Following up on previous “Dragon Ball Movie Frontline” interviews, the Dragon Ball Official Site shared a new interview with Dragon Ball Super: Broly composer Norihito Sumitomo back in October.

In the interview, Sumitomo discusses his initial work with the Dragon Ball franchise, separating that from what came before, and working through the score to the new film (selections below; read the full interview translation):

Dragon Ball Z‘s composer Shunsuke Kikuchi expertly utilized brass instruments, creating a unique world that could be classified as neither classical nor pop. My mental image of Dragon Ball‘s music was equivalent to what Kikuchi had created in the past, so first I needed to cast that image aside.

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Once other aspects of the movie are completed, I start composing from track M1 and go in order straight through to the end. In this movie, Broli appears almost right from the outset, and he changes quite a bit as the story progresses. Those changes are reflected in the music. If you think of there being a single motif that evolves throughout the score, then it wouldn’t turn out right if you started the composing process from the climax scene. If the pieces are evolving throughout, then they have to be composed chronologically with the progression of the story in mind, or else they could wind up feeling discordant.

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It’s not even an exaggeration to say that the second half of the movie is entirely battle music, so I had another challenge in figuring out how to differentiate the tracks. If they’re too similar viewers will get tired of them, but on the other hand if they’re all different the score would lack a sense of cohesion. Moreover, if there had to be increasingly fierce battle music from the middle of the movie onward, then the second half would feel like it’s going nonstop full throttle (laughs).

This interview has been archived in our “Translations” section. This particular entry comes courtesy of our new translation contributor, so be sure to give Stacey your thanks!