Do you like Kikuchi Kai?

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superfan2024
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Re: Do you like Kikuchi Kai?

Post by superfan2024 » Wed Dec 05, 2018 7:02 pm

Lord Beerus wrote:
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?
Kinda. The real reason for the lack of variety for the tracks was because Toei somehow only had access to use the Saiyan Arc music, and the music from DBZ movies 6-9, and that was about it.

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Re: Do you like Kikuchi Kai?

Post by Robo4900 » Wed Dec 05, 2018 7:22 pm

Lord Beerus wrote: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?
Hard? No.
Time-consuming, tedious, and thus fairly expensive? Yes.
Too expensive for the cheap buggers at Toei? Hell yes.
superfan2024 wrote:Kinda. The real reason for the lack of variety for the tracks was because Toei somehow only had access to use the Saiyan Arc music, and the music from DBZ movies 6-9, and that was about it.
Well, more accurately they wanted to only use music they could easily get access to that was in stereo. Therefore, they only had music that had been released on CDs. And not all of them, at that.
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Re: Do you like Kikuchi Kai?

Post by Lord Beerus » Wed Dec 05, 2018 7:33 pm

Robo4900 wrote:
Lord Beerus wrote: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?
Hard? No.
Time-consuming, tedious, and thus fairly expensive? Yes.
Too expensive for the cheap buggers at Toei? Hell yes.
Ah. So it was all about cutting corners. And it would only get worse when they tackled the Majin Boo arc...

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Re: Do you like Kikuchi Kai?

Post by Robo4900 » Wed Dec 05, 2018 7:40 pm

Lord Beerus wrote:
Robo4900 wrote:
Lord Beerus wrote: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?
Hard? No.
Time-consuming, tedious, and thus fairly expensive? Yes.
Too expensive for the cheap buggers at Toei? Hell yes.
Ah. So it was all about cutting corners. And it would only get worse when they tackled the Majin Boo arc...
Well, I'd say TFC's crap scoring was less about cutting corners, more about poor artist choice.

I'm sure Sumitomo would be a great composer for other shows. For Dragon Ball? You might aswell be using the soundtrack of Invader Zim, Man Of Steel, or Death Note.
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Re: Do you like Kikuchi Kai?

Post by Fizzer » Thu Dec 06, 2018 4:11 am

Lord Beerus wrote:
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?
That's exactly how they should have done it. I don't really see the significance of only using music in stereo when it hinders the track choice that much (I'm sure the same Kikuchi pieces must have been used as replacements for multiple Yamamoto pieces) and they should have had in mind that what they were creating was the final, "true" product, the one that would be on the home releases, broadcast around the world, and come to represent what Kai is. I can't believe nobody cared enough to not make their final product a rush job.

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Re: Do you like Kikuchi Kai?

Post by Robo4900 » Thu Dec 06, 2018 5:07 am

Fizzer wrote:
Lord Beerus wrote:
Robo4900 wrote: 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?
That's exactly how they should have done it. I don't really see the significance of only using music in stereo when it hinders the track choice that much (I'm sure the same Kikuchi pieces must have been used as replacements for multiple Yamamoto pieces) and they should have had in mind that what they were creating was the final, "true" product, the one that would be on the home releases, broadcast around the world, and come to represent what Kai is. I can't believe nobody cared enough to not make their final product a rush job.
In fairness, every single Kikuchi track was recorded in stereo, it's just a case of Toei not necessarily having stereo masters easily to hand.
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Re: Do you like Kikuchi Kai?

Post by JohnnyCashKami » Thu Dec 06, 2018 7:28 am

Robo4900 wrote:Well, more accurately they wanted to only use music they could easily get access to that was in stereo. Therefore, they only had music that had been released on CDs. And not all of them, at that.
That's what I was gonna say. The whole "place in similar fashion as Yamamoto's BGM" was just a bit too weird.
Robo4900 wrote:Well, I'd say TFC's crap scoring was less about cutting corners, more about poor artist choice.

I'm sure Sumitomo would be a great composer for other shows. For Dragon Ball? You might aswell be using the soundtrack of Invader Zim, Man of Steel, or Death Note.
TFC's soundtrack is kinda shitty but at the same time it's not that bad and it works, as video game music and so on but DB? Pass on that.

"Sumitomo a great composer" he certainly has improved his artistic music style from TFC, BoG, RF and to the more recent Super but it still doesn't even compete with the classic Dragon Ball composers. At best, Sumitomo is almost on the same level as Hiroshi Takaki and I'd still say Takaki is a far better composer than Sumitomo will ever be.
Robo4900 wrote:In fairness, every single Kikuchi track was recorded in stereo, it's just a case of Toei not necessarily having stereo masters easily to hand.
There's the synthesized Kikuchi BGMs from the video games but reckon TOEI doesn't own the rights to it. It would have been awesome if they had used those.

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Re: Do you like Kikuchi Kai?

Post by TheBlackPaladin » Thu Dec 06, 2018 1:17 pm

Eh, I'll take the Kikuchi-Kai mix over a replacement soundtrack, but I can't say I'm that fond of it...and that surprised me! When I first heard that Howard Shore's Yamamoto's music would be replaced with Kikuchi's, I was actually very excited. I loved Kikuchi's score in DBZ, I was excited to hear it in high-fidelity, and I reveled in the delectable irony of the fact that that score would be heard on the 4Kids time block (of all places)!

...And then I actually heard the first Kikuchi-Kai episode.

The Kikuchi-Kai mix is, in my opinion, a masterclass in how placement of music has just as much of an impact on the music's likeability as the quality of the music itself. Unfortunately, I don't mean that in a good way. I thought "Yamamoto's" score, plagiarized though it was, sounded good and always used tunes that fit the mood. It was repetitive music, but repetitive music that at least fit the mood. With the Kikuchi-Kai mix, they were only able to get access to a few tracks, many of which simply didn't fit the mood. So now we had repetitive music all over again, but this time, it was repetitive music that didn't even fit the mood.

It was a real let-down, in other words...it's one of those things that sounded awesome on paper, but was shockingly sub-par in execution.
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Re: Do you like Kikuchi Kai?

Post by Dragon Ball Ireland » Thu Dec 06, 2018 4:16 pm

TheBlackPaladin wrote:Eh, I'll take the Kikuchi-Kai mix over a replacement soundtrack
What if Ocean Kai's score ends up having better placement?
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Re: Do you like Kikuchi Kai?

Post by TheBlackPaladin » Thu Dec 06, 2018 8:06 pm

Dragon Ball Ireland wrote:
TheBlackPaladin wrote:Eh, I'll take the Kikuchi-Kai mix over a replacement soundtrack
What if Ocean Kai's score ends up having better placement?
Well, sure, that's theoretically possible, and I'm all for keeping an open mind. My confidence in that isn't too high, though. And hey, if I'm wrong, I'd be happy to be wrong! Just not holding out a lot of hope, that's all. *shrug*

Thing is, I can't really think of too many replacement scores that I loved. A few here and there that were tolerable, sure, but to date, there are only two replacement scores that I begrudgingly admit were actually very, very good:

1) Cyber City Oedo
2) Street Fighter II: The Animated Movie

....Aaaaand that's about it.
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Re: Do you like Kikuchi Kai?

Post by SpiritBombTriumphant » Mon Dec 10, 2018 7:55 pm

JohnnyCashKami wrote:"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.
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Re: Do you like Kikuchi Kai?

Post by Char Aznable » Mon Feb 11, 2019 1:57 pm

No, and it has nothing to do with the music itself but as most people said it's the tracks used and where they're placed. It just seems all totally random and unorganized. Kai always seems to work better with the Yamamoto score to me. Kikuchi was made for Z, but Yamamoto was made for Kai.

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Re: Do you like Kikuchi Kai?

Post by superfan2024 » Sat Mar 23, 2019 2:47 pm

No, there's too many tracks that are repetitive and too many tracks that just don't fit with the mood of the scene.

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Re: Do you like Kikuchi Kai?

Post by SuperSaiyaManZ94 » Sat Mar 23, 2019 6:55 pm

Not really, it is obvious that Kai was meant to go along with Yamamoto's score. Of course it's too bad that said score turned out to have been sampled/ripped off from other songs and he was outed as a plagiarist especially over here on our shores where in terms of the home releases we sadly got screwed over by the scandal. The Kikuchi replacement score is pretty poorly placed and the tracks were severely limited to the ones they could pull off the CD soundtracks, and as a result you have the same few being played repetitively in most scenes and it gets old after a while. Sadly for Parts 5-8 as well as the season sets on both DVD and Blu-ray there is no choice as the scandal fell right in the middle of the sets still coming out, and that really proved to be a drag on the series. It really makes me wish it had all not happened back in 2011 and things would have been ok, but of course it is what it is.

At least we have the first four Part sets (with the exception of some scattered Part 4 reprints) with the Yamamoto score intact, so you can get the first 52 episodes as they were prior to being rescored with the Kikuchi replacement tracks for the Season releases later although the first release of the Kai Season 1 set back in 2011 still indeed contains the former before they later came out with the actual replaced version just under a year later.
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Re: Do you like Kikuchi Kai?

Post by funrush » Mon Mar 25, 2019 7:44 pm

I like it fine enough but the Yamamoto score was way better and tended to have way better placement too.

I don't know why I feel this way, I love the Kikuchi score for DB and DBZ, but it just comes off dated and forced in Kai?

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Re: Do you like Kikuchi Kai?

Post by JohnnyCashKami » Fri Mar 29, 2019 7:23 am

funrush wrote: Mon Mar 25, 2019 7:44 pm I like it fine enough but the Yamamoto score was way better and tended to have way better placement too.

I don't know why I feel this way, I love the Kikuchi score for DB and DBZ, but it just comes off dated and forced in Kai?
TOEI used a very little amount of Z BGMs so it feels extremely repetitive to be hearing the same tunes over and over again, this was supposedly because those were the only ones in Stereo but honestly, I'd have preferred if they used whichever just as so we'd have variety and use the appropriate ones.

At least you can still watch Kai with the original score up to 95, and then 96-98 with the replacement score.

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Re: Do you like Kikuchi Kai?

Post by Dark Vegeta-Sama » Fri Mar 29, 2019 8:51 am

funrush wrote: Mon Mar 25, 2019 7:44 pm I like it fine enough but the Yamamoto score was way better and tended to have way better placement too.

I don't know why I feel this way, I love the Kikuchi score for DB and DBZ, but it just comes off dated and forced in Kai?
Because it is both of those things as it pertains to Kai.

Kai is a deliberately faster-paced, 21st century remake of DBZ. The editing is entirely different. The Kikuchi score was never intended to be used for it, and sounds awful when forced into that context. Especially since it was done so quickly and in such an obviously half-assed manner.

To answer the question at hand, no, I don't like Kikuchi Kai, and I would never choose to watch the show in that way under any circumstances.

Given what a clusterfuck Kai turned out to be in the music department, I'm glad that Ocean's Kai is using a replacement score. I just hope we actually get to see that dub someday soon.

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Re: Do you like Kikuchi Kai?

Post by 8000 Saiyan » Sun Mar 31, 2019 12:49 pm

Nope. I would have liked it more if it had been better placed. Hopefully someone in the future does that.
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Re: Do you like Kikuchi Kai?

Post by Tylerman29 » Wed Apr 03, 2019 12:10 pm

If there was better placement and larger variety I would enjoy it much more. Sadly we are stuck with a product that has an exceptionally better dub than dbz and better picture quality but fails to live up to its potential by not having either full Yamamoto or proper Kikuchi. Not to mention the problems with Final chapters video and audio wise(compounded by the english muffled sfx track mixing problem)..this franchise has such an issue with giving us a good release..I wonder if one day we will get a re-release of Kai from either Toei or Funi that will actually be consistent.
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Re: Do you like Kikuchi Kai?

Post by Ryuji-Otogi » Tue Nov 19, 2019 12:54 pm

Robo4900 wrote: 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:
If you literally feel guilty for watching Yamamoto Kai and enjoying it, you seriously need to lighten up. We should definitely be understanding of why the decision to scrap Yamamoto was made. Plagiarism is wrong and it’s appropriate that there were consequences for it in the case of Dragon Ball Kai. But all that stuff has nothing to do with which version of the show is better to watch. If you sit someone down and ask them to watch Kikuchi Kai and compare it to Yamamoto Kai, without telling them that one was plagiarized while the other wasn’t, then the opinion that person forms is the one that matters in terms of which product is superior. The thread poses the question “Do you like Kikuchi Kai”, it doesn’t ask about outside influences on the art medium itself. For instance, if someone asks me which movie is better, really crappy movie versus really good movie, then I’m going to answer that the really good movie is better. Maybe the crappy movie was made by someone with my same religious and political beliefs, and maybe the really good movie is made by someone whose worldview is diametrically opposed to my own. Those things that have nothing to do with the quality of the works of art themselves will have no influence on which movie I think is better. That’s silly.

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