What does Japan think of the old Team Faulconer soundtrack?

[OkamiTakahashi]

I keep wondering this lately. Have any fans in Japan been exposed to the old US soundtrack by Team Faulconer (Mike Smith, Scott Morgan, Julien Dobos??? I can't quite recall the last name correctly)? I mean, you can easily find them through the Internet. I'm sure they're used to their own dubs and soundtracks and I admit, I like both theirs and what I grew up with, but I'm curious as to what they think of it.

I'm not Japanese myself of course, but I still enjoy that soundtrack. It sounds, for lack of a more original word, epic. It's nostalgic, and catchy. Granted there's repetitiveness in the songs but that's somehow or other part of what makes them charming to me. Somehow, to me, tracks like that (i.e. Hell's Bells, SSJ3 Power Up, Perfect Cell and Super Buu's themes), it symbolizes the characters' immense power. I dunno, I'm no good with words.

[Valerius Dover]

I'd be curious to know what a native Jalanese fan's reaction would be, too. That being said, it's probably unlikely many would really be interested in a foreign dub of a show any more than we'd look up foreign dubs of American cartoons. However, things may be a little different given that English is sort of an international language of sorts, one that is considered "cool" to speak, and pretty much unavoidable on the Internet. So, with that in mind, it may not be that far fetched to believe that some Japanese fans may very well have stumbled into English clips and realized they have different music, with varying reactions.

[ekrolo2]

If kei17s comments about how the JPN fanbase reacted to Kikuchi getting replaced by Yamamoto, I can't imagine Faulconer getting better reception lol. It would still be nice if a survey could be made of it for shits and giggles.

[Kakacarrottop]

I think they'd probably have the same reaction American people have when they first hear the Canadian Mega-Man music from Ocean's alternate dub. They'd view it as a weird curiosity from some dumb / bad version of the show.

[Fionordequester]

Actually, Kei17 himself did a survey of a few fans, and as it turns out, their reaction was mixed. Some of them really liked it, but others didn't...

From what I've seen on the Internet, some of them think that the Faulconer Productions' score sounds cool and more modern, but most of them simply don't understand why they chose to replace the great original score in the first place and assume that people in the U.S. have poor taste. Also, they seem to dislike the wall-to-wall music placement, which is extremely uncommon in Japan. On Japanese TV, even shows for very young children like Anpanman have plenty of silent moments, so Japanese people aren't familiar with Mickey Mousing.

And then he gathered some other reactions later.

"They should have hired him for Kai." (Faulconer Productions' score)
"Sounds cinematic." (Mark Menza's score for the first Broly movie)
"It's cooler than Kikuchi's which sounds like old samurai drama music." [I'm assuming this is Team Faulconer, though Kei17 never specified]

"Too serious sounding for a kids show." (Nathan Johnson's score)
"American people must love something different than what we got."
"They really hate silence, don't they?" [I have to admit, this one made me laugh a bit ]
"Why music never stops?"

Personally, I think it's pretty indicative of how amazing Team Faulconer's score is. Many people are naturally pre-disposed to liking the very first thing they were exposed to, and hate anything that messes with what they already know. So the fact that there even WERE some people who liked it better to begin with, to me, says quite a bit about all the hard work that Mike Smith, Scott Morgan, and Julius Dobos did on the dub.

[OkamiTakahashi]

Well, I've gotten used to the Japanese dub and its own moments of silence by now, so I totally get that they think the wall-to-wall music is weird. I guess it's a cultural thing. It's too bad everything went sour with the Faulconer music copyright stuff. It would be nice to hear Team Faulconer again in the series, albeit under a new name with some new tracks, and maybe even doing some work with Saiyan Enigma (The Enigma TNG)- he's done a bang-up job capturing the essence of the Team Faulconer era and even collabed with Scott Morgan a few times. Though I'm not sure if they could get away with doing homages to older Team Faulconer tracks if by some miracle they could do the soundtrack. I mean, the Kai composer did that with other songs and got himself into a right mess. Ah well. I suppose we'll just have to deal with the Japanese soundtrack. I don't mind it, but it doesn't have quite the same nostalgic feel. Again, a cultural thing.

[DB1984]

Kei17, don't take this as a personal offense, but have any of your own people criticized the placement and limited use of the Kikuchi BGM in Dragon Ball Kai, like we American fans have?

It sucks that only a portion of Kikuchi's BGM has been converted from analog to digital, because I think his best music was the stuff that never got officially released. These two are among my favorites of his unreleased BGM.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xFnLL73EuGQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bTTzlhmrtsM

[Lord Beerus]

"Too serious sounding for a kids show." (Nathan Johnson's score)
"American people must love something different than what we got."
"They really hate silence, don't they?"
"Why music never stops?".

These comments perfectly sum up my grievances with the Faulconer score. Especially the last comment.

[Valerius Dover]

I find it odd that fans from Japan wouldn't be somewhat accustomed to constant music. Don't plenty of cartoons and movies get released over there?

[Fionordequester]

I find it odd that fans from Japan wouldn't be somewhat accustomed to constant music. Don't plenty of cartoons and movies get released over there?

Silence is used much more often over there though. Just check out Fist of the North Star. Made for little kids, and yet, PLENTY of silence, like an old western. That said though, as a lifelong fan of video games, I've NEVER been bothered by constant music. That's what I get in most video games anyway, so I'm used to it.

[cRookie_Monster]

Here's another similar thread from a while back. I didn't reread, there may have been a good answer somewhere in there, but I think the question was largely unanswered.
http://www.kanzenshuu.com/forum/viewtop ... 12&t=25285