But seriously, how did the Falcouner soundtrack even make it to air?

[TKA]

And they aren't interested in money anymore?

Quote me if you ask me a question. Otherwise, I won't know.

They didn't have the money to license music back then, and they certainly didn't have the money to produce some hyper-diverse, cinematic score. That's why the faulconer score exists.

Of course, if you work with certain tools long enough, you become proficient. Faulconer is no different. His score started as background noise, but very quickly became something that greatly enhanced the scenes in which they were placed.

[ABED]

And they aren't interested in money anymore?

Quote me if you ask me a question. Otherwise, I won't know.

They didn't have the money to license music back then, and they certainly didn't have the money to produce some hyper-diverse, cinematic score. That's why the faulconer score exists.

Of course, if you work with certain tools long enough, you become proficient. Faulconer is no different. His score started as background noise, but very quickly became something that greatly enhanced the scenes in which they were placed.

I doubt that to be the case that they didn't have the money. They were very limited but I hear licensing the original score would've been relatively inexpensive. Of course, who is ultimately right is conjecture.

The point I was making was that the decisions they make are always money driven. Is the decision to keep the original score less money driven? I fail to see that that's the case. The difference is that it was the trend back then to change scores to fit what they perceived to be the taste of the American audience.

[SuperCyan2]

And they aren't interested in money anymore?

Quote me if you ask me a question. Otherwise, I won't know.

They didn't have the money to license music back then, and they certainly didn't have the money to produce some hyper-diverse, cinematic score. That's why the faulconer score exists.

Of course, if you work with certain tools long enough, you become proficient. Faulconer is no different. His score started as background noise, but very quickly became something that greatly enhanced the scenes in which they were placed.

I'm skeptical about that. Back in the 90's, AB Groupe sold DB/DBZ/DBGT their French version with the original music to European countries and most of them didn't do a very good job (mediocre script and crappy voice-acting) though they still retained the original score, nonetheless. I'd still go with the sentiment that Saban and Funimation tried to "improve" the music on their English dubs.

The Ocean Dub (Saban/Pioneer dub) of Z Movies 1-3 featured the original Kikuchi score so there really wasn't any point to it. However, Z Movie 3 TV Ver. included a custom soundtrack by Shuki Levy, if I recall correctly.

Plus, what if Saban Entertainment hadn't done it? Would have Funimation used the original music? That's entirely possible.

[Gaffer Tape]

Besides, there's really no reason for Sabat to lie about this.

I didn't say he was lying. I said he wasn't in a position to know firsthand one way or the other, because 1998 is three whole years after they started using replacement scores in Dragon Ball.

And just from an Occam's Razor standpoint, it feels really questionable. It goes against their stated reasoning at the time. It goes against their entire mindset of "reversioning" while also contradicting the fact that they did use the original music in the first three Z movies and then even older footage with DB. And it would have been all too convenient a line to throw out back in the '90s to take heat off of them. But they never did? That makes zero sense.

[ABED]

With the first three movies, I don't know how much was determined by funimation and how much was Pioneer. Given that they are short movies and not the series proper, perhaps they were testing the waters.

[Gaffer Tape]

With the first three movies, I don't know how much was determined by funimation and how much was Pioneer. Given that they are short movies and not the series proper, perhaps they were testing the waters.

That's my point, though. That explanation makes perfect sense when paired with the accepted line of, "This is simply the way FUNimation wanted to do things." Once it was in the hands of Pioneer, all bets were off. But if the reasoning changes to, "We literally couldn't use the original score because we didn't have usable content," then that explanation no longer makes sense.

[TKA]

The point I was making was that the decisions they make are always money driven. Is the decision to keep the original score less money driven? I fail to see that that's the case. The difference is that it was the trend back then to change scores to fit what they perceived to be the taste of the American audience.

Your premise ignores all context.

In the context of the time, they put the money they had to the absolute necessities. Now they have the money to pay for the music, so they don't change it. It's that simple.

The idea that they were following "trends" is a dubious one, and an idea I don't care much for. Dubious because trends in the 90s was rock music, but Faulconer's score isn't rock by any stretch of the imagination. I don't care for it because it inherently has a negative connotation associated with it that I feel detracts from the end product, which is that the Faulconer score was good.

But I digress. There's really not many places to take this discussion beyond "I like it/I don't like it."

[Robo4900]

I didn't say he was lying. I said he wasn't in a position to know firsthand one way or the other, because 1998 is three whole years after they started using replacement scores in Dragon Ball.

And just from an Occam's Razor standpoint, it feels really questionable. It goes against their stated reasoning at the time. It goes against their entire mindset of "reversioning" while also contradicting the fact that they did use the original music in the first three Z movies and then even older footage with DB. And it would have been all too convenient a line to throw out back in the '90s to take heat off of them. But they never did? That makes zero sense.

Well, as I said, I think when Sabat said it, he probably just meant the first several episodes from when they came back in '99.
Anyway, you say you're not saying he's lying, but you're saying what he said wasn't true?

My whole point here is that my interpretation of what Sabat said is that he was referring to the choice to use Faulconer in 1999. In '97 and earlier for the TV dubs they'd previously produced, it was a standard industry thing, but in '99, times were changing, but whether they wanted to continue down that route or not, the score was unusable, so they had no choice but to bring a new score in for Z in 1999.

Of course, it is possible all that happened was that this was something he was told about their prior use of a replacement score, and they'd just stuck to that, but I don't really buy that...
In any case, regardless of whether or not you believe it, Sabat said it in the interview, so unless something can be found that contradicts what he said, I don't think there's any reason to believe he was wrong.

Here's the part of Geekdom's interview where he talks about it. Note that he mentions the hissing part first, which says something, I think. He does mention several reasons why they rescored the show, but I think it is worth noting that he said the thing about the hissing first.

Look, say what you will, but obviously somebody took pride in those tracks because that was their work of art. There's a member on here that worked on it (and posted an interview with two other musicians for that series). It's honestly subjective, I choose to try to be unbiased toward it, and at the end of that day, there's nothing particularly bad about a lot of it. It had limitations, and it happened to land on something that had an original score. But otherwise, to trash it so hard, is just (to be honest) annoying. It's such an easy target that I've seen being bashed for years and years. This topic, quite frankly, has been beaten to death and when someone says, "No! It doesn't belong there! It's garbage!" and refuses to budge on the various reasons for why it was what it was, well, there's not much of a discussion to be had.

This. This very much.
I personally am not a huge fan of the Faulconer score in the context of the show itself, but it has some awesome tracks, and I've always thought it was perfect in the Legacy Of Goku games. And the thing is, it's not a bad soundtrack by any means, and tons of people have a lot of love for it, particularly those who grew up with it, and bashing those people for liking something from their childhood is rather petty, especially now that we have the uncut DVDs and such out, so you can watch in Japanese, or in English with the Japanese score, or in English with the US score... People really need to just calm down about this.

[ABED]

The point I was making was that the decisions they make are always money driven. Is the decision to keep the original score less money driven? I fail to see that that's the case. The difference is that it was the trend back then to change scores to fit what they perceived to be the taste of the American audience.

Your premise ignores all context.

In the context of the time, they put the money they had to the absolute necessities. Now they have the money to pay for the music, so they don't change it. It's that simple.

The idea that they were following "trends" is a dubious one, and an idea I don't care much for. Dubious because trends in the 90s was rock music, but Faulconer's score isn't rock by any stretch of the imagination. I don't care for it because it inherently has a negative connotation associated with it that I feel detracts from the end product, which is that the Faulconer score was good.

But I digress. There's really not many places to take this discussion beyond "I like it/I don't like it."

They've gone on the record saying that it was an industry standard to change the music. And it's not "that simple". Plenty of other companies at the time changed the music. Even when Funimation had the money, they still changed the music for GT. And why put quotes around trend?

I find it ridiculous that they have enough capital to buy everything EXCEPT for the music. That's awfully convenient.

[Gaffer Tape]

Anyway, you say you're not saying he's lying, but you're saying what he said wasn't true?

Well, yes. There are plenty of ways people can disseminate false information with honest intent without lying. I mean, geez, I can think of another Chris Sabat example where that is the case. From Kanzenshuu's own Intended Endings Guide:

Shortly after the original draft of this guide was written, animator and voiceover artist Christopher Niosi, known by his online handle “Kirbopher”, noted that he had lunch with FUNimation voice actor Chris Sabat at AnimeMilwaukee, where Sabat told him a story about having met Toriyama at a promotional event for the American release of Shonen Jump. According to Sabat, Toriyama said (presumably via an interpreter) that he “originally wanted to end it with Freeza”. The event Sabat spoke of was almost certainly the launch celebration for Viz’s Shonen Jump that was held in New York City, which both Sabat and Toriyama attended. Here is the intro to the Q&A from page 172 of Viz’s domestic Shonen Jump #3:

...

Question:
Will you create more Dragon Ball Z stories?

Answer:
I worked on the series for almost 10 years. When I reached about the third year, I was really pushing my limit, but the original editors of “Weekly Shōnen Jump” in Japan made me continue the story. I have to thank them, because it was then that I really started to appreciate and enjoy creating the manga. I was able to continue for ten years, but ten years really was the limit.

So there you have it: nothing about Freeza at all. It is possible that when Sabat heard Toriyama’s comment about being made to continue the series during its third year, he assumed that by “the third year”, Toriyama meant the Freeza storyline. As pointed out before, however, the Freeza arc actually wrapped up in the 7th year of Dragon Ball‘s run, so it’s pretty unlikely that it’s the period Toriyama was talking about. Of course, I doubt Sabat travels around with a complete timeline of Dragon Ball‘s serialization, so we cannot exactly fault him for not realizing that. In fact, the Freeza arc did end in about the third year of the “Z” portion of the manga, so perhaps that is what Sabat was thinking of. It is an easy mistake to make, since the question was about whether Toriyama would create more “Dragon Ball Z” stories, but in his answer Toriyama is definitely talking about the entire run of the manga (since he mentions working on it for “almost 10 years” rather than seven, the length of the “Z” portion).

And this is not to pick on Sabat or claim he is inherently unreliable. It was just too perfect not to use another Sabat example to explain how misinformation can fly around, even when it's not intended to be so. People make mistakes. People misremember. People genuinely believe false information they're told. It happens.

In any case, regardless of whether or not you believe it, Sabat said it in the interview, so unless something can be found that contradicts what he said, I don't think there's any reason to believe he was wrong

I mean, there are all the other interviews over the years with FUNimation employees and composers where they talk about the kind of direction they wanted to take the show. There's their own marketing, even years after 1999, that hype that as a main motivating factor, lest you forget about "You Don't Know GT." And then there are the examples both before and after 1999 where it's clear they DID have access to the Japanese score. I'm not saying it's not impossible, but it requires quite a few mental gymnastics to get to that point. "Oh, they didn't use the score because they didn't have access to it... except for here, and here, and here, and pretty much conveniently every instance where FUNimation was either not in control or weren't trying to push the 'hardcore American cartoon' angle. Oh, and they also had access to the entire sound effects library in perfectly usable quality."

And if we are just talking about 1999, well, the script was at least as loosely translated and punched up in a lot of places as it had been in the previous two seasons. There's just really no evidence to suggest they were at this crossroads in 1999 where they were genuinely interested in making the show more accurate to its source material. If anything, they were at their most confident point that Z needed this.

[Kunzait_83]

No, no, I completely understand. But there's a difference between not liking it and claiming that it never should have happened. I feel like the Faulconer score and script rewrites get this label of "it never should have happened" more than the opinion that it was bad. I think that a lot of people pre-judge things like the Faulconer score because they know it doesn't belong there. But what I was trying to allude to, is that it's not about whether it belonged there or not, it shouldn't be judged that way. And the reason for it not needing to be judged that way, is because it was standard operating procedure back in the day. That was me getting the generalization out of the way.

This has grown over the years to become a MASSIVE pet peeve of mine.

What you're describing here was standard "operating procedure" only for anime dubs that aired on netowrk children's television. However, that is NOT the sole lone venue for which anime was distributed in America, going all the way back to the mid 1980s. This is a COLOSSALLY important point that virtually EVERYONE on this community totally ignores and is otherwise seemingly perpetually ignorant of: during the 80s and 90s anime wasn't SOLELY something that was hacked up, over-localized, censored, and drastically reworked for syndicated children's Saturday Morning television for an audience of kids who didn't know what anime was at all.

There was also at the same time a TOTALLY SEPARATE arm of anime licensing companies who distributed titles straight to video, uncensored, uncut, with VERY faithful dubs (albeit of very iffy quality in terms of voice acting usually) as well as just straight up subbed releases side by side with them. Companies like Streamline, AnimEigo, U.S. Renditions, Central Park Media, Viz, ADV, etc. These companies were NOTHING AT ALL like companies such as Harmony Gold, Saban, earlier FUNimation, 4Kids, etc. They catered to a COMPLETELY DIFFERENT and MUCH older audience, an audience who was already "in the know" about what anime was, its Japanese nature, etc.

This is a MASSIVE overarching issue that I've long had now with this community: there's this INCREDIBLY insular attitude and belief around here in general that all of the North American anime industry throughout the 1980s and 90s consisted SOLELY of the "edited for kids' television" end of the equation while demonstrating a TOTAL and complete ignorance to acknowledging the existence of the "straight to video, unedited, bi-lingual, for older savvy anime fans" and instead incorrectly, insistently, and infuriatingly maintain - even all these many years later and with TONS of evidence more than readily available to debunk this false assumption - that almost NO ONE in North America knew what anime was and that the kids who got into Pokemon and saw DBZ on Toonami in 1999 were the very first ever generation of fans who "discovered" anime's Japanese nature and thus ushered in an era of uncut, bi-lingual releases as the new norm.

This is 10000% false. Anime was PLENTY well known to COUNTLESS older fans going back to the late 1970s. There's been an industry and market for licensing uncut, un-bastardized, un-Americanized anime straight to VHS (and later DVD) in bi-lingual formats aimed at an older audience of people who already were well acquainted with what anime was going back to the mid 1980s (and would also even sometimes get aired on TV, albeit on channels and programming blocks aimed at adults rather than children).

Dragon Ball, as would be expected of ANY title of its stature and notoriety among anime fans from back then, was a holy grail acquisition to almost ANY company interested in distributing anime back then. Due to a variety of economic factors though (that are too in-depth for me to quickly summarize here) it took some time before it was seen as something that could be workable within the framework of the straight to video end of the anime market: but by the mid-90s, a number of licensing companies from the "hardcore" market were interested and in talks to get the rights for it, including U.S. Renditions and... Pioneer. The latter of whom ended up, almost as a consolation prize of sorts, with the distribution rights for the VHS and DVD releases during the Saban produced era, as well as dubbing for the first 3 DBZ movies (which is out one and only preview into an alternate reality where Pioneer were the stewards for the series U.S. license in its entirety up front, without FUNimation or Saban's influence).

What ended up happening was, FUNimation, a total shitsplat of a nobody little company... scooped up the rights under everyone else's noses, purely and solely because Gen Fukanaga had an uncle working over at Toei in Japan. And because his crappy little nothing of a studio otherwise had no money and no professional production experience, they partnered themselves up with Saban - who themselves of course were clearly no strangers to hacking up Japanese shows for U.S. kids' TV consumption - for the early run of the series (where the Ocean cast was originally used: a professional group that they no doubt were given access to via Saban's connections) in order to be able to get this dub produced with at least some small semblance of professional polish: which you'll note went straight out the window as soon as they ditched Saban and wen all in-house on their own.

In other words, if not for pure and shameless nepotism, its almost OVERWHELMINGLY likely that DB/Z would've been most DEFINITELY licensed by any number of these other companies and been released straight to video, un-Westernized, bi-lingual, and with a MUCH more faithful dub up front, alongside heaptons of other anime that had been filling and selling off of video store shelves for well over a decade prior to that.

So yes, the treatment that DB/Z had gotten under FUNimation WAS indeed completely and thoroughly pointless, because DB didn't HAVE to come to America through the route of being a hatchet job dub for syndicated kids' TV in the first place. It easily could've been brought here straight to video and would've very likely done more than fine in that venue (as countless other anime franchises already were for so many years prior to that).

Granted that also means its VERY likely that it also never would've wound up on Cartoon Network at all, and thus a whole LOT of you posting here today never would've heard of or gotten into it. From my personal perspective though, as a pre-dub/fansub era fan who'd been following anime (both via fansubs and moreover through these officially licensed VHS releases) since the late 1980s, this scenario would've been FAR more preferable for me since all that would've happened was DB/Z would've been put out on video, no different than any other anime of the time from that end of things, I'd have just casually collected it over the however many few years it'd have taken to get released in its entirety, and that'd be the end of things. No muss, no fuss, no batshit pointless drama. And I wouldn't have been the only one spared all this nonsense either.

Point being, the reason that so many people say that "this never should've happened to DB/Z" is because... this all could've EASILY been avoided up front back in 1995/1996. The only reason it wasn't was because Gen Fukanaga had family connections to pull strings for him and his shitty little studio. People who defend this crap are, unwittingly and unknowingly, bending themselves over backwards to defend toxic corporatism primarily in the name of justifying their own personal nostalgia for an otherwise indefensibly substandard product that is both purposefully insulting to the intelligence of its audience and was clearly the byproduct of incredibly cynical and cutthroat business practices.

[VegettoEX]

Just a little extra mention/plug for something, since I love that we have this:

Yes, it was a surprise that FUNimation suddenly had the license, and that was not what people were expecting in 1995.

[Kunzait_83]

Well I mean... yeah. Literally NO ONE knew who in the atomic powered fucking hell FUNimation was in 1995. They were complete and utter nobodies.

Like I said before, at that point in time it was seen as far more likely that if anyone was gonna get the DB/Z license it'd be someone like U.S. Renditions or Pioneer. Companies who did legit anime dub/sub releases for the video market for an audience of actual anime fans who already knew what they were in for up front rather than clueless kids just mindlessly gobbling down whatever cartoons were in front of them on TV.

[ABED]

Well I mean... yeah. Literally NO ONE knew who in the atomic powered fucking hell FUNimation was in 1995. They were complete and utter nobodies.

Like I said before, at that point in time it was seen as far more likely that if anyone was gonna get the DB/Z license it'd be someone like U.S. Renditions or Pioneer. Companies who did legit anime dub/sub releases for the video market for an audience of actual anime fans who already knew what they were in for up front rather than clueless kids just mindlessly gobbling down whatever cartoons were in front of them on TV.

And DB should've been targeted at a niche audience?

bending themselves over backwards to defend toxic corporatism

Toxic corporatism? Jesus, it's just a cartoon. One I like, but while I don't like what they did, it's hardly a crime.

[Kunzait_83]

And DB should've been targeted at a niche audience?

I mean, the anime audience back then was technically still considered a "niche"... but it wasn't exactly a SMALL of even remotely "hidden" niche either. Especially by '95. It had been steadily growing and growing and growing and growing and groooooowing since more than a decade prior. In the late 70s and early 80s anime was GENUINELY obscure-obscure. But by the early to mid 90s, the line between "mainstream" and "niche" was suitably blurred for anime by that point.

By the mid-90s, Roger Ebert was writing articles about anime on an almost routine basis. Anime references were showing up in mainstream Hollywood movies and major MTV music videos. Major directors from Quentin Tarantino to Steven Spielberg were publicly and openly discussing the influence of Japanese anime on their work. You could literally walk into ANY video store, be it a mom & pop local joint or a major retail chain, and the once-tiny "Japanimation" section had by then grown to encompass a MASSIVE chunk of the store, and one that drew substantial crowds around it.

People bought Guyver models and displayed them next to their Compaq IBMs, both at home and in their offices or dorm rooms. Project A-Ko VHS tapes and Gunsmith Cats manga from Dark Horse were increasingly common sights being passed around in middle school classrooms. Vampire Hunter D was a midnight movie staple on most horror and B-movie-focused channels. MTV's popular Liquid Television block devoted huge chunks of itself to anime films and shorts. Robot Carnival, Dominion Tank Police, and Venus Wars were in constant regular rotation on Sci Fi channel every single Saturday. Iria, Yotoden, and the Street Fighter II anime were getting advertised in the middle of the day on regular network TV channels.

You couldn't open up a gaming magazine without seeing a gigantic ad for Viz's Ranma manga and VHS tapes starting you in the face every other page. Skater kids wearing t-shirts of everything from Bubblegum Crisis to Dirty Pair started becoming almost ubiquitous if you lived in any kind of urban area. Major bands like Sonic Youth began using anime iconography in a bunch of their concert flyers and promo material.

Live action american film adaptations of anime were starting to come about (albeit granted in fairly low budget, straight to video or cable Z-movie form, but still). Manga was taking up massive amounts of real estate next to American comics in virtually every comic book store out there. Ninja Scroll and Ghost in the shell were top selling VHS tapes nationwide. Dragon Ball fansubs were SO popular and had proliferated so heavily (relative against even the other very biggest fansubbed anime), that regular retail stores in some areas began hanging up Japanese ads for DB stuff coming out in Japan that were meant to attract the attention of people who were following the fansubs.

SOMEONE out there was buying this shit, and in fairly sizable droves. And all that isn't even TOUCHING the utterly insane impact that Akira had all by its lonesome.

This stuff wasn't exactly hiding out on anybody back then. It just wasn't fixating itself primarily on an audience of small children is the thing. And that's ultimately the real root of the disconnect on this topic within community's like this one. This community's continued insistence that anime was this totally invisible, hyper-underground thing that was hidden away from the entire world as late in as 1997 speaks far, far, FAR more to the average millennial anime fan's sheltered insulation from wider media as children back then than it ever comes close to noting a smidgen of accuracy as to what the landscape ACTUALLY looked like back then to everyone else.

Which is why I note that most people who post on forum's like this likely wouldn't have gotten into it had it not aired on Toonami: this community has gone well far out of its way over the years to hammer home time and time again that most people posting here had ZERO clue what ANYTHING was as children, no matter how otherwise mainstream or easy to come across out in the wilds, unless it was directly spoonfed to them via a kids' cartoon channel like Nickelodeon, Cartoon Network, etc. Which I maintain is a hallmark of how abnormal THEY'RE range of experience at the time was rather than that of the REST of the mainstream or nerd culture was of the time.

Would Dragon Ball have gotten AS ubiquitously, in-your-face MONOLITHIC had it gone the straight to video route rather than the kids' TV route? Probably not, no... however that being said:

A) It still likely would've done more than handily well for itself amongst a different audience, all things considered, and would in all likelihood hardly be any more invisible or harder to come across than any other major marquee anime title like Ghost in the Shell or Akira or Ranma or Evangelion were back then. We'd ultimately be arguing semantically over the DEGREES to which DB would've gotten big. But any way you slice it, it was ALWAYS gonna blow up within ANY venue that it invaded.

And B) Would it honestly be THAT much of a tragedy if DB "merely" rose to the level of "insane cult smash hit" as opposed to "towering children's phenomenon"? What exactly would be so bad about DB being less the equivalent of a TMNT or Power Rangers-esque kids phenomenon and more of a quasi-cult-ish hit along roughly the same lines of visibility and notoriety as something like... I dunno, maybe Evil Dead or Aeon Flux? What exactly would anyone be robbed of by having one LESS obnoxiously in-your-face toy-shilling siren call for truckloads of shrieking, sugar-rushed kids floating out there alongside the Transformers and Ben 10's of the world?

Must EVERYTHING, including DB, be inherently obligated to be "THE SINGLE BIGGEST THING IN THE UNIVERSE" as opposed to just simply settling for "pretty fucking noteworthy and well loved among its relatively large audience"?

Toxic corporatism? Jesus, it's just a cartoon. One I like, but while I don't like what they did, it's hardly a crime.

I don't consider what happened to DB to be a "crime" or the biggest tragedy that ever was, no. I mean obviously not even vaguely close. But that being said: nepotism, or cronyism of any sort, in and of itself is generally a very toxic and damaging business practice. We're lucky that in the case of FUNimation the stakes were merely that of a weird Japanese cartoon, so while its annoying to an average fan what happened, ultimately its no skin off of anyone's nose in a more widespread or serious context, obviously.

But in PLENTY of other areas of business (politics, economics, etc) nepotism and cronyism does SIGNIFICANTLY more damage to the world and to people's lives. It's part of a culture within business and business practices that most definitely IS inherently toxic and should be disparaged and shunned no matter what, in all areas of profession.

Its good that in the case of FUNimation the stakes were so low as to only effect the ultimate fate of a silly cartoon show. But in plenty of other realms of business, the consequences of this type of thing tends to be FAR more serious and grave. I'm not in favor of giving it a pass in ANY venue on principal alone. Be it within positions for Wall Street banking, political appointments, and yes, even within entertainment.

Put it this way: almost nothing has ever benefited positively for someone being selected to do a job based not on their qualifications, but on who they personally know and who they're related to. Especially when that person is otherwise obviously EXTREMELY unfit or unqualified to do said particular job.

[ABED]

I know the market for anime was growing back then

If DB had gone DTV, there is a good chance that not all of it would've been released. Christ, has Lupin III gotten a good consistent and uninterrupted release for some of the longer series? It's movies have been licensed by several different companies. I like DB and it has been nice to get an easily findable and affordable release of the show. Granted, DBZ's release keeps getting screwed with, but I have the DBoxes and I don't think I would've ever gotten that had the market (not even the niche market) been large enough to make even a release aimed at hardcore fans viable, even if only for a limited time.

Of the examples you can think of, how many shows can you name that have 500+ episodes and about 20 movies and TV specials? What are the chances of us getting those all released? Ghost in the Shell isn't a good example, it's not nearly as long. I've never seen it, but isn't it only one movie?

You don't have warn me of the issues with cronyism and nepotism, but despite the broader concept, I think FUNi has become quite professional over the years, despite their less than ideal beginnings.

[Kunzait_83]

Of the examples you can think of, how many shows can you name that have 500+ episodes and about 20 movies and TV specials? What are the chances of us getting those all released?

Ranma 1/2, Urusei Yatsura, Kimagure Orange Road, and City Hunter, to name just a few offhand were longer series (with many dozens of films and OVAs and TV series that go well into the hundred episode range) that ended up getting released here in their complete entirety, without so much as a microsecond's worth of exposure on television. To say nothing of the fifteen gajillion different Tenchi Muyo series that all ended up released here (albeit those did make it to TV, even well prior to Toonami). By that same token, Lupin has struggled with getting its full series released here despite a surprising degree of exposure and popularity on Cartoon Network during the apex of the Toonami years. So that shows you just how relative these things are.

Thing is though: Dragon Ball is MUCH bigger than just about ANY of those (maybe Lupin aside). It isn't just any garden variety anime series: historically speaking, everywhere it goes it tends to leave a seismic impact in its wake. I have VERY little doubt that most of the bigger licensing companies from back then wouldn't have had very much trouble at all getting it all out there. Especially if it was Pioneer at that point. Hell, the fact that it STILL got so big here and took off the way it did even DESPITE all of the insanely unprofessional and cringe-worthy things done to it (things that likely would have sunken almost ANYTHING else) is kind of a testament to how difficult it is to keep people away from it once its out there.

The ultimate point being: the screwed up route that it ultimately it ended up coming here by wasn't strictly speaking necessary or "the only way" it could've all gotten here as so many people keep insisting. And while you or I may know this isn't the case, a large part of the reason for that repeated insistence around here is due to this otherwise stubbornly held to and incorrect view within communities like this one that the U.S. anime market was totally and utterly non-existent outside of syndicated kids' TV prior to 1999. Which is demonstrably and more than easily verifiably untrue.

Plus I cannot help but sense a (however unconscious/subconscious) unspoken connection between the so strongly held to notion that "DB only could've gotten big in America through a kids' cartoon block on TV" and the fact that there are so many people on here (particularly among those who make that argument so vehemently) who seem to have, by their own repeated accounts time after time over the years, primarily if not in some cases SOLELY gotten almost ALL of their pop culture exposure through kids' cartoon blocks on TV back in the 90s and early 2000s, and little else besides.

A lot of the wrongheaded thinking and incorrect assumptions made on topics like this seem to stem from a lot of people here who had (once again, by their own accounts) fairly insulated childhoods and are thus now simply projecting that sheltered childhood experience out onto their view of the wider culture from back then. "I didn't know about this before at that time, therefore nobody else did or could have."

Its a narrow-minded, insular, at times almost seemingly narcissistic (none of this ever mattered to anyone else until WE first discovered it as kids!) way of coming at these things, and it breeds a self-perpetuating sense of ignorance about even VERY basic history of anime and manga within North America: history which is kind of integral to understanding the broader context about DB's own history within North America, a history which well predates FUNimation's involvement.

[ABED]

I have VERY little doubt that most of the bigger licensing companies from back then wouldn't have had very much trouble at all getting it all out there. Especially if it was Pioneer at that point.

I was actually going to make the same point. I have little doubt that another company would've picked it up and as long as they got it to air, regardless of what they did, the show would've been a success.

I want it to be clear that I wasn't arguing that FUNi was the reason for DB being a success in the US. None of the changes were necessary, with the exception of editing to make it suitable for broadcasting to US children. However, outright changes to the story and the music wouldn't have stopped DB's drawing power. Ultimately it is a kids' cartoon even if what is deemed acceptable to kids of the same age in Japan and America are different. Kai's nicktoons broadcast edits were tolerable and infinitely better than what we got 15-20 years ago.

While you may disagree, I like that DB became huge in the states. There are those that despite growing up with uninformed views about the story, might end up learning about the actual story later on.

[linkdude20002001]

In the context of the time, they put the money they had to the absolute necessities. Now they have the money to pay for the music, so they don't change it. It's that simple.

I thot part of why Funimation had their own score written was so that they would get money on royalties from the show airing on TV with their soundtrack. I don't know much about music royalties, tho.

Just a little extra mention/plug for something, since I love that we have this:

Yes, it was a surprise that FUNimation suddenly had the license, and that was not what people were expecting in 1995.

Re-reading that, I only just realized... We ALMOST got the first Super Gokuh-Den game! It had just come out when that magazine was published, and it was the only non-Z Dragon Ball game for the Super NES, so that has to have been it. Oh, man... That would have been cool...

[Danfun64]

My whole point here is that my interpretation of what Sabat said is that he was referring to the choice to use Faulconer in 1999. In '97 and earlier for the TV dubs they'd previously produced, it was a standard industry thing, but in '99, times were changing, but whether they wanted to continue down that route or not, the score was unusable, so they had no choice but to bring a new score in for Z in 1999.

Of course, it is possible all that happened was that this was something he was told about their prior use of a replacement score, and they'd just stuck to that, but I don't really buy that...
In any case, regardless of whether or not you believe it, Sabat said it in the interview, so unless something can be found that contradicts what he said, I don't think there's any reason to believe he was wrong.

The Post-Saban episodes of the Hindi DBZ dub (which used the edited Funi masters IIRC. Definitely use Funi masters prepared for TV, as it uses Funi NEPs) use Kikuchi, and they even (surprisingly and unfortunately, yet perhaps not unexpectedly) fill in the silence using other Kikuchi tunes, some unreleased (again IIRC).