Your opinion of Norihito Sumitomo

[Terez]

Kikuchi never had such lows like Sumitomo's disco track as well.

Drunken organ improv. Fortunately for us, it wasn't spammed quite as much, but it was truly awful.

Uh... What? You mean this fantastic dark and ominous track? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z4G3yVXU80Y

Yes. It sounds like a drunk person trying to remember how to play Bach. It's terrible.

[Bansho64]

Yes. It sounds like a drunk person trying to remember how to play Bach. It's terrible.

It sounded fine to me. I wouldn't call it one of Kikuchi's best tracks, but I don't think it's bad either.

[Baggie_Saiyan]

He is okay, does tension very well see Resurrection "F" and the Black arc especially the latter that was some of his best work. His biggest problem is the light stuff and seeing how modern DB has quite a bit of it compared to Z s'not very good he hasn't really improved in that regard. But I will say some of the tracks played in the last episode were pretty decent. I would say he gets a solid 6/10 from me so far.

[floofychan333]

Kikuchi never had such lows like Sumitomo's disco track as well.

Drunken organ improv. Fortunately for us, it wasn't spammed quite as much, but it was truly awful.

Uh... What? You mean this fantastic dark and ominous track? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z4G3yVXU80Y

I don't like that one a huge amount though I adore Kikuchi so much it's honestly scary. Also, glad to see somebody else on here has discovered Mugiwalarge and his wonderful work bringing good releases of Kikuchi BGMs to YouTube!

[lunaticthegame]

He's pretty good, just if he were to make a lot of REALLy good music, he'd need a better budget.

He's worked on various shows and produced mediocre scores for all of them that I'm aware of. Budget has little to do with it.

That's actually where I stop you. I know music may be up for opinion so be my guest if you call this mediocre but still.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-7at2lg ... 2&index=41
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_rHaaJC ... 2&index=58
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=muKUIdb ... 2&index=33
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UTXzqSL ... 2&index=28
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fqlCFeU ... 2&index=26

[Bajosexto]

Don't really like his score. Specially when the Sonic music plays on the happy/goofy moments. I do like he's orchestral themes though.

[SaiyanGod117]

I'm giving some more of his tracks another listen and there not as shoddy as people say. I disagree with the assessment that his music is generic, some tracks might be a little less embracing than others. Though not every track a composer makes needs to be memorable; and some people opinions of music might be a little construed. Consequently his tracks were placed ineffectively, as a result they couldn't achieve there maximum potency. In addition to Super not being in the best place on the production side as well. In the same way to how his tracks in Kai 2014 were handled, if you actually listen to some of his OSTs by themselves there actually pretty decent. Music in cinematography reaches it full effect when it's placed efficiently, as its post to enhance emontional weight; not squeeze out or command it.

Ultimately that's one of the aspects the Future Trunks arc did so well, every track was placed accordingly to the tone of a scene. Next to having a good soundtrack just benefited and elevated the overall atmosphere and tone of the Arc overall. I would say his music is decent with occasional moments of greatness.

[killafoe69]

Of all the Japanese Composers in the Dragon Ball anime. He is the worst to me. Yamamoto is the greatest, and tied in second is Kikuchi and Tokunaga for me. It's just he is very hit or miss with me. He has gotten better though and his different renditions of Limit Break x Survivor are great.

[Rory]

People really knock Sumitomo's Kai stuff, but I was really surprised when I heard it.

I get an early 90's Yamamoto vibe from some of these tracks, which is of course incredibly ironic.

Perhaps it's just the instrumentation as opposed to composition, but some of these tracks make me feel like I'm listening to some lost tracks from the old Awakening/Rebirth CD's.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6NC1FVgvSwg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U0lP_pXP8Po
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7GQD7Yaasro

I actually prefer it to Yamamoto's generic orchestral outing from his crack at the series. I think it may be bias on my part though, because Yamamoto's early 90's synthy stuff is what really got me into Dragon Ball music as a whole, starting with UB22 and delving back from there.

Frankly it was more reminiscent of the kind of sound I wanted from Yamamoto when I heard he was scoring the series all the way back in 2009 (jesus christ), even if the compositions aren't incredible, the sound makes me feel like a kid playing those PS1 Dragon Ball games again.

[Bear]

I personally believe that a score should hold meaning, and become memorable. Look at bardocks death, the dark chorus, the soft strings, creating a somber mood. This song is iconic with this scene, even though the piece itself originated in the 3rd movie. (https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=vC3gPlu33Gg) And what about M1109. When used in vegeta's final flash, it shows that he is desperate, and will not let his pride be broken, even if he is to risk destroying the world. The same piece is used similarly in the SSJ3 transformation, but instead of not letting his pride be broken, he's limiting the amount of time he has on earth, and is straining his body for Trunks to retrieve the Dragon Ball radar. When I first heard this piece in both of these scenes, I instantly knew what was going on, and I had memorised the theme, but with Suimotos score, I don't feel any emotion, and it doesn't seem memorable. However, another reason could be a lack of variations of different themes. Look at how many variations there are on Demon King Piccolos theme. The variations even continued into movie 9.

[Kojiro Sasaki]

I personally believe that a score should hold meaning, and become memorable. Look at bardocks death, the dark chorus, the soft strings, creating a somber mood. This song is iconic with this scene, even though the piece itself originated in the 3rd movie. (https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=vC3gPlu33Gg) And what about M1109. When used in vegeta's final flash, it shows that he is desperate, and will not let his pride be broken, even if he is to risk destroying the world. The same piece is used similarly in the SSJ3 transformation, but instead of not letting his pride be broken, he's limiting the amount of time he has on earth, and is straining his body for Trunks to retrieve the Dragon Ball radar. When I first heard this piece in both of these scenes, I instantly knew what was going on, and I had memorised the theme, but with Suimotos score, I don't feel any emotion, and it doesn't seem memorable. However, another reason could be a lack of variations of different themes. Look at how many variations there are on Demon King Piccolos theme. The variations even continued into movie 9.

Bad “Suimoto”!

I fully agree. I've checked some of his compositions and I have similar feelings about them. The score is not very unique, it has nothing extraordinary in it. It fails to multiple the emotions of the scene, as Kikuchi score did.
It's not bad, but it is not very memorable. I don't see it becoming immortal classic in the distant future.

You've stolen Ajay's avatar! Give it back!

[DHM211]

Judging Sumitomo's Dragon Ball Scores on their own, I'd have to say:

Battle of Gods: 10/10

Kai TFC: 7/10

Resurrection 'F': 7/10

Super(pre Goku Black): 4/10

Super(post Goku Black): 8/10

[Envy]

I think the score of Super is, for the most part, very forgettable. There's not too many themes I recognize when I hear them used again the anime. I think that's kind of a shame, but, on the other hand, I don't necessarily think it's a bad score. It's just kind of there.

[SaiyanGod117]

I think the score of Super is, for the most part, very forgettable. There's not too many themes I recognize when I hear them used again the anime. I think that's kind of a shame, but, on the other hand, I don't necessarily think it's a bad score. It's just kind of there.

Can you say which scores are forgetable? So far his Goku Black arc and onward ost's has been mostly point, the problem with his music in-earlier arc wasn't exactly the music itself, but the music placement. Most notably I see people say his music is forgetable, without illustrating what's so forgettable about it.

[Black_Liger]

Just gonna say I NEED HIM TO MAKE MORE JAZZY TUNES. that Caulifla Jazz was sexy as fuck. Also there's a great posibility he himself played the sax on that track, he's a saxophonist.

[Torturephile]

Not a fan of most of his light-hearted material. It sounds like Mario Kart music. I think his more intense or dark tracks are the highlight, such as the future saga's score, or the orchestral track with the chorus that plays at certain times when Freeza or Frost are around.

[Majin Man 101]

His Battle of Gods and Ressurection of F score are mediocre.

His score for the Majin Boo Arc for Dragon Ball Kai is solid and has some great tracks, a lot of which are re-used in Super(Yes i'm aware that some of the Kai tracks were from BOG too)

His score for Super was pretty awful for a good while there. It wasn't until Goku Black that we started to get some good new tracks. TOP introduced some great tracks. Overall though, like I stated previously, a lot of Super's music is actually saved from his recycled DB Kai tracks.
To date his final compositions for the series have been for Broly and they were GLORIOUS.

As follows I would rank the composers...

1.GOAT Shunsuke Kikuchi.(WILL PROBABLY NEVER BE TOPPED HE DEFINED THE SOUND OF DRAGON BALL)
2.Kenji Yamamoto(Despite his plagarism his arrangements are amazing and truly did sound like the next era of Dragon Ball)
3.Norihito Sumitomo(Gotten much better over the years, and produced some solid tracks)-BROLY WAS GLORIOUS.
4.Akhito Tokunaga(Path to Power and GT have some truly great tracks here and there but there is something about the mixing which makes his music sound so horribly generic and mediocre a lot of the time in GT. If the path to power didn't save some of the tracks, plus a few new compositions for the film which were great I would say he was downright awful.
5.Naoki Sato-Great score but he just started in 2022, and its unknown if he or Sumitomo will be the composer going forward.