Dragon Ball Kai Devolution With Kikuchi's Music

[dbboxkaifan]

For a very long time I was a huge Shunsuke Kikuchi fan of the original Dragon Ball Z music, but as Dragon Ball Kai got its authentic music replaced with an extremely limited soundtrack of DBZ things in a way degraded.

Dragon Ball Kai lost its original soundtrack, the cinematic feeling, the newish experience and now DBK with Kikuchi it's just bland and generic, I really wish Toei Animation could've somehow delayed the Yamamoto scandal until all Japanese Kai home releases were published and the eight parts of Kai too (Okay, Season Sets too).

The Kai scene of Vejita Final Flash it uses the same exact BGM as in Dragon Ball Z, it's nice Nagasaki used the original DBZ placement but for Kai, in my humble opinion, it didn't work too well to gather the cinematic feeling as Victory Blow did.

I myself stopped watching Dragon Ball Kai with Kenji Yamamoto's music as the DBZ Kai Parts 5-8 only featured Shunsuke Kikuchi's score, so I've definitely lost out on all that Yamamoto awesomeness.

Dragon Ball Kai - Comparison - Vejita's Final Flash
Kenji Yamamoto: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=79nNUMQtsuw
Shunsuke Kikuchi: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lJ9TFe8-sAo

[SRB2Unleashed]

I can bare Kikuchi but I do prefer Yamamoto.
There's always the Yamamoto rescored episodes online.

I'm personally rescoring it for the Boys and Girls Club this summer for the Toonanza thing we're doing

[BluezaBladeNZ]

I could only watch around 6-7 episodes with the Kikuchi replacement score before getting put off it. So instead of just putting up with it, I decided to completely rebuild the Yamamoto score myself and have done up to Part 6 now.

[Gonstead]

I remember watching halfway into Part 5 and getting pretty bored of the limited music placement.

It's especially bad when you're one of us from down here in AUS and NZ where Part 4 is Kikuchi-fied instead of Yamamoto.

[dbret12]

Gonna miss the Yamamoto music, but he did plagiarise other artists though. Well, at least the voice acting in dub Kai is good. But it's nice that dbzkaimusicrevival is doing those projects in reviving Yamamoto, Kikuchi and Faulconer tracks on his/her YouTube account. Don't know what gender the person is.

[Aoi]

Even though it's not officially available, there is a major project to re-insert it into the English dub. Also Kai with all Yamamoto is very easy to find online. Most anime streaming sites carry DB Kai with Yamamoto. You'd just have to download the Cell saga from those (ripping them from their sources). I've played 1-2 eps on my tv (hooked up to lap top) and it looks great.

[Codarik]

I always liked Kikuchi's music, when the Kai music switch happened and Kikuchi's music was put in, with a very limited amount of tracks, hearing those same tracks over and over again has made me slowly start to dislike Kikuchi's music. But yeah, Kai was much better with Yamamoto's music.

[Gozar]

As a fan of the Dub, I don't particularly mind the limited tracks. I feel that with the Kikuchi music in Kai along with the more faithful Dub, I'm getting a more authentic DBZ experience with the cast that I enjoy the most.

[SuperSaiyanHedgehog]

Check my signature. You may like what you find.

[kei17]

I was against the new score from the beginning because Dragon Ball without the Kikuchi score is as dumb as 007 without the James Bond theme or Star Wars without John Williams' score, so I'm basically happy with the Yamamoto score being completely gone. It's disappointing that some people began underrating the Kikuchi itself due to the limited music placement, though.

[Black_Liger]

I was against the new score from the beginning because Dragon Ball without the Kikuchi score is as dumb as 007 without the James Bond theme or Star Wars without John Williams' score, so I'm basically happy with the Yamamoto score being completely gone. It's disappointing that some people began underrating the Kikuchi itself due to the limited music placement, though.

WELL, now that you put it like that (John Williams FTW) I can really understand where you're coming from. but well, it's a real shame kikuchi can't compose for db anymore, I would really be looking forward for him to score db with a full orchestra.

[Kojiro Sasaki]

I was against the new score from the beginning because Dragon Ball without the Kikuchi score is as dumb as 007 without the James Bond theme or Star Wars without John Williams' score, so I'm basically happy with the Yamamoto score being completely gone.

I was just about to write exactly the same thing (with James Bond and Star Wars as an example )

but well, it's a real shame kikuchi can't compose for db anymore, I would really be looking forward for him to score db with a full orchestra.

The real shame is that they didn't use the entire music archive and that they didn't hire Shigeru Miyashita as an advisor. They should go with the original chronology + little improvements like concentrating mostly on DBZ/DBZ movies music, because some of the A-J - M600 pieces that were originally used in Dragon Ball Z sound too Dragon Ball-ish and they do not fit to the new "atmosphere" of the series. For example: M100's on Namek. This series was dedicated to Red Ribbon saga and that's what it reminds me of. The same goes for movies 6,7,8 etc. scores in Saiyan saga - it sounds strange and completely out of place for an original series fan.

But Dragon Ball fanbase does not want anything better, so we shouldn't blame the company for doing what they did. Statistically speaking: quality of the product = quality of the consumers.

[Black_Liger]

The real shame is that they didn't use the entire music archive and that they didn't hire Shigeru Miyashita as an advisor. They should go with the original chronology + little improvements like concentrating mostly on DBZ/DBZ movies music, because some of the A-J - M600 pieces that were originally used in Dragon Ball Z sound too Dragon Ball-ish and they do not fit to the new "atmosphere" of the series. For example: M100's on Namek. This series was dedicated to Red Ribbon saga and that's what it reminds me of. The same goes for movies 6,7,8 etc. scores in Saiyan saga - it sounds strange and completely out of place for an original series fan.

But Dragon Ball fanbase does not want anything better, so we shouldn't blame the company for doing what they did. Statistically speaking: quality of the product = quality of the consumers.

I much rather get new music... I don't know about the fixation that they should use ALWAYS kikuchi, it would be less cheaper than using the chopped off library kai got, but cheap anyways. If we truly got a new series (reanimated) it would become really dull to use the same music over and over again. it's like

"NEW DBZ FILM in 2020"

Same music as all other films years ago. I mean... just the thought of it makes me cringe. XD

The best thing would be for Toei to hire a GOOD composer who can emulate Kikuchi's style but give it a new feel. That would actually be the best option, because wanting the same music library, over and over again until the end of time, will never be, in my opinion, a good idea.

[Naruto6583]

Concidering I loath how kikuchi is used in kai I took it upon myself to do my own placements
Here's a few

Vegeta Kills 19
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vb9LThwAHuY
Cell's Downfall
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XhT9wGhFC8Y
Goku Vows To Defeat Frieza
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3agTz4IRftU
Goku's First SSJ Transformation
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dMV5zQS_rEM

[EXBadguy]

I never liked Kikucki's work in Z, so yeah, I was really mad that Toei got rid of Yammamoto. At least they should've just let him finish off the first half(Saiyan-Cell) and have the last 500k DVD shipments with his music before they cut him loose.

[damn]

Yamamoto sucked ass
His music made me sick in Kai...you people are all complaining about Kikuchi's repetitive placement in Kai(which I haven't heard since I stopped watching Kai mid way through Cell Saga or so) but I'd rather have that than that cheesy Triumphant theme that Yamamoto liked to overuse so much...especially in the Freeza Saga whenever Goku would show up,Goku would avoid one of Freeza's moves or whatever...he used that annoying theme so much
The only song that was kinda ok was Dragon Soul and Ginyu Tokusentai(although it was cheesy)

I don't get why so many people rave about this garbage composer
The only good thing he ever did was steal those Propaganda songs and make Battle Point Unlimited for the Original Z

[Black_Liger]

Yamamoto sucked ass
His music made me sick in Kai...you people are all complaining about Kikuchi's repetitive placement in Kai(which I haven't heard since I stopped watching Kai mid way through Cell Saga or so) but I'd rather have that than that cheesy Triumphant theme that Yamamoto liked to overuse so much...especially in the Freeza Saga whenever Goku would show up,Goku would avoid one of Freeza's moves or whatever...he used that annoying theme so much
The only song that was kinda ok was Dragon Soul and Ginyu Tokusentai(although it was cheesy)

I don't get why so many people rave about this garbage composer
The only good thing he ever did was steal those Propaganda songs and make Battle Point Unlimited for the Original Z

That's your personal opinion, I HATE the kikuchi-kai freaking cheesy thriumphant baby gohan theme for serious crap like when Piccolo shows up with freezer, (and part of it is used on the title card!, picture this.

"Everyone's freaking death, Goku's return" *Happy baby Gohan music plays*... That's ridiculous mind you, and the fact Cell's theme is haphazard played everywhere instead of being played for... well, cell, is horrible too.

[kenisu3000]

he used that annoying theme so much

With a library score, which is what Yamamoto wrote, most of the time it's not the composer who's responsible for music placement. Somebody else makes those decisions.

[JulieYBM]

he used that annoying theme so much

With a library score, which is what Yamamoto wrote, most of the time it's not the composer who's responsible for music placement. Somebody else makes those decisions.

Apparently it is common place for the episode director to decide where the music is placed for Toei Animation series. Other studios leave the music placement to the audio/sound director.

[Kamiccolo9]

Yamamoto sucked ass
His music made me sick in Kai...you people are all complaining about Kikuchi's repetitive placement in Kai(which I haven't heard since I stopped watching Kai mid way through Cell Saga or so) but I'd rather have that than that cheesy Triumphant theme that Yamamoto liked to overuse so much...especially in the Freeza Saga whenever Goku would show up,Goku would avoid one of Freeza's moves or whatever...he used that annoying theme so much
The only song that was kinda ok was Dragon Soul and Ginyu Tokusentai(although it was cheesy)

I don't get why so many people rave about this garbage composer
The only good thing he ever did was steal those Propaganda songs and make Battle Point Unlimited for the Original Z

You're complaining about the GINYU theme being cheesy?