Do you like Kikuchi Kai?

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Fizzer
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Do you like Kikuchi Kai?

Post by Fizzer » Tue Dec 04, 2018 4:31 am

Personally, apart from in a few scenes where it does really well (such as Goku first going SSJ) I find the placement of Kikuchi's music in Kai to be a negative point, so much that I seek out fan recreations of the Yamamoto placement or Kikuchi placements closer to DBZ.

Do you view Kai with Kikuchi positively, even prefer it to the Yamamoto placement or DBZ's original Kikuchi placement? I'd like to hear from the other side on this.

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Re: Do you like Kikuchi Kai?

Post by Robo4900 » Tue Dec 04, 2018 5:01 am

Given the choice between plagiarism and mediocrity made out of a masterpiece... Well... It's the lesser of two evils. I'd much rather have some messy placements that means the score is just kind of there rather than go with a score I can't in good conscience bear to give the time of day.

Hopefully the Anitunes guys did good enough work on the Ocean dub's score that it provides a solid alternative to these two crappy options. :lol:
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Re: Do you like Kikuchi Kai?

Post by MasenkoHA » Tue Dec 04, 2018 8:55 am

Despite the plagiarism I like the Yamamoto score a lot

And the Kikuchi placement in Kai is a solid example of “It’s not what you have but how you use it “


I’m fine with it. Badly placed Kikuchi is still better than Sumitomo, and Faulcouner, and Wasserman, and Johnson, and Menza

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Re: Do you like Kikuchi Kai?

Post by SpiritBombTriumphant » Tue Dec 04, 2018 11:06 am

I hate it. I require two things for a musical score to function properly.

1. A score must be composed specifically for the show/movie.
2. The score must be placed properly to achieve maximum effect from the scenes

Kai 1.0 failed at #2 with Kikuchi so I cannot stand it. Shuki Levy, Bruce Faulconer, Kenji Yamamoto, and Norihito Sumitomo are all better simply because they made a score for the show and had it placed properly where it should be. The way Kikuchi's music was thrown around haphazardly just ruins it for me. =(
Robo4900 wrote:Hopefully the Anitunes guys did good enough work on the Ocean dub's score that it provides a solid alternative to these two crappy options. :lol:
Watchu talkin' 'bout?

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Re: Do you like Kikuchi Kai?

Post by MasenkoHA » Tue Dec 04, 2018 11:29 am

^ Supposedly according to Sean Schemmel (but I think it was confirmed elsewhere) Ocean did a full replacement soundtrack for Kai

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Re: Do you like Kikuchi Kai?

Post by MasenkoHA » Tue Dec 04, 2018 1:28 pm

SpiritBombTriumphant wrote:I hate it. I require two things for a musical score to function properly.

1. A score must be composed specifically for the show/movie.
In a sense the Kikuchi music was scored for Kai. What is Kai but a recut version of Z? It’s not like they completely redid the show

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Re: Do you like Kikuchi Kai?

Post by TheRed259 » Tue Dec 04, 2018 1:39 pm

I can't say that I like it...

Sometimes, yes, I kinda like because nostalgia but when I hear in the next episodes the same tracks all and all over again, well, that turns me off. And not to mention the bad music placement for the most part of the series.

I wonder how Kikuchi feels about the Kai 1.0 music replacement...
MasenkoHA wrote:^ Supposedly according to Sean Schemmel (but I think it was confirmed elsewhere) Ocean did a full replacement soundtrack for Kai
Interesting. I thought that they might do that when I heard their own opening song for DragonBall Z Kai.

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Re: Do you like Kikuchi Kai?

Post by DHM211 » Tue Dec 04, 2018 1:55 pm

Keep in mind I’m not the world’s biggest Kikuchi fan, however, I thought the placement was “fine” for the most part. There’s a few Kikuchi tracks that I enjoy from the Buu saga that made its way into the late Frieza/Cell arcs that I thought worked quite well.

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Re: Do you like Kikuchi Kai?

Post by Dragon Ball Ireland » Tue Dec 04, 2018 2:51 pm

I like it, I understand people's frustrations with it... well not to the extent that its often hated on, but I get that its arguably a missed opportunity the score wasn't placed better.

That said, it does get the job done for the most part. I'd say there's one or two instances of jarring placements in most episodes at most, the rest of the time its used randomly and feels just sort of there, but it still feels like Dragon Ball, mostly because the tracks are what remind us of the show.

I'm definitely looking forward to the Anitunes score in Ocean Kai and hearing how it compares.
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Re: Do you like Kikuchi Kai?

Post by KBABZ » Tue Dec 04, 2018 5:07 pm

I think one of the other problems nobody ever really seems to talk about regarding the Kikuchi score for Kai is that the pool of tracks they use is TINY! It's like they only had 20 pieces to work with and it gets grating super-fast.

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Re: Do you like Kikuchi Kai?

Post by OmegaRockman » Tue Dec 04, 2018 5:51 pm

Despite the occasionally bad placement and limited tracks, I like Kikuchi Kai a lot and it's my preferred way to watch. It's not perfect, but Kikuchi is what DB is supposed to sound like to me. I also think some of the placements are genuine improvements over Yamamoto.
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Re: Do you like Kikuchi Kai?

Post by Tian » Tue Dec 04, 2018 10:32 pm

Not much... It was great to listen his tracks again but it feels like it breaks the "fresh" essence of Kai and the placement was kinda shitty but not as much as TFC. Oh boy, I can swear I heard the Theme of Super Saiyan a lot of times and many of those times were unfitting.

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Re: Do you like Kikuchi Kai?

Post by SpiritBombTriumphant » Wed Dec 05, 2018 12:59 am

MasenkoHA wrote:
SpiritBombTriumphant wrote:I hate it. I require two things for a musical score to function properly.

1. A score must be composed specifically for the show/movie.
In a sense the Kikuchi music was scored for Kai. What is Kai but a recut version of Z? It’s not like they completely redid the show
Did you even read my post?

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Re: Do you like Kikuchi Kai?

Post by JohnnyCashKami » Wed Dec 05, 2018 8:19 am

Between Kikuchi and Sumitomo? You bet I'll always pick Kikuchi because despite that his music was completely butchered with the placements and played repetitively, it's still BGMs that were part of the original Z score and it made it feel like Dragon Ball Z (an inferior version due to the limited BGMs).

Hell, I'd probably even give Dragon Ball Super more of a chance if there was a Kikuchi/Yamamoto version.
SpiritBombTriumphant wrote:I hate it. I require two things for a musical score to function properly.

1. A score must be composed specifically for the show/movie.
2. The score must be placed properly to achieve maximum effect from the scenes

Kai 1.0 failed at #2 with Kikuchi so I cannot stand it. Shuki Levy, Bruce Faulconer, Kenji Yamamoto, and Norihito Sumitomo are all better simply because they made a score for the show and had it placed properly where it should be. The way Kikuchi's music was thrown around haphazardly just ruins it for me. =(
"Bruce Faulconer" (Faulconer Productions) and "Shuki Levy" (Ron Wasserman) were both replacement soundtracks used for Dragon Ball Z, Shunsuke Kikuchi is the one who made the original soundtrack for Dragon Ball & Z. Akihito Tokunaga for Dragon Ball GT while FUNi hired Mark Menza to make an "edgy" score for GT. Kenji Yamamoto for Dragon Ball Kai.

The Final Chapters were just an afterthought that TOEI had for the international audience otherwise they'd just have left as is which would have been better.
Last edited by JohnnyCashKami on Wed Dec 05, 2018 8:28 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Do you like Kikuchi Kai?

Post by Cipher » Wed Dec 05, 2018 8:27 am

It's obviously not ideal, and I'd have preferred both more tracks be used and more time have been allotted to placement, but given the behind-the-scenes story, it's fine. It's certainly watchable, there are points where the introduction of later-era tracks livens up the Saiyan and Namek arcs (at the expense of losing consistent leitmotifs), and in general I prefer it to the Yamamoto score.

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Re: Do you like Kikuchi Kai?

Post by Robo4900 » Wed Dec 05, 2018 8:31 am

SpiritBombTriumphant wrote:Watchu talkin' 'bout?
MasenkoHA wrote:^ Supposedly according to Sean Schemmel (but I think it was confirmed elsewhere) Ocean did a full replacement soundtrack for Kai
Around 2010-2013, Ocean did a dub of Kai. No idea who produced it yet, and it hasn't aired yet(Looks like it's on its way to Canadian TV in April, though), but various sources have pointed to it having a replacement score, including new Freeza voice Lee Tockar, and an unknown voice role in James Beach both mentioning it, with Beach in particular being rather complimentary of it.

As with anything that isn't about the casting of this dub, there's conflicting reports on the nature of the score. Some say it makes the dub very dark, some say it makes it very light, some say other things. We'll just have to see if/when it airs(Which is looking pretty likely, now that Wow is talking to Toei. Only reason it didn't happen before is that Canadian TV channels simply weren't interested, and the main opportunity it had originally been created for fell through).

We've known for a while that the score was composed by the guys who'd done the Westwood Z dub's score, Anitunes, and their site did confirm this before it went down, though they got the episode count wrong.
'Course, this time around, Anitunes will actually have the time and budget to compose a full original score, rather than be constrained to the point of basically having to just use tracks they'd composed for Mega Man, Monster Rancher, and other shows.

I assembled all info I've been able to find out about Ocean Kai a little while ago here(And I do continue to update it whenever I post it -- usually in the Ocean Kai thread), if you're curious to know more about Ocean's Kai dub:
Anyway, the TL;DR is that we can probably expect to see it airing on Canadian TV in April, possibly later if Wow's negotiations with Toei about Kai specifically run after the channel's launch, but given Wow appears to be putting in a serious effort to get anime, and some evidence suggests getting Ocean's Kai dub out there would be very good for Toei(Some things point to Toei producing this dub themselves. If this is the case, Toei would make more off Ocean's dub than Funi's dub, so it would make sense for them to want Ocean's dub to air if given the chance), I'd say chances are good this will work out. So... We'll see if we get a better score for Kai. :)
TheRed259 wrote:Interesting. I thought that they might do that when I heard their own opening song for DragonBall Z Kai.
As noted in the spoiler block above, that probably isn't actually the opening. David Steele, the singer on the track, and the guy whose site the circulating MP3 came from, was asked about it, and said he wasn't sure if it was just a demo, and that it was done back in 2009. In the end, it looks like it was little more than a scratch track. The editing supervisor's demo reel gives us a small snippet of the track they actually did use.
For the record, editing supervisor refers to the fact there at least exists an edited version of this dub. We don't know for sure if they did an uncut version, but it was at least discussed during the dub's production, and we know some alternate lines were recorded for it; SX10 said Brian Drummond said at a con that he recorded both an "Over 8000" and an "Over 9000" for the Ocean Kai version of the iconic scene. But, realistically, even if there is an uncut version, we're unlikely to see it. At least, not any time soon.
Last edited by Robo4900 on Wed Dec 05, 2018 9:18 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Do you like Kikuchi Kai?

Post by MasenkoHA » Wed Dec 05, 2018 8:59 am

SpiritBombTriumphant wrote:
MasenkoHA wrote:
SpiritBombTriumphant wrote:I hate it. I require two things for a musical score to function properly.

1. A score must be composed specifically for the show/movie.
In a sense the Kikuchi music was scored for Kai. What is Kai but a recut version of Z? It’s not like they completely redid the show
Did you even read my post?
I missed the line where you said Kai 1.0 failed at number two and thought you were saying the two criticisms applied to both.

My bad

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Re: Do you like Kikuchi Kai?

Post by Lord Beerus » Wed Dec 05, 2018 1:16 pm

The usage of Kikuchi's score in Kai was criminal. Toei had some much to work with given his extensive library of music and they unnecessarily hindered themselves by using the same 5-6 for 90% of the show and placing them in scenes that weren't appropriate for usage.

Yamamoto is a straight up thief. Made even more difficult to stomach knowing some of his best musical contributions to Kai, and Dragon Ball as a whole, were just plagiarized songs.

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Re: Do you like Kikuchi Kai?

Post by Robo4900 » Wed Dec 05, 2018 2:42 pm

Lord Beerus wrote:The usage of Kikuchi's score in Kai was criminal. Toei had some much to work with given his extensive library of music and they unnecessarily hindered themselves by using the same 5-6 for 90% of the show and placing them in scenes that weren't appropriate for usage.
As I understand it, the way they assembled the score was by looking at each Yamamoto track, and replacing all uses of it with a Kikuchi track that sounds close enough to it. That's why it's so repetitive and often poorly-placed.
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Re: Do you like Kikuchi Kai?

Post by Lord Beerus » Wed Dec 05, 2018 5:50 pm

Robo4900 wrote:
Lord Beerus wrote:The usage of Kikuchi's score in Kai was criminal. Toei had so much to work with given his extensive library of music and they unnecessarily hindered themselves by using the same 5-6 track for 90% of the show and placing them in scenes that weren't appropriate for usage.
As I understand it, the way they assembled the score was by looking at each Yamamoto track, and replacing all uses of it with a Kikuchi track that sounds close enough to it. That's why it's so repetitive and often poorly-placed.
What kind of thinking is that? Just watch the original DBZ anime and place the music used in those scenes for the corresponding scenes in Kai. Is that so hard?

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