What's that BGM in the Japanese version? Read the OP!

[kenisu3000]

Has there ever been a time when you're watching DragonBall in its native Japanese and a really awesome musical cue will catch your attention, and you're left wondering "Gee whiz, I wonder if that one's on CD, and which CD it's on?" Of course there has! That's why fans of Shunsuke Kikuchi, Akihito Tokunaga, and... um... Kenji Yamamoto will be especially interested in this site:

The Suburbs of kenisu's Magicant
(background music documentation for several different series, including DragonBall/Z/GT/Yamamoto-Kai)

I thought by now most of the community would be aware of this thing, but we're still getting plenty of people in the dark about this, so it seems to me this is still the DragonBall community's best-kept secret.

It shouldn't be a secret. I created this documentation not only to satisfy my own and other fans' curiosity, but also to raise more awareness of the very real problem (even if it is a first-world problem) of background music, well, staying in the background, and not getting the attention it deserves. And because it doesn't get that attention, we don't get ample CD releases - which means a LOT of really, really good stuff stays rotting in some forgotten vault somewhere, instead of on crisp, shiny compact discs in the homes of those who appreciate it.

So, I requested this topic to be stickied here in the music forum. Actually, this is an idea I've been entertaining for a few years now, but I always wanted to have the whole thing completely finished and polished up before making a big show of it. Well, time has gone mercilessly on, and other non-DragonBall-related projects have been consuming me for quite a while now, and that final draft I promised so long ago is still quite a ways away. So I figure now is as good a time as any to "make a big show" of it - especially since I've been getting visitors from all around the world for years anyway.

[VegettoEX]

Agreed entirely. Done!

[MCDaveG]

Way to go Kenisu, I'm fan of your work for years now as I love the BGM music a lot
Keep up the awesome work!

[linkdude20002001]

One day I'm sure you'll have the motivation and time to finally complete it. ^.^

[DBZGTKOSDH]

This is awesome, thanks!

[Super 17]

Good stuff Kenisu. Thanks to your documentation, I know what pieces are used exactly in each sagas. I started re-watching all of the series and every time I finish an episode, I look at your documentation and see what pieces were used and what pieces might be new. Thanks a lot. I will always admire you for that! (:

[SSj_Rambo]

Your guide has been a great resource for myself and I know it will continue to be. Thanks again man, and I look forward to where this takes you in the future!

[TheMightyOzaru]

What's the name of the song that plays in the Red Ribbon Base stage in the Budokai HD collection?

[Blade]

Thanks for this!

Is there anything similar for Falconer's score to Z out there?

[kenisu3000]

What's the name of the song that plays in the Red Ribbon Base stage in the Budokai HD collection?

Er... um... rats. I guess I should have clarified in the subject, this documentation is for the anime only. I'm afraid I'm very unfamiliar with the soundtracks to most of the video games (as I've only played a few of them).

Is there anything similar for Falconer's score to Z out there?

If there is, I wouldn't know. At any rate, the Faulconer Productions score would be incredibly difficult to document. Not only are there usually no breaks in the music during any given episode (making it insane to try and figure out where one cue ends and the next begins), but if the CDs are any indicator, there are also parts that mix in other compositions, in numerous different ways.

Suddenly I feel like a big failure

[Gonstead]

You could always try contacting Scott Morgan (cRookie_monster) as he's probably the most familiar with the score on this site (Since he worked on the score with Mike Smith, Bruce Faulconer and Julius Dobos).

[kenisu3000]

You could always try contacting Scott Morgan (cRookie_monster) as he's probably the most familiar with the score on this site (Since he worked on the score with Mike Smith, Bruce Faulconer and Julius Dobos).

Oh, I know. I follow the threads here, even if I don't post as often as I used to. The thing is, a Faulconer Productions documentation would have to be somebody else's job, not mine. I don't think that particular score is half as bad as some make it out to be, but I'd have to REALLY like it to be able to stick to a project that would span from the Captain Ginyu episodes clear to the end of Z, and then some other scattered stuff.

[Kojiro Sasaki]

This site is the greatest fan-created work about DB of all time! Thanks to your tremendous amount of work, we can easily identify every single piece we want - there is no such a thing in the entire internet.
I have one question regarding "DB/Z BGM Breakdown":
Why some of the pieces from Dragon Ball TV series [d2:5(b), d2:6(c), d2:10(d), d2:11(b), d2:12(b)] are tagged as "???"? There was no information about them in booklet ?

[kenisu3000]

Why some of the pieces from Dragon Ball TV series [d2:5(b), d2:6(c), d2:10(d), d2:11(b), d2:12(b)] are tagged as "???"? There was no information about them in booklet ?

In some cases, Toei actually lost track of the M-numbers for a handful of cues, and it says so in the booklet (I'm not sure how they were lost; were most of them written on the reel labels with a magic marker, and the lost numbers written with pencil that's since faded? Or did the labels peel off or something?).

In other cases, that first document you see on that page was what I jotted down before I even watched the original DragonBall, so at the time there were moments where I wasn't sure where one cue would end and the next would begin. Remember, tracks 2-13 on Daizenshuu Disc 2 were brought over from an older LP that had the cues overlapping (I *HATE* that practice!), instead of throwing in one second of breathing room between each cue.

[Kojiro Sasaki]

In some cases, Toei actually lost track of the M-numbers for a handful of cues, and it says so in the booklet (I'm not sure how they were lost; were most of them written on the reel labels with a magic marker, and the lost numbers written with pencil that's since faded? Or did the labels peel off or something?).

In other cases, that first document you see on that page was what I jotted down before I even watched the original DragonBall, so at the time there were moments where I wasn't sure where one cue would end and the next would begin. Remember, tracks 2-13 on Daizenshuu Disc 2 were brought over from an older LP that had the cues overlapping (I *HATE* that practice!), instead of throwing in one second of breathing room between each cue.

They destroyed all episodes documentation ? Identifying tracks by episodes documentation seems harder - maybe they were to lazy to do it (as Columbia was to lazy to create new stereo masters for all tracks).
Tracks 2-13 from "Great far from Complete Collection" (they are nothing else than 1986 LP release) are the only not-splitted pieces which I have

[Insertclevername]

The link is down.

[kenisu3000]

The link is down.

Yeah, I exceeded my bandwidth for the month of March. It'll be back up once Webs realizes it's April.

[IAmTheMilkMan]

I've been utilizing your wonderful website a lot lately and I'm glad I have the opportunity to thank you for it. It's been very useful, so thank you very much for your hard work.

[B]

Prepare for a possibly dumb question, but what exactly are "5-disc set" and "BGM Collection" supposed to denote? I figured they were there for "disc" and "track", so when something is noted as "d4:22(d)", that means disc 4, track 22, but looking through Kanzenshuu's Music Guide, that is increasingly not the case.

Just for reference, I'm looking through Movie 12's score. About half of it has "M-numbers" and codes for "5-disc set" and "BGM Collection". These are completely foreign to me.

[kenisu3000]

Prepare for a possibly dumb question, but what exactly are "5-disc set" and "BGM Collection" supposed to denote? I figured they were there for "disc" and "track", so when something is noted as "d4:22(d)", that means disc 4, track 22, but looking through Kanzenshuu's Music Guide, that is increasingly not the case.

Just for reference, I'm looking through Movie 12's score. About half of it has "M-numbers" and codes for "5-disc set" and "BGM Collection". These are completely foreign to me.

Hmm. I'm not 100% sure what you're asking, so forgive me if I misunderstand your question. Anyway, if there's a column for the 5-disc set, that means at least one of the cues used in that movie/episode can be found on that set, otherwise known as the Dragon Ball & Dragon Ball Z: Daizenshuu CD box, the second release listed on this page.

d4:22(d) stands for "Daizenshuu set, Disc 4, Track 22, Cue no. 4". A lot of DragonBall BGM releases have their cues compiled into suites instead of giving each one its own separate track, so I use alphabet letters to denote which part of the track the cue can be found in (a = 1st cue, b = 2nd cue, and so forth).

The BGM Collection is known in full as the DragonBall Z BGM Collection, and it's listed a little past halfway down on the same page I linked to above.

M-numbers are production codes that composers use to keep track of their work for a specific film or series. (They're known in the West as slate numbers.)

Hope I helped!