Faithful English covers of DBZ openings, endings, and insert songs

[TechExpert2021]

As fans may have remembered, FUNimation has dubbed the opening themes and ending themes for their dubs of Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball GT (better than their shitty rap opening; rap/trap music does not fit Dragon Ball at all), respectively. However, they don't want to dub the opening themes and ending themes of DBZ. If you're watching the series (and the DBZ films) dubbed in English with the original and beloved Kikuchi soundtrack, you instead get this god-awful and generic rock opening theme that sounds like stock music. Also, the ending themes are left completely untranslated.

If a dubbing company wants to make faithful English covers of the DBZ opening themes, ending themes, and insert songs (except Battle Point Unlimited, which is entirely instrumental), they should pretty much understand the original Japanese lyrics, figuring out how the flow of those songs properly works when translating the lyrics into English, and how the translated words fit in and match the original Japanese versions.

Dubbing companies should also make extended versions of those English covers of those DBZ openings, endings, and insert songs so they can release them as commercially released music, similar to the extended Japanese DBZ openings, endings, and insert songs released commercially by Nippon Columbia in Japan.

Should the DBZ openings, endings, and insert songs (plus extended versions for commercial releases) receive official accurate English covers with the original instrumentals retained (from dubbing companies, not the original Japanese music artists as "Engrish" versions of Japanese songs sound so weird to native English speakers)?

Note: Fan-made English covers do not count as official English covers.

[MasenkoHA]

Should the DBZ openings, endings, and insert songs (plus extended versions for commercial releases) receive official accurate English covers with the original instrumentals retained (from dubbing companies, not the original Japanese music artists as "Engrish" versions of Japanese songs sound so weird to native English speakers)?

What would be the point? They should have done this back when they released the Orange Bricks and re-inserted the Japanese music track instead of using Menza's Movie Theme. We're far past too little too late.

Using the original instrumentals is dependent on Toei providing them with such. Their dubs of Dragon Ball 86 and GT's openings and ending recreated the instrumentals because they weren't given a clean instrumental track to dub over. If Funimation could have been assed to create covers for Head Cha La and We Gotta Power they almost definitely would have used mock instrumentals instead of the original

[GhostEmperorX]

Using the original instrumentals is dependent on Toei providing them with such.

More precisely, it's a matter for record labels such as Nippon Columbia and ZAIN RECORDS to handle, since they're the ones with the phonographic copyrights to any such instrumentals.
Like anything else related to the music departments.
(Unknown how much Harmony Gold getting the original instrumental of Makafushigi Adventure had an influence on the situation that Funimation found themselves in though.)

That aside, I do of course agree that it's far past the point of no return already, like that other similar topic.

[MasenkoHA]

Using the original instrumentals is dependent on Toei providing them with such.

More precisely, it's a matter for record labels such as Nippon Columbia and ZAIN RECORDS to handle, since they're the ones with the phonographic copyrights to any such instrumentals.
Like anything else related to the music departments.
(Unknown how much Harmony Gold getting the original instrumental of Makafushigi Adventure had an influence on the situation that Funimation found themselves in though.)

That aside, I do of course agree that it's far past the point of no return already, like that other similar topic.

What's weird is that Funimation did get instrumentals for Tenkaichi Gohan and Piccolo Daisuki for the first 2 Z movies (although Funimation couldn't be bothered to create cover songs and just awkwardly left them as instrumentals) and I'm pretty sure instrumentals for every op, ed, and insert song for Kai and Super. I have no clue why giving them instrumental tracks for everything else in the original anime trilogy was so impossible. Especially since, as you pointed out, Harmony Gold got an instrumental for Makafushigi Adventure and Cloverway seemed to have no problem getting instrumentals for most of the opening and ending themes, despite otherwise having an identical music track to Funimation's dub as far as what vocal insert songs were retained and which were missing.

[TheQuazz]

The need for such a thing has passed. But it does suck that we can't watch the English dub of Z with the original openings, that rock track drives me nuts. The orange bricks probably included the "movie" theme over Cha-La because it had been used before and Funi were still scared of keeping Japanese songs in their dub in 2007. The Blu-Ray and streaming releases probably only retain it because they can't be bothered to touch their already-remastered audio. I hope one day they change it.

What's weird is that Funimation did get instrumentals for Tenkaichi Gohan and Piccolo Daisuki for the first 2 Z movies (although Funimation couldn't be bothered to create cover songs and just awkwardly left them as instrumentals) and I'm pretty sure instrumentals for every op, ed, and insert song for Kai and Super. I have no clue why giving them instrumental tracks for everything else in the original anime trilogy was so impossible. Especially since, as you pointed out, Harmony Gold got an instrumental for Makafushigi Adventure and Cloverway seemed to have no problem getting instrumentals for most of the opening and ending themes, despite otherwise having an identical music track to Funimation's dub as far as what vocal insert songs were retained and which were missing.

I don't know if you're implying that Funi could have received insert song instrumentals for the original shows, since your Cloverway example proves that Toei wasn't providing them by the late 90s. The Z movie example isn't weird because as far as I know other dubs received those songs (Big Green certainly did). Getting everything for Kai and Super isn't weird because they weren't decade-old shows from the pre-digital era. Toei isn't selective, they're disorganized and apathetic about their old material, anything they didn't provide either doesn't exist or isn't available on-hand to give out. (creditless OPs/EDs are another example, the clean version of DB OP2 is essentially lost)
Has there ever been a source that confirms that Funimation didn't receive the original OP and ED instrumentals? It could be that they weren't satisfied with the quality of what they were provided with (maybe a single mono track???), and felt it would be more professional to re-do them so they could be mixed in hq digital stereo or whatever (I'm not an audio guy).

[TheQuazz]

double post

[MasenkoHA]

The orange bricks probably included the "movie" theme over Cha-La because it had been used before and Funi were still scared of keeping Japanese songs in their dub in 2007. The Blu-Ray and streaming releases probably only retain it because they can't be bothered to touch their already-remastered audio. I hope one day they change it.

Most of the Z movie dubs with the Japanese music track DO keep Head Cha La though. Only Z movie 1, 2, and 5 use the Menza theme like the remastered tv dub. Seems more like Funimation just didn't get Head Cha La/We Gotta Power on the music track and slapped Menza's theme on there instead. As fo why they didn't just rip the themes from the Japanese audio? Too much effort I guess. The tv series dub still ends with Zenkai Power and We Were Angels so Japanese singing was clearly a non issue at that point

I don't know if you're implying that Funi could have received insert song instrumentals for the original shows, since your Cloverway example proves that Toei wasn't providing them by the late 90s. The Z movie example isn't weird because as far as I know other dubs received those songs (Big Green certainly did).

Well no I'm not implying that at all. We know that not only did Funimation (and Cloverway at least) didn't receive instumentals of the insert songs in Z they didn't receive any of the vocal insert songs. Finished or instrumental. I think its weird that Gohan's insert songs in Z movie 1 or 2 were the only instrumentals that Columbia Nippon had to give.

Has there ever been a source that confirms that Funimation didn't receive the original OP and ED instrumentals? It could be that they weren't satisfied with the quality of what they were provided with (maybe a single mono track???), and felt it would be more professional to re-do them so they could be mixed in hq digital stereo or whatever (I'm not an audio guy).

Explicitly confirmed? No. But we can figure out they didn't because they didn't use them and they had no problem with using the Japanese music track otherwise. It's not like Funimation cared for professionalism or quality so if the music track for Z had the instrumentals for Head Cha La and We Gotta Power they probably would have, at bare minimum, used those as is instead of going through the trouble of replacing them with Menza's theme

[dragonballhero]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't CHA-LA HEAD CHA-LA and WE GOTTA POWER the only DB songs FUNimation HASN'T dubbed?

If not, that's REALLY ironic to me, given how 'Z' is more-or-less FUNi's bread-and-butter in terms of DB stuff.

[MasenkoHA]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't CHA-LA HEAD CHA-LA and WE GOTTA POWER the only DB songs FUNimation HASN'T dubbed?

If not, that's REALLY ironic to me, given how 'Z' is more-or-less FUNi's bread-and-butter in terms of DB stuff.

As far as opening songs go yes. They also never dubbed Zenkai Power or We Were Angels or any of the insert songs until Kai.

It is weird that the franchise's most prolific song is nowhere to be found in the tv series dub, not in Japanese or English. Dub only fans will only hear it if they watch the movies (and I think the end of Buu Kai played it? I could be misremembering)

[GhostEmperorX]

It's the most prolific song alright, the number of times the original sound version has been released on separate CD's over the years since the original 1989 single is insane enough, without even going into the various references it's had in DB media since Z.

[dragonballhero]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't CHA-LA HEAD CHA-LA and WE GOTTA POWER the only DB songs FUNimation HASN'T dubbed?

If not, that's REALLY ironic to me, given how 'Z' is more-or-less FUNi's bread-and-butter in terms of DB stuff.

As far as opening songs go yes. They also never dubbed Zenkai Power or We Were Angels or any of the insert songs until Kai.

It is weird that the franchise's most prolific song is nowhere to be found in the tv series dub, not in Japanese or English. Dub only fans will only hear it if they watch the movies (and I think the end of Buu Kai played it? I could be misremembering)

Yeah, see? It's SO weird. Ngl, it's part of why I just can't bring myself to care for the Orange Brick redubs from 2005-2009. The fact that they simply used the 'Z' movie theme as its intro, just... no.

Seriously, at this point? I know that it's 'too late' to bother giving all of those songs an English FUNimation-sung version, but honestly? I kind of want one now, just out of principle if nothing else.

If I remember correctly, the international version of Kai's Majin Buu arc had CHA-LA HEAD CHA-LA play once Goku said his goodbyes to everyone and prepared to leave with Uub. Although what bugs me THERE is that FLOW's cover of the song was used.

Call me an 'old hat', but I certainly would have preferred Kageyama-san's OG take on the song play there. I don't suppose anyone's ever made an edit like that, have they?

[MasenkoHA]

Yeah, see? It's SO weird. Ngl, it's part of why I just can't bring myself to care for the Orange Brick redubs from 2005-2009. The fact that they simply used the 'Z' movie theme as its intro, just... no.

It's frustrating because it appears Funimation was slightly inconvenience by Toei and came up with the laziest solution possible. "No Head Cha La/We Gotta Power on the Japanese music track? Well this song Mark Menza made for us in 2002 kind of goes with the animation for Head Cha La and it's the same length so let's use that" Nothing was stoping them for creating English covers from the ground up like they did for Mystical Adventure and Bit by Bit and presumably nothing was stopping them from pulling Head Cha La/We Gotta Power from the Japanese audio (they must have done something like that for the Dragon Boxes at any rate). Dumping a pre-existing song they already made onto the opening was just the easiest route for them, even when if clashes with the other 2 series having proper English covers.

Honestly, the only reason we probably even got covers for the GT opening and ending songs is because all they had was Step into the Grand Tour which was too short and didn't go with the unaltered animation forcing them to put in a minimum amount of effort for GT's Green Brick release

[GhostEmperorX]

Honestly, the only reason we probably even got covers for the GT opening and ending songs is because all they had was Step into the Grand Tour which was too short and didn't go with the unaltered animation forcing them to put in a minimum amount of effort for GT's Green Brick release

If I may digress for a bit, I've been wondering, since Funimation aired the episodes out of order, does that mean that the ones they skipped weren't scored by Menza?

[MasenkoHA]

Honestly, the only reason we probably even got covers for the GT opening and ending songs is because all they had was Step into the Grand Tour which was too short and didn't go with the unaltered animation forcing them to put in a minimum amount of effort for GT's Green Brick release

If I may digress for a bit, I've been wondering, since Funimation aired the episodes out of order, does that mean that the ones they skipped weren't scored by Menza?

All of GT's dub was scored by Mark Menza.

Menza did the music for Z movies 1, 6 (which is where the movie theme used for the remastered dub came from) ,7 , 8 (mixed with recycled Faulconer tracks and licensed rock and metal bands) , 11 and all of Dragon Ball GT.

[GhostEmperorX]

All of GT's dub was scored by Mark Menza.

Menza did the music for Z movies 1, 6 (which is where the movie theme used for the remastered dub came from) ,7 , 8 (mixed with recycled Faulconer tracks and licensed rock and metal bands) , 11 and all of Dragon Ball GT.

I see, I guess that's the only DB series that a Funimation replacement score covered from start to finish.
Would this mean that GT still had to air those "lost episodes" eventually? I wonder what the scoring direction would have been for those ones since it didn't fit their idea for it.

[MasenkoHA]

All of GT's dub was scored by Mark Menza.

Menza did the music for Z movies 1, 6 (which is where the movie theme used for the remastered dub came from) ,7 , 8 (mixed with recycled Faulconer tracks and licensed rock and metal bands) , 11 and all of Dragon Ball GT.

I see, I guess that's the only DB series that a Funimation replacement score covered from start to finish.
Would this mean that GT still had to air those "lost episodes" eventually? I wonder what the scoring direction would have been for those ones since it didn't fit their idea for it.

With one composer yeah. Z had an entire replacement score but its split between Johnson and Team Faulconer and the movies bounced from Menza and Johnson and licensed real bands music with some Faulconer tracks only used for parts of Slug and the first Broly movie.

And yep they started airing "the lost episodes" a week after the finale

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_D ... T_episodes

I don't know if they really gave it much thought. As far as I recall the music for those episodes is the same generic faux metal "something dangerous is gonna happen" music like the rest of the series dub.

[GhostEmperorX]

I don't know if they really gave it much thought. As far as I recall the music for those episodes is the same generic faux metal "something dangerous is gonna happen" music like the rest of the series dub.

It might be that no actual new music was created for those and they opted to simply recycle material from before? It seems likely.