DRAGONBALL Z KAI

Dragon Ball Z Kai, known in Japan as Dragon Ball Kai (ドラゴンボール改「カイ」, Doragon Boru Kai; lit. "Dragon Ball Revised"), is an anime series that is a high-definition remaster and recut of Dragon Ball Z, done for its 20th Anniversary. It premiered on Fuji TV on April 5, 2009 at 9:00am just before One Piece and ended on August 25, 2011 with 98 episodes, and the two shows are being marketed together as 'Dream 9', which refers to the hour in which they both air. Two issues of Shonen JUMP have included some primary information about the series.^[1]

Overview

The "Kai"　(改「かい」) in the series' name means "updated," "modified," or "altered."^[2] Interestingly, despite the series being only a director's cut of Dragon Ball Z, the Z has been completely removed from the title (at least in the Japanese version).

Series information

The series is being extensively "refreshed" for Japanese television. This is not a new animation, but rather a remastered edit that runs through certain events of Dragon Ball Z. Part of this is reformatting and extending the picture to 16:9 Widescreen. Through digital processing, the image is made vibrant. All the grime, damage and noise remaining on the Dragon Ball Z film is removed, making the image much clearer in high-definition.
A comparison with the original video side-by-side shows considerable cropping to achieve the 16:9 aspect ratio. However, it seems carefully done to avoid missing anything important. The original image is not stretched, just cut where it would be more appropriate, being a "tilt and scan" or "reverse pan and scan" of the original Dragon Ball Z footage.