Bruce Faulconer or Shunsuke Kikuchi ?

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Re: Bruce Faulconer or Shunsuke Kikuchi ?

Post by Gaffer Tape » Mon Apr 23, 2018 6:43 pm

MasenkoHA wrote:Shoot I doubt that many people cared when Toonami aired the first 3 movies with the Japanese music intact back in the late 90s.
Exactly. Nobody I knew was bothered by the music then. For my part, it was my first exposure, and I loved it. I didn't know it was the Japanese score. But I did know it left a huge impression on me and got me more excited and emotionally invested than the score used for the episodes. Minor point of correction, though. We only got the original music on movies 2 and 1. Movie 3 aired with the Shuki Levy score.
MasenkoHA wrote:5 years isn't exactly where the previous left off...
That's like saying the 22nd Budoukai doesn't pick up where the previous chapter left off, ie. Goku running around the world in preparation for it. There is certainly a time skip, but it's no different from any other arc-to-arc transition. The last episode had Goku and Chichi getting married and Uranai Baba divining their future. The following week picks up with them in their married life, looking at the future that the last episode hinted at. Chronologically, it's not jumping right back in to the same point in time, obviously, but narratively, the story is picking up right where it left off. If you want to say that doesn't count, I see where you're coming from. But I assume you get the point I'm trying to make, and that's really all that matters.
MasenkoHA wrote:It starts with an alien invader, reveals the main character is an alien, and is structured around an impending alien invasion, and then reveals another character is, in fact, an alien. Thus a demon and God are retconned into being aliens as well. This is then followed by a Kid from a future trying to stop evil cyborgs from creating a dystopian future. One can argue DBZ is where the show definitely trades in its more mythical elements for sci-fi elements. I don't think that means DBZ is throwing away its wuxia influence but there's definitely more of a sci-fi bent than fantasy now.
I'm not denying any of that. In fact, as much as I detest the splitting of the series in two at all, I use those points to defend that, serendipitously, they managed to choose the point in the series that made the most sense to split. And that is pretty amazing. However, the point is in regards to the music, and the idea that there is somehow some big tonal shift that requires "hardcore synth guitar to get me pumped for the big battles." So while there are a lot of retcons from what the characters ARE, the setting and tone of the Saiyan Arc really haven't changed any. And as I said, between the heavenly palaces, the mystical time and space shifting pendulum, the talking animals, and heaven and hell, there's still quite a bit of whimsical mysticism, far more than there are any new sci-fi or space trappings. As for jumping ahead to the Cell Arc, yeah, I'd say it had definitely shifted quite a bit more at that point, with most of the mysticism being hold overs from previously established concepts. But if we're talking music, from another wonderfully serendipitous moment, Kikuchi's scores for the Coola movies actually feature quite a bit more music that really fits in line with mechanical menaces. It really is amazing how well it fits.
MasenkoHA wrote:Other than King Yemma, an American Kid would still pick up on fluffy cloud heaven and hell being down below.
Yes, but there is also ogres in heaven, ogres in hell, a bloody pond, and a mountain of needles very prominently featured. I had almost no exposure to Japanese culture prior to having seen this, and at 12, I very much remember thinking this was clearly a Japanese cultural reference.
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Re: Bruce Faulconer or Shunsuke Kikuchi ?

Post by MasenkoHA » Mon Apr 23, 2018 8:08 pm

Gaffer Tape wrote:
MasenkoHA wrote:Shoot I doubt that many people cared when Toonami aired the first 3 movies with the Japanese music intact back in the late 90s.
Exactly. Nobody I knew was bothered by the music then. For my part, it was my first exposure, and I loved it. I didn't know it was the Japanese score. But I did know it left a huge impression on me and got me more excited and emotionally invested than the score used for the episodes. Minor point of correction, though. We only got the original music on movies 2 and 1. Movie 3 aired with the Shuki Levy score.
I don't think the backlash against the Kikuchi score (or the Japanese music in general) really started until Funimation started to distance themselves from every replacing the soundtrack. I.E Releasing the Dragon Boxes without the option of the dub score, the episodes on FunimationNow and Hulu (when it was on Hulu) being with the Japanese music only. Dragon Ball Kai keeping the Yamamoto score and subsequently the Kikuchi replacement music. #NotMyDragonBallZ

I've seen people say Dragon Ball Z wouldn't have been popular in America without the Faulconer score and that's just such a load of crap to me. Dragon Ball Z made it big in America before the Faulconer score when it was just the Wasserman score for the 53 episodes and Tree of Might and the Kikuchi score for the first two movies. It would continued to have been big if Funimation had opted to just keep the Japanese music intact when they presumed dubbing it in-house. Kids liked the punching and the kicking and the bleeding and the scope of the story.

Shoot people were watching Dragon Ball Super just fine without Faulconer's music. I'm sure there's a small dedicated fanbase that would rather have it but it' s not having a negative impact.

That's like saying the 22nd Budoukai doesn't pick up where the previous chapter left off, ie. Goku running around the world in preparation for it. There is certainly a time skip, but it's no different from any other arc-to-arc transition. The last episode had Goku and Chichi getting married and Uranai Baba divining their future. The following week picks up with them in their married life, looking at the future that the last episode hinted at. Chronologically, it's not jumping right back in to the same point in time, obviously, but narratively, the story is picking up right where it left off. If you want to say that doesn't count, I see where you're coming from. But I assume you get the point I'm trying to make, and that's really all that matters.
Your point is heard and understood :)

Yes, but there is also ogres in heaven, ogres in hell, a bloody pond, and a mountain of needles very prominently featured. I had almost no exposure to Japanese culture prior to having seen this, and at 12, I very much remember thinking this was clearly a Japanese cultural reference.
See other than King Kai himself nothing about its depiction of Heaven and Hell screamed Eastern influence to me as a 6-year old. Shrug.

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Re: Bruce Faulconer or Shunsuke Kikuchi ?

Post by Kunzait_83 » Mon Apr 23, 2018 9:23 pm

ekrolo2 wrote:
Doctor. wrote:
Kunzait_83 wrote:snip
I'm curious. What are your thoughts on Yamamoto's Kai score?
Hates it from what I recall, at least he considers it a massive downgrade from Yamamoto's work on the Budokai games.
Butouden, not Budokai. I'm a massive fan of Yamamoto's work on the Butouden series of games, which I'll go as far as to say is the only other score produced for anything DB related that comes even remotely close to being as iconic and synonymous with the series as Kikuchi's work (to the point where you play just a few random seconds of any given track and your mind will immediately and instantaneously think "Dragon Ball"), and the only other DB score besides Kikuchi and Tokunaga's GT score that I hold as being of considerably distinctive quality.

Budokai's... not so much. Its only got a couple stray tracks here or there that I care for really; most of its fairly unremarkable overall.

As far as Yamamoto's Kai score goes, yeah, its usually just thoroughly unmemorable "generic action/suspense" music that kinda just sits there in the background, and sometimes stoops to downright annoying and grating anytime songs like Dragon Soul get cued up as a motif of some sort. It lends the series much more of a "typical modern Shonen anime" kinda feel: which I get is catnip to a lot of folks here, but is fairly antithetical to someone like myself who likes DB despite being Shonen and not because its Shonen.

Its certainly a fair degree better than Faulconer (or any of the other various FUNimation scores), give it that: but that's an unbelievably low bar to clear in general and is damning with the faintest of praise. Its woefully generic and dull (and plagiarized, but we all know that), but its at the very least professional and competent, rather than the irritating and cringing embarrassment that is Faulconer, Menza, Johnson, etc.
Gaffer Tape wrote:I, too, must echo my perennial confusion at people making the claim "Kikuchi's score fits for DB but not for DBZ." It's a viewpoint that, to me, belies the kind of out of sequence viewing order that most Americans were subjected to in regards to this series. That, in turn, implies a fondness of familiarity as well. They were introduced to DBZ with this type of music, and so they like it, and it fits. Then several years later, they were introduced to DB with the original type of music, so it fit. I'd like to say chances are they probably only paid a passing glance to DB and viewed it as a "silly old DBZ prequel" (which is incorrect in every single word of that phrase) only necessary to fill in backstory, but I'd probably be making too many assumptions at that point.

But part of what leads me to say that is that I find it almost impossible to imagine that someone could watch 153 episodes of Dragon Ball, pop in the next disc for Z 1, and immediately go, "Oh, geez. This music I listened to for 153 episodes that fit perfectly well? It doesn't fit this at all anymore! It needs more synthesized rock guitars!" I mean, Z episode 1 picks up where the previous episode left off. Same characters. Same world. Same animators. Same voice actors. Same story. The only difference is that a man from space shows up. Otherwise, it's 15 minutes of Gohan dicking around in the woods, which in itself is a clear homage to Goku doing the same thing in DB episode 1.

I could almost buy the excuse of the whole outer space thing, but the fact of the matter is, the first big chunk of Z, the Saiyan Arc, has almost no "sci-fi" trappings (you know, aside from Capsules and advanced technology that DB has always had from day one). It has its three villain characters, one scene of Nappa and Vegeta on an alien planet, and two filler episodes out of 35 taking place on an alien planet, one of which is actually just a vision quest. The rest? The same martial arts training stuff you would have gotten prior to this. The same types of battles and violence found in the last major story arc, only now the hero can give himself a red aura. The introduction of a very, very, very Eastern-inspired afterlife so in your face even a 12-year-old American kid could pick up on it.

So, no, I don't buy the idea that Kikuchi fits for DB but DBZ is such a radical departure right out of the gate that it requires a new score. I contend it's familiarity breeding resistance to what you're not used to.
Just want to cosign on every last word of this whole entire post, all of which I think is 1000% right on the money. The last part I bolded I think cuts directly to the heart of the matter.
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Zephyr wrote:And that's to say nothing of how pretty much impossible it is to capture what made the original run of the series so great. I'm in the generation of fans that started with Toonami, so I totally empathize with the feeling of having "missed the party", experiencing disappointment, and wanting to experience it myself. But I can't, that's how life is. Time is a bitch. The party is over. Kageyama, Kikuchi, and Maeda are off the sauce now; Yanami almost OD'd; Yamamoto got arrested; Toriyama's not going to light trash cans on fire and hang from the chandelier anymore. We can't get the band back together, and even if we could, everyone's either old, in poor health, or calmed way the fuck down. Best we're going to get, and are getting, is a party that's almost entirely devoid of the magic that made the original one so awesome that we even want more.
Kamiccolo9 wrote:It grinds my gears that people get "outraged" over any of this stuff. It's a fucking cartoon. If you are that determined to be angry about something, get off the internet and make a stand for something that actually matters.
Rocketman wrote:"Shonen" basically means "stupid sentimental shit" anyway, so it's ok to be anti-shonen.

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Re: Bruce Faulconer or Shunsuke Kikuchi ?

Post by Ripper 30 » Fri May 04, 2018 10:50 am

Kunzait_83 wrote:
Bullza wrote:And even though the show by this point was in the mid 90's, the music sounds that dated that it's like something you would hear in some of those really naff Chinese martial arts movies in the 70's.
Bullza wrote:That sounds like something you would hear in those 70's martial arts movies even though it was a 90's series. It ages the show terribly.
Dragon Ball literally and unequivocally IS one of those cheesy 70s martial arts movies, made as a serial TV anime.

Understand something guys: at a certain point, these kinds of convos can sometimes go beyond just personal preference and delve into just what's correct and incorrect about how the show was originally produced and for what type of audience.

Getting COMPLETELY past the idea of what one personally prefers, lets establish a few things here: the Faulconer score was produced for the express purpose of helping to reinvent the tone and presentation of Dragon Ball Z as an American Action Cartoon along the lines of G.I. Joe, Transformers, Justice League, etc. featuring characters of a superheroic nature fighting supervillains and saving the world every week.

Whether or not you personally prefer that version of the show is irrelevant: that isn't in any way what this show was originally produced to convey or embody in its native form. Dragon Ball, from Pilaf through Boo, was made to embody classic (and yes, decidedly cheesy) Chinese martial arts fantasy films of the 60s, 70s, and 80s in the form of a more longform serialized manga and anime TV series.

Everything from the characters being hermetic weirdos out in the middle of nowhere training to master superhumanly powerful kung fu Chi techniques from ancient Taoist lore, to using those techniques to compete against each other in tournaments and to fight against other rivals and settle old scores or test their skills against despotic tyrannical emperors or ancient demons, to traveling around the afterlife and train with gods and deities from Buddhist lore, all the way down to even the presence of weird sci fi concepts like Hoi Poi Capsules, cyborgs, futuristic cities with hovercrafts, space aliens, and time traveling bio creatures getting into the mix (because lets not forget that sci fi didn't just suddenly come into the picture with Z: its been a part of the series' makeup from the very first chapter onward, and moreover sci fi concepts cropping up in martial arts fantasy is hardly unique or specific to just DB/Z)...

...EVERYTHING you see in DB reflects and represents what kung fu fantasy films of the past several decades - up to and including DB's time in which it was made - were generally doing. There simply IS NO "stark tonal shift" that happens from end of original Dragon Ball to the beginning of DBZ that somehow "justifies" the idea that "Kikuchi may have fit original DB, but definitely didn't fit DBZ": that very notion is largely completely made up by people who are looking for after-the-fact excuses and rationalizations to justify their own initial perceptions of how the series was first presented to them (where the dub for DBZ ran very hard with the whole "hardcore badass superhero action squad" thing while the dub for DB stuck somewhat more closely to the original martial arts theme).

In reality, the WHOLE anime in its Japanese form from DB episode 1 to DBZ episode 291 marks a fairly consistent tone of "whimsically bent Chinese-rooted kung fu fairy tale with equal parts ridiculous slapstick and violent fighting" with a VEEEEERY graaaaaadual bending and tweaking of that tone that occurs to its full completion well long prior to the transition from DB to DBZ.

Whether you like it or not, whether you prefer the "reversioning" of the tone and story/characters done by a company wholly unrelated to the show's creation more than a decade after the fact, it doesn't ultimately matter... what you are ultimately watching is the footage from a show that was originally made as a gigantic love letter to hokey and weird Chinese martial arts fantasy films of the 60s-90s. The Kikuchi score was made in large part to REFLECT that. It not only suits the material, it cannot POSSIBLY be more appropriately befitting of the material in question.

I'd go so far as to argue that one of the net effects of the FUNimation dub's production (the score being a major component in it, along with the heavy script rewrites) was to in some ways alter the very GENRE of what it is that Dragon Ball is representing. Because the types of 90s kids superheroic action cartoons from America are in NO way similar or related in ANY way to the kinds of wuxia films that DB was in actual fact imitating and paying homage to. Shows like Beast Wars or Batman Beyond, and whatever else have you have NOTHING in the way of common ground whatsoever with mystical kung fu movies like Zu Warriors, Duel to the Death, Buddha's Palm, etc. most of which in the case of the latter films are scored MUCH more in the same vein as Kikuchi.

And I'm sorry, but a generalized "action comedy" label to tag DB/Z with is an unbelievably vague and unhelpfully nondescript non-classification that in NO WAY gets at the heart of what DB/Z is ultimately doing: clearly this series is aiming for something MUCH more specific, something that can CLEARLY be seen and pointed to in MOUNTAINS of other similar works.

People can argue that Faulconer's score is much more fitting of a late 90s American action superhero cartoon show, and they'd be correct in making that argument: but this gets COMPLETELY away from the fact that Dragon Ball/Z is in no remote way a late 90s American action superhero show. That's NOT what it was produced as originally and that's NOT the audience it was made for. It was RE-PURPOSED and REWORKED into being that kind of show more than ten years after it was originally finished in Japan.

If you like and prefer that re-purposing of the show, then great, splendid, good for you. No one's trying to take that away from you: but that has NOTHING to do remotely with whether or not the original production score "fit or suit the material". The fact is, it PERFECTLY fits and suits the material AS IT WAS ORIGINALLY CONCEIVED AND INTENDED. It doesn't fit or suit what that material was much later on re-imagined into being by a totally unrelated outside company, which is ultimately the interpretation of the show that dub/Faulconer fans are in love with.

Its fine to prefer that version, and its fine to not like or not give a crap about Chinese martial arts fantasy as a genre: but understand that when you talk about the FUNimation DBZ dub, you are talking about something with VERY different creative intentions for a VERY different type of audience than that of the originally produced show in question that it takes its footage from.

Whether dub and Faulconer fans like it or not, Dragon Ball/Z in its Japanese production is a thoroughly massive pastiche on Chinese martial arts folklore as represented in cheesy kung fu fantasy films for almost an entire century now (literally since the silent film era). The dub, knowing its audience of late 90s/early 2000s American middle school kids wouldn't know nor care about that stuff but WOULD like the surface-level superficiality of a much more generalized cool action show, went to the trouble of drastically retooling the whole package (including particularly the score) and re-inventing it as the next animated equivalent to Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers.

Both the Kikuchi and Faulconer scores perfectly fit both of those drastically opposing and clashing intentions in their respective versions of the series. But understand that what separates those two starkly different intentions and interpretations of this series is that only ONE of those two reflects the original creative intentions and vision of the series' creator/author and the original production team that was actually responsible for writing, drawing, and animating the fucking thing in the first place (and thus giving it life to begin with): and it damn sure isn't Faulconer/FUNimation.

My ultimate point here is: its one thing to personally prefer a later re-invented alternate version of something. Its quite another to then turn around and say "this later reversion is so intrinsically superior that it gets and understands the material way better than the original did" when the very core aims of the two versions are in no way remotely even close to related.

One's a matter of personal preference. The other is just blindingly ignorant and disrespectful towards the material (and moreover, its key creative influences) that MADE THE VERY SHOW YOU LOVE SO MUCH POSSIBLE TO EVEN EXIST IN THE FIRST PLACE.

Without those "naf" Chinese martial arts flicks, you simply wouldn't HAVE any Dragon Ball/Z. In ANY capacity. Period.

Whether or not you enjoy Kikuchi's score as either music unto itself or as a score for what you perceive as your beloved childhood hard rockin' superhero fightfest cartoon is TOTALLY unrelated and irrelevant toward whether or not it "fits" or "suits" the material as it was originally conceived and intended. And no matter how you slice it or dice it, the Kikuchi score, be it "good" or "bad" music unto itself, it could not POSSIBLY be a better fit to suit this anime series' tone in its original intended form.

Saying you prefer Faulconer over Kikuchi is one thing: I vociferously disagree with that of course, but I can respect and engage with that in a reasonable manner as simply a matter of vastly differing tastes. Saying (or even IMPLYING) that Kikuchi (and by extension Toei and possibly even Toriyama himself) somehow didn't "understand" this material and "misjudged" it by giving it the "dated" style of score that they did is something PROFOUNDLY more ridiculous and downright stupid and disrespectful to the core heart and soul of the very work that people here purport to love so much to begin with. Because if that kind of "they misjudged what they were scoring" sentiment should be applied anyone, it'd unquestionably be to FUNimation and to Faulconer Productions above all else.

That Kikuchi makes Dragon Ball/Z sound like an old cheesy martial arts movie is most certainly NOT a bug, and its not even merely a feature: its in direct support of the very reason that this series even exists at all in the first place... that reason being cheesy (and very, VERY old) kung fu fantasy stories based on ancient Chinese myths. Those have a VERY distinct style of film score that has gone with them for the better part of several decades prior to DB's creation: having the anime be made with a similar score is hardly in ANY way ill-fitting to the material.

The only way it might come off as "ill-fitting" to someone is if they simply don't know about, have not seen, and/or just don't care about the kinds of martial arts fantasy films, TV shows, and assorted material that DB is drawing directly from to give it life and its overall direction. Which, lets be honest, this applies to a VAST overwhelming chunk of Dragon Ball's Western audience, both sub AND dub fans alike, who generally comprise people who are FAR more familiar with and fond of the kinds of generalized American kids' action/superhero cartoons that the Faulconer score is trying to help reinvent this series as, and typically have utterly zero experience with or interest in films and television shows that actually represent DB's genre of absurdly over the top Chinese-derived martial arts high fantasy.

This core distinction is literally where just about damn near close to ALL of the discrepancy and conflict between different sects of American DB/Z fandom ultimately comes down to, regardless of whether or not most of them clearly sees and understands it for what it is.
no better person than you to nail all the points about why Kikuchi fits Wuxia-themed DBZ.
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For DBZ Kai and two new Movies I like both Dub and Sub. I Prefer Shunsuke Kikuchi Soundtracks over All other Composers.
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Re: Bruce Faulconer or Shunsuke Kikuchi ?

Post by Hellspawn28 » Tue Jun 05, 2018 4:44 pm

Kikuchi for me since day one. His music feels right at home and I love it since I was 10. The music when I first heard of it had that old Japanese movie feel to it like I have seen in old Godzilla movies. Yeah those two have different music score, but it being more Japanese sound cooler to me as a kid. I know that sounds very weebish, but I could not help that something made outside of Japan to me felt more different and special to me growing up. I was into anime and other Japanese stuff long before I was into Dragon Ball. I watched Godzilla, Gamera, Ultraman, anime on Sci-Fi, Starz and on home video long before I was into Dragon Ball. So Kikuchi's music and feel to it felt right at home to me. I notice most people who grew up with Dragon Ball on Toonami was never expose to other Japanese media. So listing and watching it in Japanese would feel very alien to them.

Faulconer's music never work in my opinion because it misses the point on what Dragon Ball so good in my opinion. You should alter art in my opinion because I feel like the 1984 re-release of Metropolis is a good example of it. In 1984, they took a sci-fi masterpiece from Fritz Lang that was made in the late 1920's and had it be re-adapted and colored to a modern audience done by Giorgio Moroder. It was awful and most people hated it. What Funimation did to Dragon Ball was not much different what they did with Metropolis in 1984 if you ask me. People today still enjoy the original Metropolis with the music from Gottfried Huppertz that he made in the 1920's.

People in America would still enjoy DBZ with it's original soundtrack in the late 90's and early 2000's.
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Re: Bruce Faulconer or Shunsuke Kikuchi ?

Post by JazzMazz » Mon Jun 11, 2018 1:53 am

Bullza wrote:
JazzMazz wrote:As for the scenes you mentioned, more often than not, the positive reception around those tracks usually come from nostalgia. For example, with the SS3 scene, the Faulconer theme is unbelievably generic, and doesn't hold a candle to the tracks used in the Japanese version. In hindsight, the Faulconer track really didn't do anything to improve that scene at all.
Not necessarily, you could say those who prefer the Japanese version are just nostalgic as well. A lot of fans these days would probably experience the Japanese soundtrack first as well because watching the show from Episode 1 that's all there was. The Faulconer score didn't even start until episode 60 something.

That particular scene in the Japanese version is incredibly dull and just depressing to even listen to like many scenes in the show.

Another example if when Gohan pulled out the Z Sword. The Japanese music was absolutely horrendous during that scene but was actually very good with the Faulconer score.
For the SS3 transformation, I think Faulconer completely missed the point, by having it simply be a repetitive tune, looping constantly riff.

It completely did away with the choatic elements of transformations that were prominent throughout the franchise, and replaced it with this fairly dull repetitive tune unbefitting of a scene where Goku is destroying the planet with his power.

As for the Z sword scene, I don't reall see whats wrong with the Kikuchi music choice, nor do I really see how the Faulconer track, which I found pretty unbearable during that scene, was at all superior.

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Re: Bruce Faulconer or Shunsuke Kikuchi ?

Post by Bullza » Mon Jun 11, 2018 3:59 am

JazzMazz wrote:As for the Z sword scene, I don't reall see whats wrong with the Kikuchi music choice, nor do I really see how the Faulconer track, which I found pretty unbearable during that scene, was at all superior.
Same general problem with most of Kikuchi's score, it's dreary and depressing to listen to and sounds Incredibly outdated for the time the episode was actually made.

It's not even remotely fitting that they'd play such a depressing piece of music in a triumphant scene where Supreme Kai has a big smile on his face.

The Faulconer was much more fitting, the track itself was much better and had far more energy to it.

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Re: Bruce Faulconer or Shunsuke Kikuchi ?

Post by IHaveNoUserName » Mon Jun 11, 2018 10:23 am

Bullza wrote:
JazzMazz wrote:As for the Z sword scene, I don't reall see whats wrong with the Kikuchi music choice, nor do I really see how the Faulconer track, which I found pretty unbearable during that scene, was at all superior.
Same general problem with most of Kikuchi's score, it's dreary and depressing to listen to and sounds Incredibly outdated for the time the episode was actually made.

It's not even remotely fitting that they'd play such a depressing piece of music in a triumphant scene where Supreme Kai has a big smile on his face.

The Faulconer was much more fitting, the track itself was much better and had far more energy to it.
It's not that depressing to listen to, his DBZ Movie 1, Movie 2, and Movie 4 tracks can be depressing but you are just over exaggerating
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Re: Bruce Faulconer or Shunsuke Kikuchi ?

Post by Ripper 30 » Wed Jun 13, 2018 5:01 pm

Bullza wrote:
JazzMazz wrote:As for the Z sword scene, I don't reall see whats wrong with the Kikuchi music choice, nor do I really see how the Faulconer track, which I found pretty unbearable during that scene, was at all superior.
Same general problem with most of Kikuchi's score, it's dreary and depressing to listen to and sounds Incredibly outdated for the time the episode was actually made.

It's not even remotely fitting that they'd play such a depressing piece of music in a triumphant scene where Supreme Kai has a big smile on his face.

The Faulconer was much more fitting, the track itself was much better and had far more energy to it.
it's anything but depressing. if anything I find Faulconer's boring synthesizer depressing to the point that i don't even feel the suspense and tension of the show and it felt like watching a Saturday Morning Cartoon but this time more unbearable, Kikuchi despite sounding old has a charm and he knows what Dragon Ball is about and Faulconer was all about hardcore western kids cartoon music and ruined Dragon Ball Z for me atleast, if it made Dragon Ball Z better for United States then that's great for them but for me Kikuchi soundtrack has always been the best.
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Re: Bruce Faulconer or Shunsuke Kikuchi ?

Post by Majin Buu » Fri Aug 17, 2018 10:30 am

Ripper 30 wrote:it's anything but depressing. if anything I find Faulconer's boring synthesizer depressing to the point that i don't even feel the suspense and tension of the show and it felt like watching a Saturday Morning Cartoon but this time more unbearable, Kikuchi despite sounding old has a charm and he knows what Dragon Ball is about and Faulconer was all about hardcore western kids cartoon music and ruined Dragon Ball Z for me atleast, if it made Dragon Ball Z better for United States then that's great for them but for me Kikuchi soundtrack has always been the best.
To bounce off of that, Kikuchi's score is much better at creating ambiance and mood than Faulconer's. Most of the time the Faulconer score feels like it's just trying to sound "cool" (a very dated and lame idea of cool at that); and when it's not, it just kind of becomes background noise. To me, the Faulconer score feels like someone that's trying to get my attention by being as loud and in-your-face as possible because they've got nothing else, with the result being very obnoxious and off-putting.

nosferatu
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Re: Bruce Faulconer or Shunsuke Kikuchi ?

Post by nosferatu » Fri Aug 17, 2018 2:17 pm

Bruce raped dbz. its like you would watch jurassic park without the legendary soundtrack. :lolno: or star wars , lotr and so on.

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JohnnyCashKami
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Re: Bruce Faulconer or Shunsuke Kikuchi ?

Post by JohnnyCashKami » Fri Aug 17, 2018 2:47 pm

Comparing Shunsuke Kikuchi to Faulconer Products is like oranges and apples. You'd be better off making a comparison between Sumitomo vs Faulconer which in this case it'd be a balanced discussion. I completely despise Sumitomo's Kai music on the episodes themselves but as music in itself? I quite like it and he made *some* good tunes for BoG, RF and Super but he'll never be anywhere near as good as Kikuchi, Yamamoto, Tokunaga or the Tenkaichi 2 music team.

Yeah, I know Yamamoto plagiarized musicians but I'd be lying if I said the music he 'remixed' wasn't memorable, catchy and powerful.
nosferatu wrote:Bruce raped dbz. its like you would watch jurassic park without the legendary soundtrack. :lolno: or star wars , lotr and so on.
'Raped' is a bit drastic and it wasn't even just one guy who did the music but rather a team, of like 4 composers. I forget what their names are, to be honest.

Faulconer Productions electronic music was a mixed-bag of moreso crappy songs than actual good ones. The only decent ones I liked were the popular ones like Goku's SSJ3 Theme, Vegeta Theme, Super Boo Theme, DBZ Theme and the likes. Speaking of Super Boo Theme, I think Faulconer Productions plagiarized that but who cares.

nosferatu
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Re: Bruce Faulconer or Shunsuke Kikuchi ?

Post by nosferatu » Fri Aug 17, 2018 2:58 pm

No jusst no, read what i have said you could enjoy any of the movies without their legendary ost ? its the same with dbz. not to mention us was the only one who did this for whatever reason, very disrespectful. No wonder toei doesnt allow anything when it comes to funi. db is a cultural stuff in japan yea lets switch music :lolno: awful and pointless.

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JohnnyCashKami
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Re: Bruce Faulconer or Shunsuke Kikuchi ?

Post by JohnnyCashKami » Fri Aug 17, 2018 4:56 pm

It's that the using the word 'rape' is kind of inappropriate in this context but I get what you're saying. It's like watching Dragon Ball Kai Majin Boo arc with a generic crappy soundtrack (Sumitomo) who resembles nothing the essence of Dragon Ball music so to fix that, a fan had to go out of his way to re-insert the Kikuchi score so to make it bearable for those that couldn't stand it.

As for countries who changed the music in Dragon Ball.. US was one of them, Canada as well and then technically I guess you can include France's old dub which made its own opening while kept the series' music intact. Italy did the same thing but their openings were pretty darn kick ass although a bit too damn long.

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IHaveNoUserName
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Re: Bruce Faulconer or Shunsuke Kikuchi ?

Post by IHaveNoUserName » Fri Aug 17, 2018 6:18 pm

Are you reffering to me when you say "a fan had to go out of his way to re-insert the Kikuchi score so to make it bearable for those that couldn't stand it."?
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JohnnyCashKami
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Re: Bruce Faulconer or Shunsuke Kikuchi ?

Post by JohnnyCashKami » Sat Aug 18, 2018 9:35 am

I misworded (think this is an actual word) that. That line bout 'can't stand' was actually mean though I didn't really do anything in regards to re-adjusting the score on the dub itself. Speaking of so, there was a time when I used to do that but don't anymore these days.

Hopefully I didn't burn that bridge for ya with a comment I misrepresented.

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