Kai Episode 104 (11 May 2014)

[Hujio]

General Discussion for Dragon Ball Kai episode 104, aired 11 May 2014

波乱の予感…謎の戦士現る！！
Haran no Yokan… Nazo no Senshi Arawaru!!
A Troubling Premonition... The Appearance of a Mysterious Warrior!!

PLEASE SAVE DISCUSSION FOR AFTER THE EPISODE HAS AIRED

[Ajay]

That was actually very enjoyable. Definitely the least offensive of all the episodes so far!

Pacing felt on point and I certainly didn't notice any out of place cuts like last week. All the new tracks were fantastic! Kaioshin's introduction was perfectly creepy and that final track as Vegeta drew his number was just great. This really gives me so much more hope for the rest of the series.

I think Sumitomo either can't do happy, light hearted music or he's just taken a horrible direction with it in Kai. Of course, the placement of it doesn't help but it'd be far less offensive if the tracks weren't so dull.

Seems like Kai is slowly redeeming itself.

Bring on next week!

SCREENSHOTS: http://minus.com/m5YvKPd0XJqau
CLIPS OF STANDOUT TRACKS: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jbxj23oO0qk

[qjz123]

That was actually very enjoyable. Definitely the least offensive of all the episodes so far!

Pacing felt on point and I certainly didn't notice any out of place cuts like last week. All the new tracks were fantastic! Kaioshin's introduction was perfectly creepy and that final track as Vegeta drew his number was fantastic. This really gives me so much more hope for the rest of the series.

I just think Sumitomo either can't do happy, light hearted music or he's just taken a horrible direction with it in Kai. Of course, the placement of it doesn't help but it'd be far less offensive if the tracks weren't so dull.

Seems like Kai is slowly redeeming itself.

Bring on next week!

I always enjoy reading your posts before I watch the episode it gives me a taste of what I should expect. I'm going to watch the episode now and post my thoughts when I'm done.

Edit: I just finished watching the episode and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I like the new track that played when Kaioshin appeared it was very creepy and it felt like the show had turned serious for the first time. The pacing was good this was just a buildup episode looks like we get to see Piccolo vs Kaioshin next week. I'm excited to finally see the arc get started.
I also like the way the episode ended

[kei17]

Still needs more silence. Did they think that (almost) wall-to-wall music would be good for the foreign audiences? If so, what a terrible misconception.

Even the Faulconer score is better placement-wise because it did catch the atmosphere of each scene by Micky Mousing.

[Blade]

Even the Faulconer score is better placement-wise because it did catch the atmosphere of each scene by Micky Mousing.

The key difference is that the Faulconer score was actually placed by the guys who were writing it, as is the case in traditional film scoring. There was an actual artistic, logical set of thought processes as to what piece of music appeared where, and in many cases music was specifically composed for a given scene. There was leitmotif, depiction of location through music, dialogue-appropriate mood music and, as you quite rightly mention, mickey mousing.

People can say whatever they want about the Faulconer score on a stylistic level when it comes to personal preference, but when people intimate that they just slapped any old piece of music anywhere, they quite simply have no idea what they're talking about, and are objectively wrong to use that argument.

I find it a little odd how in Anime, music is so often placed by someone other than the composer, as in my professional experience, apart from themes, the score is usually written directly against the footage. I mean - isn't that the point of a bespoke musical score anyway? They might as well just use archive music or buy generic stock music otherwise.

[UltimateHammerBro]

CLIPS OF STANDOUT TRACKS: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jbxj23oO0qk

That sounded really good. I can't help but think that the second track's beginning sounded like something straight from the Yamamoto score (in a good way, of course).

[Flame Dragon]

These new tracks sounded genuinely interesting. If they fix the green tint for the releases (Never throught i'd say this but... Please Funi, save us!) and the soundtrack keeps getting better and better, i could see myself buying the English dub for Kai. Lack of Buu Saga was the only thing stopping me.

[Blade]

If they fix the green tint for the releases (Never throught i'd say this but... Please Funi, save us!

With the amount of shit people have given Funimation over the years for messing with stuff, I find it hilarious every time I see someone say this.

[Cold Skin]

The first part with Mr. Satan and Trunks felt a bit slow because that's how it feels to me in the manga anyway (only the punch is interesting to me).

But the second half was great, with varied music that made all of that second part highly enjoyable, just enough moments of silence when you can hear the wind and the birds singing while the group walks around so that it gets you into the scene as if you were there, but the music kicks in again when needed to make you in the right mood, great new tracks (some of which already hinting that the rest of the OST will be what we could expect: Battle of Gods style).

Meeting Kaio Shin and Kibito feels so mystical and mysterious. You really feel like Goku and his group, watching them, wondering, not fully understanding what they do or say, thinking "who are these guys? They seem... different. Special. Like a mystical presence."

Overall, an episode that manages to be great even with the slow first part (but it's not the anime's fault, they're just showing everything that was in the manga and could hardly make it faster without cutting manga material).
A great episode that makes one eager to see what's next with all the new intriguing elements effectively thrown into the plot, making the forthcoming tournament much more interesting than what we'd expected it to be so far in the scenario!

[Black_Liger]

Lol, best title for a video EVER.

Does someone else get a Chrono Trigger vibe from the kaioh shin theme?

[bkev]

CLIPS OF STANDOUT TRACKS: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jbxj23oO0qk

That sounded really good. I can't help but think that the second track's beginning sounded like something straight from the Yamamoto score (in a good way, of course).

If this is what we have to look forward to in terms of the more serious tracks, I'm definitely willing to give the Sumitomo score a chance. I haven't really hated it, but I agree with others that there's a lot of poor placement going on.

[dbboxkaifan]

If they fix the green tint for the releases (Never throught i'd say this but... Please Funi, save us!)

If only the green tint was the ONLY problem with Dragon Ball Kai: Season 3 then perhaps FUNimation by re-arraning the video colours could be the "saviours".

I wish people would stop saying this because it's such a minor problem compared to the rest that it hardly bothers, hell, the pacing, editing and mediocre music placements are a much bigger problem than the green tint.

I've not yet seen Dragon Ball Kai - S03E06 although when the time comes I will.

[worldmonsters]

Wow, what the hell was that?! I actually really really enjoyed this episode!! The pacing was spot on, still a few awkward cuts though. For all the previous episodes I said they could use a minute or two extra to make it a bit smoother, but this one doesn't need that. I really hope they keep having this pacing or maybe a bit slower if they need to pad it out a bit to get their cliffhanger on the right spot.

I think that if instead of this being episode 104 it were episode 105 the previous episodes would've greatly benefited the extra time.

Music placement was pretty good, new tracks were pretty good. They could've used more silence, that is true, but at least nothing was really wrong.

No, if it gets better from here, or at least doesn't get worse based on this episode, I will be very glad Don't mess up the Videl vs Spopovitch fight, Kai, don't you dare!

[kenisu3000]

That cue from Kaioshin's introduction is certainly better on average than what we've been getting... but I'm just going to say it, it still seems to suffer from the same meandering "not-quite-a-melody" problem that plagues so many modern shows. Sure, it's atmospheric, and that's sort of the whole point of getting across a creepy vibe, but melody is everything to me, and it tears my heart out to see how it's become so irrelevant in this day and age.

And might I take this opportunity to say that this forum always spoils me big-time, what with all the talk about the musical score? After always having to deal with the fact that there's never a single mention of how awesome the Ron Jones score is every time somebody discusses DuckTales online, going to a place where BGM takes up like 80% of the discussion (even if it's for a different show) is incredibly refreshing.

[worldmonsters]

That cue from Kaioshin's introduction is certainly better on average than what we've been getting... but I'm just going to say it, it still seems to suffer from the same meandering "not-quite-a-melody" problem that plagues so many modern shows. Sure, it's atmospheric, and that's sort of the whole point of getting across a creepy vibe, but melody is everything to me, and it tears my heart out to see how it's become so irrelevant in this day and age.

And might I take this opportunity to say that this forum always spoils me big-time, what with all the talk about the musical score? After always having to deal with the fact that there's never a single mention of how awesome the Ron Jones score is every time somebody discusses DuckTales online, going to a place where BGM takes up like 80% of the discussion (even if it's for a different show) is incredibly refreshing.

Wow, I am sorry, did you just become my best friend? I wholeheartedly agree with literally 100% of what you just said. You probably already know this but if you want to hear a lot of Ron Jones you should check the Star Trek The Next Generation: The Ron Jones Project. And apart from that I'm also a big fan of Chip 'n Dales Rescue Rangers' never EVER discussed score. It's even worse than Duck Tales (good god, all the low quality DT music that HAS been released is so good :p).

But not to make this topic go completely off the rails, I do agree with you on Dragon Ball Kai's score, although the Kaioshin introduction music sort of... almost gets there. It's not a melody per se, but it's not too far off. So far I've kind of been digging the first cue when the episode opens and the eye catches and dare I say it the NEP music is starting to slowly get to me. Those all having a proper melody has everything to do with that. I want to hear more of that stuff.

[Valerius Dover]

Even the Faulconer score is better placement-wise because it did catch the atmosphere of each scene by Micky Mousing.

The key difference is that the Faulconer score was actually placed by the guys who were writing it, as is the case in traditional film scoring. There was an actual artistic, logical set of thought processes as to what piece of music appeared where, and in many cases music was specifically composed for a given scene. There was leitmotif, depiction of location through music, dialogue-appropriate mood music and, as you quite rightly mention, mickey mousing.

People can say whatever they want about the Faulconer score on a stylistic level when it comes to personal preference, but when people intimate that they just slapped any old piece of music anywhere, they quite simply have no idea what they're talking about, and are objectively wrong to use that argument.

I find it a little odd how in Anime, music is so often placed by someone other than the composer, as in my professional experience, apart from themes, the score is usually written directly against the footage. I mean - isn't that the point of a bespoke musical score anyway? They might as well just use archive music or buy generic stock music otherwise.

Totally agree with you on the US music bit. One of the plus sides of it in my opinion. But I love both for different reasons, obviously. I've noticed that Japanese anime tends to just get music in batches, but it isn't always the case. Look at all the Dragon Ball Movies for example. I haven't seen a whole lot of anime, but I can give one example of the opposite. The first half of the Japanese version of Sonic X was scored to picture with the occasional recycling, much like Faulconer. Pretty much the only silence was in a few talking scenes. Halfway through the series, they started mostly recycling music with only a handful of new tracks added.

[LordCrumb]

So glad they are keeping in Mr Satan. That dude needs his own spin-off series... maybe he learns to do "tricks" too.

[Hujio]

So glad they are keeping in Mr. Satan.

Did you think they'd get rid of him, for some reason? He plays a "critical" role throughout the manga!

Anyway, just wanted to throw it out there that Hisao Egawa did indeed return to reprise his role as Spopovitch, along with Yūji Mitsuya as Kaiōshin (although we already knew that). Otherwise, Killa, Jewel, and Puntar have all been recast. I'm really curious to see if Naoki Tatsuta will still do Yamu. I imagine he will, since he's already there to record lines for Oolong, but we haven't heard Yamu talk yet, so who knows.

[LordCrumb]

So glad they are keeping in Mr. Satan.

Did you think they'd get rid of him, for some reason? He plays a "critical" role throughout the manga!

I thought they might reduce a lot of his scenes. I know his role in DBZ Buu saga, and really enjoyed it.

[Blade]

Did you think they'd get rid of him, for some reason?

Make room for moar Beerus!

I thought they might reduce a lot of his scenes. I know his role in DBZ Buu saga, and really enjoyed it.

If they truly intend to keep it closer to the Manga, then Satan will feature prominently. Originally only introduced as a gag character, Satan became one of Toriyama's favourites. Indeed, it's hard to imagine any future expansion of the Dragonball franchise (barring prequels) where he wont have a role.