Rankings and thoughts of the post-Kikuchi composers?

[KBABZ]

I was having this discussion with Robo, and I thought it'd be a cool one to do. When Dragon Ball Z ended back in 1996, Kikuchi opted not to continue for GT. So began a series of composers coming in with their own Dragon Ball scores, and this continued through many dubs as well of DB, Z and GT. I thought it'd make for a cool discussion to talk about how we'd rank all of 'em as they picked up the task of scoring Dragon Ball after Kikuchi had done so for 12 years.

*I opted to phrase this as post-Kikuchi to encompass the wide amount of composers who have done Dragon Ball anime after him, to include the non-dub composers like Sumitomo, Tokunaga and Yamamoto.

Here's the list of composers that I'd consider for this topic:

• Peter Berring (1995 Funi DB dub)
• Akihito Tokunaga (Dragon Ball GT)
• Ron Wasserman (1996 Funi DBZ dub)
• Bruce Faulconer (1999 Funi DBZ dub)
• Anitunes (2001 DBZ Ocean dub)
• Mark Menza (2003 GT+movies Funi dubs)
• Nathan Johnson (2005 Z+movies Funi dubs)
• Kenji Yamamoto (Dragon Ball Kai)
• Nohirito Sumitomo (Dragon Ball Super, Kai: The Final Chapters)

---

I personally don't have much exposure to many of these, but I'll comment where I can.

For what I've heard of Tokunaga, he comes the closest for me to getting Kikuchi's spirit, however outside of reprising Dan Dan and the theme of Goku and Bulma from Path to Power, I really don't remember any of his tracks. That said I haven't watched a lot of GT, PtP or the Goku Jr. Special.

Yamamoto's work, plagarism aside, I tended to like while watching Kai. It may have been rather bombastic and modern, but I felt this really worked when the stories reached their peaks and started to justify such backing in the music. The other issue is that about halfway into Namek, there just isn't any new music being put in, and while this was something Kikuchi did, he at least had the entirety of Dragon Ball plus the various movies up to that point to draw from. There's also a delicious irony that the scene that served has his musical Dragon Ball debut, Trunks killing Frieza, would also be the scene that caused his downfall.

Sumitomo in TFC suffered similar repetition issues as Yamamoto, and I do feel that he doesn't quite have a handle on how to make his music memorable or how to balance the volume of all the instruments (as in his Nimbus piece). That said, I appreciate his use of themes to use for specific characters and story elements, and his piece for Vegeta is very fitting for the character.

[MasenkoHA]

Kenji Yamamoto- Okay yeah most (all?) of his music is plagiarized and the music got super repetitive (I think there were a couple tracks that were obligated to play in every episode) but his score for Kai is the only non-Kikuchi Dragon Ball score I really much cared for. Pity again on the whole plagiarism thing

Nohirito Sumitomo- I didn’t care much for the music in the final chapters but Super was decent enough. More so from the Zamasu arc onwards

Akihito Tokunaga- Tis fine

Peter Berring- Its fairly generic (if you’ve seen any 90s kidvid action adventure show you’ve heard this score) but its not horrible

Ron Wasserman- Man is clearly ripping off his own Power Rangers score but again not terrible

Nathan Johnson- It works well enough for the action scenes but man watch any low key episode like the orphans episode or the Mr.robot episode and this scores shortcomings becomes apparent


Anitunes- Its sufficient enough I suppose


CakeMix Studios- A few quality tracks (Captain Ginyu Transforms, Super Buu, Super Saiyan 3, Gohan’s Anger theme) most of it ranges from horribly generic to downright horrible

Mark Menza- When you want Kristopher Carter but have to go to the discount store.

[Robo4900]

I think there may have been a topic like this before, but oh well.
I refuse to rank Kenji Yamamoto on the grounds that his plagiarism means it isn't his own music, and I refuse to expose myself to it beyond my somewhat vague memories of having watched a bunch of Kai when it was new, and playing a bunch of Budokai 3 when I was a kid, so my familiarity with it is too poor to judge it anyway.

1. Akihito Tokunaga (1996-1997 - Dragon Ball GT, 10th anniversary movie)
Wonderful in every respect. To be honest, I prefer Tokunaga to Kikuchi.

2. Ron Wasserman (1996-1997 - Funimation/Saban DBZ dub episodes 1-53, Z movie 3)
An honestly really solid score. It often suffers from the 2edgy4me vibe that permeates many of the dub replacement scores, but as shown by the first section of this piece of his OST on its own, his score was fully capable of being light and fluffy.
The themes are generally good... It's just a good score. It was wrong for Funi to replace the score and mandate something with a 2edgy4me vibe, but to be honest, this is the one replacement score that did it seriously well.

3. Anitunes (2001-2003 - Ocean/Westwood DBZ dub episodes 108-276)
Arguably, this should be split into two categories; the score from before and after Ocean commissioned Anitunes to compose some new music for the show in the Boo saga. But, to be honest, even before, when the score was purely tracks Ocean had in their free-to-use library from previous work with Anitunes, the result was a very non-intrusive score lacking the 2edgy4me vibe of most replacement scores. It wasn't overbearing, if anything it was quite atmospheric, with the way it was often played quietly, leaving the actors, SFX, and animation to take the centre stage.
It also helps that several of the tracks are quite catchy, particularly after Anitunes was actually hired to compose some new themes (they will have been sent a few episodes to fully score, then they would have supplied their score for those episodes, as well as each theme used in those, with some variations, for use in the rest of the series), but even before that, the Monster Rancher music that was infused into the show after the Cell Games saga did wonders.
To be honest, I'm a nostalgic fanboy, so the fact I rank this so highly is at least partially due to my love of the Ocean Studios/Westwood Media dub of DBZ, but frankly I do think this score is quite good.

4. Peter Berring (1995 - Funimation/BLT DB dub episodes 1-13, movie 1)
The closest any of the dub replacement scores get to replicating the feel of the original. Admittedly, it sounds a bit dated now, using some rather cheap, old synthesisers, but it's quite charming, to be frank.

5. Nathan Johnson (2005-2006 Funimation in-house DBZ dub episodes 1-67, Z movies 2-3, 10, 12-13)
To be honest, it's not hugely memorable, I'm not a fan, it leans way too hard into the 2edgy4me vibe, but I think it just fits the show a bit better than the stuff I've ranked below it, so I really just have to put it here.

6. Team Faulconer (1999-2003 Funimation in-house DBZ dub episodes 54-276/68-291, Z movie 4)
I don't think Faulconer's music fits the show, I think it sounds cheap as hell, and there are SO MANY boring filler tracks. However, in Team Faulconer's defense, the themes are generally memorable, there are a lot of rather good tracks, and personally, I love this music in the Legacy of Goku 2 & Buu's Fury.

7. Mark Menza (2003-2005 Funimation in-house GT dub, Z movies 1, 6-9, 11)
Once again, I honestly quite like the music here, and unlike Faulconer, the production is quite good too. Unfortunately, a Dragon Ball score has never been less fitting, and his music is pretty symbolic of everything that was wrong with Funi's version of GT. GT is not a great show, but what Funimation did was akin to turning The Phantom Menace into Attack Of The Clones... They took something that had a legitimate effort and vision behind it, and took out all of its charm, turning it into something completely joyless and devoid of any value whatsoever. Unfortunately, this stains Menza's (honestly rather good) music that he composed for the series, since its presence was used to give the "edgy" vibe that Funimation wanted to put in GT.

But it could be worse...

8. Nohirito Sumitomo (2014-present Dragon Ball Kai: The Final Chapters, Super, Battle of Gods, Resurrection F, Super Broly)

Oh dear.

I'm sure he's done good work on other things, but not only does his work not fit Dragon Ball even remotely, it's also incredibly bland, bad music for the most part.
The best compliment I can give his work on Dragon Ball is that I didn't notice the music most of the time when I was watching Broly.

I would honestly take Mark Menza's work over this, because at least I would enjoy the music.

[SuperSaiyaManZ94]

Here's my own views on the composers on both sides, though i'm not really big on rankings overall so not taking that approach with this.

Japanese

Tokunaga- Pretty good overall for GT and Path to Power, this is the best of the post Kikuchi composers on the Japanese side.


Sumitomo- Buu Kai is kind of meh, though i think his stuff for Super is decent overall.


Yamamoto- I thought it fit the product of Kai 1.0, shame about the plagiarism scandal though.


Dub

Wasserman- Mixed, though it fits in with the '90s action vibe of the early Ocean Z stuff.


Berring- It fits the 1995 DB 1-13 and Movie 1 dub decent albeit a bit generic at points though i have only seen bits here and there so don't have a lot to say on it.


Anitunes- Haven't seen much of the Westwood/Ocean dub so can't say much on this one either.


Johnson- Meh, it's ok in the UUE dub but feels really bland at points in certain moments but there's definitely worse than this.


Team Faulconer/CakeMix- Some decent tracks here and there, but most of the rest feels like a constant wall to wall synthesized assault on the ears.


Menza- Good lord, his music for GT just screams "ZOMG HARDCORE EDGINESS!!!!!" and i just cannot bear to listen to it for more than five seconds because it along with the accompanying dub is hot garbage. His movie music OTOH isn't quite as bad though but still not great either.

[Planetnamek]

Yamamoto-plagiarism is super obvious and distracting and it sounds very unfitting in the show.

Sumitomo-competent but forgettable

Wasserman-pretty average, like Chris Psaros said it feels like this score only has three types of music-intense, mischievous and cheerful and it really starts to show a few episodes in.

Berring-serviceable, no more no less

Faulconer-my favorite of the composers honestly, has a much wider ranger of types of music as opposed to Wasserman and I feel several pieces really compliment the scenes nicely and it's difficult for me to imagine the show without them.

Menza-Better then i expected honestly, it's definitely the most dated of the scores but still has some good moments.

Johnson-very middle-of-the-road and decent but nothing too memorable

Never saw the Westwood dub so can't really comment on that.

[Kakacarrottop]

Love:
Wasserman score

Like:
Berring score
Keenlyside/Mitchell score
Tokunaga score

Neutral towards:
Faulconer Prod. score
Menza score

Dislike:
Johnson score
Yamamoto score
Sumitomo score

[90sDBZ]

Mine have changed a little bit over time.

1. Team Faulconer. While it suffers from being wall-to-wall, and can get annoying in comedic scenes, it more than makes up for it in the iconic moments; SS3 Tranformation, The Dragon Theme, Super Saiyan Vegeta, Ginyu Tranformation, Perfect Cell's theme, and Super Buu's theme are just a few of the many that fit perfectly.

2. Wasserman. While it does sound a bit samey, it fits the dark and serious tone of the Saiyan saga perfectly, and there are some beautiful tracks like Goku's Arrival and the track that plays when Goku catches Bubbles.

3. Tokunaga. Very fun and lively sounding in general, with some very emotional pieces too (particularly on the final episode of GT).

4. Yamamoto. I adore "his" music in the Budokai games, and while it's not as good in Kai it's still a solid score, and beats the hell out of the Kikuchi placement in Kai.

5. Sumitomo. Actually very underrated. The more I listen to it, the more I like it, even in Kai TFC. I like how it sounds like a late 80s/early 90s cartoon score.

6. Kikuchi. I've always felt Kikuchi was at his best in OG DB, where the music felt much more lively and exciting than in Z. There are some standouts in Z, although it tends to drone on at times, and suffers from being largely composed primarily for the movies rather than the series proper. It's hit and miss in the movies, with some sounding much better than others. Aside from that it gets better again in the Buu saga, with new tracks being composed just for the series, and sounding more lively again.

7. Anitunes. This is the one I have the most mixed feelings about. I mostly found it very boring and repetitive when it was just the Megaman OST. During the Android saga in particular I found it extremely dull and repetitive, although The Army Theme was good. Starting with the Fusion saga they started using Monster Rancher music too, which made a massive difference, wasn't repetitive, and was much better music in general. If it had been like this from the getgo I'd be ranking it much higher, but it unfortunately only makes up a small portion of the Westwood run. But without this improvement I'd be ranking it lower for sure.

8. Nathan Jonson. Overall kind of bland and forgettable, but gets much better and more varied later on. Gogeta's theme, Vegeta vs Zarbon, and Goku's Snakeway theme all sound awesome.

9. Mark Menza. Pretty bland and forgettable overall, although not as bad as some say.

10. Peter Berring. I've only really heard this in the DB Movie 1 BLT dub. It's okay I guess.

[Big Boss]

There's also a delicious irony that the scene that served has his musical Dragon Ball debut, Trunks killing Frieza, would also be the scene that caused his downfall.

Actually, Yamamoto had worked on the series for years already by the time Trunks made his debut. His first musical credit in the franchise was wayyyy back in 1987 for the original anime as an arranger of 2 songs. So he had been working on the series for almost as long as Kikuchi; very close to the debut of the anime in 1986. He was by far the series' longest serving musician, and still is even after he was fired.

But enough of that digression, here is my list:

1. Yamamoto - I've talked at length of my love for Yamamoto's technical skills on this website already, but to reiterate: I think he is by far the best musician the series has ever had. As a musician myself, his ability to produce and arrange music blows me away every single time I listen to "his" music. Plagiarism or not, it takes raw talent and immense knowledge of musical framework, theory, and specific genre idiosyncrasies to create the level of quality he used to churn out in his prime (which in my view is 1990s Yamamoto). His game scores are some the best ever made, especially the arranged albums of Super Butoden and UB22.

2. Tokunaga - If there ever was a candidate for the role of a new main composer of the franchise, Tokunaga was it. His GT score was incredible and by far the best thing about that anime. His role in the franchise was short, but very sweet and immensely memorable.

3. Team Faulconer - Hit or miss really. While some of the tracks - namely the themes - are quite good, a debate often comes up if they actually "fit" the franchise or not. I personally think they are great standalone tracks, but in the context of the series they can feel a bit out of place at times. The Faulkner score also falls victim to Funimation meddling, with a constant score blaring in all scenes with no room for silence, and this is definitely distracting. Likewise, a lot of the most hated tracks in the Faulconer score were requested by Funimation directly, such as the "crazy clown music" from the Garlic Jr arc.

4. Wasserman/Levi - Mostly generic Power Rangers esque noise to me. It's kind of just there in the background, without any emotional purpose.

5. Sumitomo - I despise his music aside from one or two tracks. Omen of Victory is still ingrained in my head as this evil, nagging sound of annoyance that won't ever go away.

[MasenkoHA]

4. Wasserman/Levi - Mostly generic Power Rangers esque noise to me. It's kind of just there in the background, without any emotional purpose.

I must say I was very surprised when I read somewhere Ron Wasserman was quite pleased with his work on Dragon Ball Z. It’s probably the least awful of the replacement scores but its very workman like, like he was just collecting a paycheck and Saban and Levy just told him “We need this score for this Power Rangers type Japanese cartoon that this new company Funimation is producing just do Power Rangers again”


For whatever low opinions I have on the CakeMix Studios overall output for Z you can tell a lot of passion was there from their various composers (for the stuff that wasn’t created to be scene filler at least)

[Big Boss]

4. Wasserman/Levi - Mostly generic Power Rangers esque noise to me. It's kind of just there in the background, without any emotional purpose.

I must say I was very surprised when I read somewhere Ron Wasserman was quite pleased with his work on Dragon Ball Z. It’s probably the least awful of the replacement scores but its very workman like, like he was just collecting a paycheck and Saban and Levy just told him “We need this score for this Power Rangers type Japanese cartoon that this new company Funimation is producing just do Power Rangers again”


For whatever low opinions I have on the CakeMix Studios overall output for Z you can tell a lot of passion was there from their various composers (for the stuff that wasn’t created to be scene filler at least)

I think the Wasserman score isn't bad, it's fine. But that's kind o the issue - it's just there. It simply exists as competently produced background music. There was never a point in listening to the Wasserman score where I thought "Wow, this is actually terrible/embarrassing and doesn't fit the scene at all." It is quite consistent actually - but consistently boring and never amounting to anything meaningful.

[Kakacarrottop]

4. Wasserman/Levi - Mostly generic Power Rangers esque noise to me. It's kind of just there in the background, without any emotional purpose.

I must say I was very surprised when I read somewhere Ron Wasserman was quite pleased with his work on Dragon Ball Z. It’s probably the least awful of the replacement scores but its very workman like, like he was just collecting a paycheck and Saban and Levy just told him “We need this score for this Power Rangers type Japanese cartoon that this new company Funimation is producing just do Power Rangers again”

I don't think he was given a specific direction from Saban. I've listened to some of his interviews about DBZ, and he's always said it was the first and only time he got zero creative notes about the music he was making, likely because Saban didn't give a damn about some show they didn't even own the rights to. I get the feeling that the soundtrack would have been rejected by Saban under normal circumstances, or least reworked to get rid of the darker stuff.

[Dragon Ball Ireland]

1. Tokunaga - Always loved his work, very atmospheric, space opera like score that fits perfectly with both Goku, Pan and Trunks' journey throughout the universe and the whimsical feel of Dragon Ball. Like Robo, this may edge Kikuchi out

2. Aniunes - Call it nostalgia because I grew up with the Westwood dub, but I do think this was a great score. It has the right balance of silence and goofiness, and the ambience combined with good action pieces makes Dragon Ball feel like a modern show without losing the awe of mystery

3. Yamamoto score - While I'm not going to credit it all to Yamamoto himself for obvious reasons the tracks he used make a good soundtrack that suffers from repetition but is really engaging during action sequences

4. Sumitomo - I also find him underrated, although I have some mixed feelings. He's briliant during tense and dramatic scenes, the comedy and slice-of-life is hit or miss and can be poorly placed at times. I'd probably rank his score for the Battle of Gods and Resurrection F arcs lower than Final Chapters, again, neither are terrible

5. Wasserman - Fantastic for the material he covered. Quite repetitive and unimaginative at times, but had a lot of potential. I'd love to see what he could have done for later arcs.

6. Berring - Generic kid's cartoon music, but it's charming and I appreciate that it feels like synthesized Kikuchi. Could be worse, could be a lot better, but then he only had 13 episodes and 1 movie to work with, so serviceable in that regard

7. Team Faulconer - Fine example of a solid score for the wrong show. I get a lot of people love it for Z, and that's fine, but for me the comedic moments try too hard and fall flat, the action feels too edgy for what's meant to be a mythical martial arts tale. I think the more serene moments are the better tracks this score has to offer, if there were more I'd rank it higher.

8. Johnson - Very forgettable, no tracks or moments ever stood out for me, so not much to say other than that

9. Menza - Bland nu metal that was only made because it was following a trend. Couldn't have fit GT, or Dragon Ball in general any less

[jaisonas]

I will only comment on the ones i have listened:
Akihito Tokunaga:
Very charming and fits the series excellently. I am a fan of taking a certain leitmotif like the opening song and expanding it into a score.

Ron Wasserman:
Pretty generic and sometimes repetitive but had some production value and fit the saga it covered

Bruce Faulconer:
Hit or miss. While there are iconic and fantastic tracks, there are others that just don't do it for me (goten vs trunks generic edge battle music)
and i hate with passion the immediate switch from let's say serious music to goofy music when something funny happens. Lack of silence is also a buzzkill.

Mark Menza:
I don't like his edgy score on DBGT. However, it does fit on a couple of movies like Broly.

Kenji Yamamoto:
Pretty fitting songs in kai and i enjoyed his insert songs in dbz. Shame about the plagiarism though.

Nohirito Sumitomo:
Pretty bland and i generally didn't pay much attention to it.

. The other issue is that about halfway into Namek, there just isn't any new music being put in, and while this was something Kikuchi did, he at least had the entirety of Dragon Ball plus the various movies up to that point to draw from.

On an unrelated note, i actually loved that Kikuchi used old dragon ball ost in namek and more dbz arcs. For me it made db and dbz feel more connected to each other and not like 2 separate series.

[KBABZ]

. The other issue is that about halfway into Namek, there just isn't any new music being put in, and while this was something Kikuchi did, he at least had the entirety of Dragon Ball plus the various movies up to that point to draw from.

On an unrelated note, i actually loved that Kikuchi used old dragon ball ost in namek and more dbz arcs. For me it made db and dbz feel more connected to each other and not like 2 separate series.

Agreed! I remember ages ago I watched DBZ uploads online for Kai TFC, but then the uploads stopped so I switched to Z in Japanese. I was knocked back onto the floor when the second-to-last episode of Z opened with a music piece from the 21st TB!

[Neo-Makaiōshin]

Never heard any of the EN dub composers so I won't mention them.

#1 - Norihito Sumitomo

Never heard his compositions for Bu's Kai and the early songs in DBSuper run were quite weak but I assume that was mainly because of the rushed production of the anime, once we get to the Future Trunks Arc he started to make stronger songs and once we reach the Universe Survival Arc we get a big improvement with recurring leitmotifs popping up frequently.

What pushed Sumitomo to #1 was his compositions for DBSuper: Broly movie and what an upgrade that was.

#2 - Akihito Tokunaga

Honestly the only thing I can remember from his GT work are the Dan Dan Kokoro Hikadeteru leitmotifs (which are pretty good) and nothing else.

#3 - Kenji Yamamoto

I can't remember any particular noteworthy thing from his work for DBKai.