done in Kai. The show was cancelled in Japan but it is being made for foreign markets, so that'll be good. I dislike Buu even more than Cell but I'll watch that saga too. You know why? 'Cause Kai is fucking amazing.

Dragon Ball Z -- "Rock The Dragon Edition"

It was a waste of money, I admit it; a DVD set that I'll watch five or six episodes from and then never touch again. But a burning curiosity consumed me and I just had to have it. Besides, I want this set for posterity. It is, after all, the only good DBZ dub. And what's more, I don't mind owning a million different versions of DBZ... I'm kind of proud. DBZ may not be as good as Evangelion or ATLA, but it will always be the best show of all-time. Not exclusively for what it is, but also for what it was, and what it will always represent.

I tried to deny it for over a decade; tried to rewrite my childhood in accordance with the superior version of events. But deep down there was some sort of muscle memory that simply wouldn't be fooled. And when I saw Dragon Ball Kai making some of the same decisions (admittedly only a handful), that Pioneer had with their version of DBZ fifteen years earlier, I just couldn't play dumb anymore. This Pioneer version, this ocean dub that aired on Toonami and boasts the "Rock The Dragon" opening theme, this is the Dragon Ball Z I grew up with.

My brothers and I tended to fight some, as most brothers do. But this DBZ thing, that my eldest brother had procured, and had seen fit to introduce us to like the gift of the magi, this was undoubtedly -- certainly not the only, but undoubtedly the last moment of true unity between all three of us as kids. After this, I would become depressed and withdrawn, and my eldest brother, in his latter teens by then, would busy himself with the typical trials of teenagedom: friends and mischief and so forth.

But we were left with this one spectacular moment of complete oneness between us, where we three were in perfect agreement: this is the greatest fucking thing we'd ever seen. I'll always remember that intense anticipation as we'd turn off all the lights in preparation for a new DBZ vhs. I'll always remember, watching an episode of Gohan's training in our eldest's room, when our middle (my elder) brother was standing by the door. "Come in, sit down, watch Dragon Ball Z" the eldest said. And we became three. There was just something autonomous about DBZ, something exquisite, amazing, unlike anything any of us had seen.

And yet I've completely ignored this show for probably 14 years, so you can imagine how curious I was to check it out today. Well... it's not *quite* as amazing as I hoped it would be, but it *is* quite amazing.

It's crap compared to the real Z, but all the production qualities of the show are excellent: voice, music, dialogue. It's a well-crafted piece of work. Plus the editing isn't as bad as common lore & legend would tell you. It's often said that all references to death have been removed in favor of "the next dimension," but that's an enormous exaggeration. The words "kill," "die," and "death" are used probably 15 times in those first 4 episodes. And I don't mind that they edited it for time, that's what Kai did and both shows are made better by it.

You can criticize them for the heavy editing, but you have to understand: this was a different era entirely. The idea of preserving the original wasn't a concept back then, look at the version of Sailor Moon that almost made it onto US airwaves! And that's only one of countless examples.

And the interesting thing is, this is actually why the Ocean dub is so excellent. It's not the over-dramatic, slapstick style of FUNimation's dub, and it's not the over-contemplative, spaced-out stoned dub that "serious" anime are unfortunately given. The Saban/Ocean version of Dragon Ball Z is an American cartoon, and it's a fucking great American cartoon in the tradition of shows like X-Men: The Animated Series or Aeon Flux. A show that takes itself seriously. The voice cast is composed of legitimate North American voice actors who know how to voice a character without sounding bush league or constipated (feel free to compare for yourself, here are two vids which compare the ocean dub with FUNi's original dub and Kai's dubs.) and the beautiful, atmospheric, somber soundtrack is by Shuki Levy, venerable composer for the likes of Power Rangers and Inspector Gadget (you probably haven't watched Inspector Gadget in 15 years, but I bet you can instantly recall the incredibly iconic theme, this guy is a great composer.)

It's almost sad, you know? The Ocean dub version of Dragon Ball Z is a great fuckin' show, but because it's astronomically inferior to the Japanese version of Dragon Ball Z, the Ocean version is essentially worthless. But if it had been its own show, if it had been an early work by Michael DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko or something, this could definitely be one of my favorite shows. I once had a dream where I found old VHS tapes (impossibly, from the 80s, before DBZ was a TV show), of a Dino Riders-esque pre-Ocean U.S. show based on DBZ, where the animation from DBZ had been used to create an entirely new show. It was set in space, Freezer was the antagonist and Vegeta (or what LOOKED like Vegeta) was this morally ambiguous space pirate protagonist. I kind of wish they had actually done something like that, because then I'd have two great shows to watch instead of just one.

But, whatever. It was a fun trip down memory lane. And now, I'll probably never in my life rewatch the Ocean Dub. But I do have a craving to rewatch Dragon Ball Kai immediately, even though I've just finished it.