Thought it would be fun to make a thread like this, as I know by now plenty of you were exposed to Kai through these channels, and the Nicktoons broadcasts get discussed a lot, but the CW/4Kids stuff less so.
The story of the other edited US broadcast of Kai brings us all the way back to the beginning of Kai's US debut.
Shortly before Kai's official May 24, 2010 launch on Nicktoons, Funimation announced the show was also to be shown later that year on theCW4Kids new programming block and sneak peaks would be shown during the summer.
The deal was made between 4Kids Entertainment, Funimation and TOEI with 4Kids chairman hoping for it to be a "mainstay" with 4Kids making it available to stream on their websites as well as a VOD platform named Toonzaki on September 15th. For an unexplained reason episode descriptions on Toonzai's website at the time mentioned deaths despite them being censored in the episode.
Kai premiered on Toonzai at 10am on August 14, 2010, alongside other shows like Yu-Gi-Oh! 5Ds and Sonic X.
While the Toonzaki streaming platform was active they told fans anyone that didn't recognize Mr Popo's design as being "racially insensitive" in the US, but they have since deleted it and any references to Kai on their Facebook. Ironically enough, rather than Kai Toonzaki streamed Dragon Ball Z on January 16, 2011 with an uncensored Mr Popo intact and Canadian streaming blocked.
To wrap up their first season of Kai and other shows, including classic Yu-Gi-Oh! and Magi-Nation Toonzai held an "encore season" starting September 17, 2011 where fans could tune in and find out how to win a prize package, which included a 3D TV, PlayStation 3 and touch tablet. Kai's normal 10am timeslot was extended to a double bill.
Toonzai began to air episodes of Kai with the Shunsuke Kikuchi replacement score before Nicktoons, coinciding with TOEI acknowledging the scandal on March 27, 2011.
To hype up the Goku vs Freeza fight Toonzai held a Brawl-A-Thon on August 11, 2012 where they aired 8 episodes from 8am-12pm.
One really neat thing Toonzai also did was air close-ups of characters narrated by the one and only Seto Kaiba Eric Stuart.
Following the splitting of 4Kids' assets between Saban's Kidsco Media Ventures LLC and Konami's 4K Acquisition Corp, which took place in the June 2012 bankruptcy court Saban acquired the previous Toonzai programming block and for the new Vortexx block, which premiered on August 25th Kai aired at a slightly later time of 10:30am. At the time there were many jokes about how Saban can't count past 53 because reportedly they only had the rights to the first 52 episodes.
Nonetheless Toonzai featured the CW's premier of the Saiyan and Freeza arcs, but
Vortexx did air the Cell arc. Toonzai's run concluded on August 11, 2012 and Kai on Vortexx ran from August 25, 2012 to September 27, 2014. Between premiers and reruns Toonzai and Vortexx aired 213 and 122 episodes respectively.
The CW/4Kids seasons were as follows:
- Season 1 : Episodes 1-26
- Season 2 : Episodes 27-52
- Season 3 : Episodes 53-78
- Season 4 : Episodes 79-97
While Kai left Nicktoons in April 2013 Kai was still being shown on the rebranded Vortexx block as of 2014, although it left the channel when Vortexx closed on September 27th.
The Toonzai/Vortexx edit of Kai was similar to the Ocean/Nicktoons version with some additions:
- Shenron removed from the OP in some episodes as a request by an advertising client (for example one of the sponsors buying ad time) not the Standards And Practices division
- Turning Mr Popo blue
- Changing halos to glowing spheres
- Drawing line over Gohan's swollen face
- Adding sparkles to Chiaotzu's explosion
- Replacing questionable lines of dialogue with soundalike voices