You also must not have heard much of it if you think there are no intense tracks, and that it sounds monotonous.
That link is exactly what I'm talking about. In no way was that track intense, there's no tension building in that song, it again sounds similar to every other track in the Japanese score (hence repetitive) and reminds me of the kind of music I'd likely to hear in an old Bruce Lee movie and not a DBZ movie released in the 90's.
Here's an example, in Vegeta's Final Flash scene, the Japanese version uses a dynamic, building ominous piece:
There was hardly any music there and what there was again sounded similar and again sucked all of the energy, tension and excitement out of the scene and made the 4 minutes were he was just charging up an attack seem pretty boring.
On the other hand, the FUNimation dub version uses the "Dragon Theme" (which is very repetitive, with the same notes constantly repeating throughout the entire track), and what does that scene have to do with Shen Long anyway?
It doesn't have to have anything to do with the Dragon. It built up the tension perfectly with what was happening on screen. Thus is something the Japanese version failed to do altogether.
Also when I say they're repetitive I'm not talking about the tracks themselves repeating but all the tracks sounding the same. The Kikuchi score all sounded very much the same, it had that same generic "dun dun dun" tune for damn near all it's "intense" and fight music.
Changing the score is the best decision they made when bringing it to the west. They've even changed it for Japan itself now, both Kai and Kai 2 would rather use original music than the Kikuchi music and I don't blame them.
The Yamamoto score was good. Kikuchis score was fine for the original Dragon Ball when it was older, looked older and was more of a mystical adventure fantasy series. It was a horrible fit for Dragon Ball Z though.
