Why did the Blue Water and Big Green dubs keep the original score?

[Dragon Ball Ireland]

This is something I think about from time to time. It's a little known, but surprising fact that due to the high licensing costs of acquiring the Japanese scores and the fact replacement scores can generate royalties that it is actually more cost effective for anime to have dub-exclusive scores.

Also, as some of us are well aware the Canadian dub of GT was originally meant to feature the Vancouver-based Ocean cast and many actors, including Michael Dobson had been cast, but Ken Morrison chose - at the last minute to use the Calgary-based Blue Water cast instead. This dub, despite using a less expensive cast still featured the Tokunaga score, which would have cost more to license than a new Anitunes score.

Additionally when it came to dubbing OG Dragon Ball and the movies AB licensed the Kikuchi score despite there being no precedent for it in the Westwood dub so realistically both dubs could have got with using existing music from Ocean's library. In fact the Blue Water dub of Dragon Ball did reuse the Keenlyside score in place of the insert songs.

The choice of going out of their way to use the original score in the Big Green dubs is particularly baffling as the voice acting in those dubs was likely even cheaper than the Blue Water dubs so paying to license the original score for them seems to go against that rationale.

Has anyone ever heard anything about AB's motives behind only using a full replacement score for the Z series? I personally can't think of any other than perhaps they had started to change their perspective on replacement scores but that's just a theory. If it turns out they were behind Ocean Kai that will go out the window.

[MasenkoHA]

Where’s the proof that it cost a lot of money to keep the Japanese score?

It’s telling that replacement scores was pretty much only a North American thing. Not even just for Dragon Ball.

If budget companies like Ab groupe and Blue Water kept the original music is was because it was the most economical option

[90sDBZ]

I've always wondered about this. I didn't like the Westwood score for most of the run, but really enjoyed the Monster Rancher music they used for the Fusion and Kid Buu sagas. So I initially had a knee jerk reaction to the Tokunaga score in GT for sounding so drastically different to all the Z replacement scores, and the cast changing for the millionth time also didn't help.

But the Tokunaga score grew on me and I ended up really liking it, which made it one of the redeeming qualities of that dub for me, along with the awesome intro of course.When it came to Blue Water DB I enjoyed Kikuchi right off the bat, moreso than I later would in Z.

It's still interesting to imagine what a Westwood GT would have been like, especially if they stuck with the awesome Monster Rancher music from the tail end of Z. It was frustrating that just as that dub made a huge jump in quality and became good it was discontinued.

[DrBriefsCat]

I'm not sure if this is relevant, but I recall hearing in a Funimation interview that Toei was charging more for the use of Z's score in a dub compared to the other two shows.

[JohnnyCashKami]

Almost every country in the West used the original music of Dragon Ball's franchise, it was only Canada (Ron Wasserman - Z) and America (Faulconer Productions - Z, Mark Menza - GT) who decided to "improve" the score by making their own one. Blue Water and the English AB Groupe dub (Big Green) were based off the French AB source, I think, so I'm grateful they didn't screw around with the music.

However, Blue Water did make a custom opening to use in Britain, and in Canada it was just the French opening dubbed in English. The GT opening was just dubbed in English (albeit a bit too simplified and somewhat incomplete).

The Harmony Gold dub also kept the real score but changed the characters' names and apparently made their own openings too.

If budget companies like Ab groupe

WTF?

[MasenkoHA]

I'm not sure if this is relevant, but I recall hearing in a Funimation interview that Toei was charging more for the use of Z's score in a dub compared to the other two shows.

And this is contradicted by literally every other international dub that wasn’t done by Funimation or Ocean Group using the Japanese score even for Z

In the face of every other dub keeping the score, Pioneer having no issue getting it for the first 3 movie dubs in 1997, Funimation saying in multiple interviews that the score was done to fit what “American kids would respond to” Toei wanted too much money for the score in Z is an obvious myth.

[TheBlackPaladin]

Where’s the proof that it cost a lot of money to keep the Japanese score?

Unfortunately, the website that hosted the interview is down. That said, a fan site did an interview with FUNimation CEO Gen Fukunaga back in the late 90's/early 00's in which they asked Fukunaga why the score was changed. He admitted that it was done mostly for financial reasons. He didn't say that it cost a lot of money to keep the Japanese score, but he did say that creating a new score allowed for them to charge and receive royalty payments for the new score, noting that literally every second of a replacement score was chargeable (hence the reason that the revised score, unlike Kikuchi's score, was non-stop throughout the entirety of the episodes).

As for whether the Japanese score costs "a lot"...well, "a lot" is a subjective term depending on who's paying for it and what their budget is. So I don't know that it necessarily cost FUNimation a lot to use the original Japanese score. Whether it cost a lot or not, though, it was not nearly as profitable as creating an original score. So, since FUNimation was a teeny-tiny company with relatively little money to spend in the early days, it made all the financial sense in the world to create a new score. It made zero creative sense, but plenty of financial sense.

[SuperSaiyaManZ94]

Where’s the proof that it cost a lot of money to keep the Japanese score?

Unfortunately, the website that hosted the interview is down. That said, a fan site did an interview with FUNimation CEO Gen Fukunaga back in the late 90's/early 00's in which they asked Fukunaga why the score was changed. He admitted that it was done mostly for financial reasons. He didn't say that it cost a lot of money to keep the Japanese score, but he did say that creating a new score allowed for them to charge and receive royalty payments for the new score, noting that literally every second of a replacement score was chargeable (hence the reason that the revised score, unlike Kikuchi's score, was non-stop throughout the entirety of the episodes).

As for whether the Japanese score costs "a lot"...well, "a lot" is a subjective term depending on who's paying for it and what their budget is. So I don't know that it necessarily cost FUNimation a lot to use the original Japanese score. Whether it cost a lot or not, though, it was not nearly as profitable as creating an original score. So, since FUNimation was a teeny-tiny company with relatively little money to spend in the early days, it made all the financial sense in the world to create a new score. It made zero creative sense, but plenty of financial sense.

I think i saw some other archived interview that discussed to some extent why the score was replaced among other aspects of the old dub on one of the old school Dragon Ball fan websites, it may have been on DBZ Uncensored or something though i am trying to remember if that is exactly where i saw it at the moment.

Now that i think about it, i believe it was either Fukunaga or Barry Watson that Psaros was chatting with on that.

[Dragon Ball Ireland]

Where’s the proof that it cost a lot of money to keep the Japanese score?

It’s telling that replacement scores was pretty much only a North American thing. Not even just for Dragon Ball.

If budget companies like Ab groupe and Blue Water kept the original music is was because it was the most economical option

I can't find the quote right now but I do recall TheBlackPaladin saying on these forums he heard from an industry professional that using replacement scores and charging royalties works out costing less in the long run than licensing the Japanese score.

The point is that all the alternate English dubs that aired in Canada and the UK were produced by AB. They showed with the Westwood dub they weren't shying away from replacement scores. It seems odd, especially when it comes to the Big Green dub where AB were seemingly ok with putting the bare minimum into casting yet still paid to license Kikuchi's score. Don't get me wrong I was glad they did as it allowed me to discover Kikuchi as a kid but if they were so hellbent on saving money on making that dub why would they use the original score when they could have took a cheaper approach like they did with the Westwood dub where they just recycled music?

EDIT : BlackPaladin got here before me

[Gligarman]

Funimation changed the score because like many ill-informed individuals they were under the impression that American children would lose interest in the show if there wasn't some type of noise going on constantly such as dialogue, sound effects, or music. So they would go out of their way to make sure there was no dramatic silence. As we all know, this is completely untrue.

[DrBriefsCat]

I'm not sure if this is relevant, but I recall hearing in a Funimation interview that Toei was charging more for the use of Z's score in a dub compared to the other two shows.

And this is contradicted by literally every other international dub that wasn’t done by Funimation or Ocean Group using the Japanese score even for Z

In the face of every other dub keeping the score, Pioneer having no issue getting it for the first 3 movie dubs in 1997, Funimation saying in multiple interviews that the score was done to fit what “American kids would respond to” Toei wanted too much money for the score in Z is an obvious myth.

And some of those international dubs were bankrolled by big multi-media conglomerates like AB Groupe (France) and Televisa (Mexico). Funimation was a much smaller company at the time the in-house dub of DBZ was first produced. Pioneer's American division at the time was an arm of a major Japanese electronics company.

As some others have noted, commissioning a new score would have made financial sense for a small company at the time.

[TheBlackPaladin]

Where’s the proof that it cost a lot of money to keep the Japanese score?

Unfortunately, the website that hosted the interview is down. That said, a fan site did an interview with FUNimation CEO Gen Fukunaga back in the late 90's/early 00's in which they asked Fukunaga why the score was changed. He admitted that it was done mostly for financial reasons. He didn't say that it cost a lot of money to keep the Japanese score, but he did say that creating a new score allowed for them to charge and receive royalty payments for the new score, noting that literally every second of a replacement score was chargeable (hence the reason that the revised score, unlike Kikuchi's score, was non-stop throughout the entirety of the episodes).

As for whether the Japanese score costs "a lot"...well, "a lot" is a subjective term depending on who's paying for it and what their budget is. So I don't know that it necessarily cost FUNimation a lot to use the original Japanese score. Whether it cost a lot or not, though, it was not nearly as profitable as creating an original score. So, since FUNimation was a teeny-tiny company with relatively little money to spend in the early days, it made all the financial sense in the world to create a new score. It made zero creative sense, but plenty of financial sense.

I think i saw some other archived interview that discussed to some extent why the score was replaced among other aspects of the old dub on one of the old school Dragon Ball fan websites, it may have been on DBZ Uncensored or something though i am trying to remember if that is exactly where i saw it at the moment.

Now that i think about it, i believe it was either Fukunaga or Barry Watson that Psaros was chatting with on that.

While Psaros did indeed interview both Fukunaga and Barry Watson, it wasn't DBZ Uncensored that conducted the particular interview I was referring to.

I wanna say it was actually DBZ Uncensored 2, a website that Psaros had nothing to do with. Rather, it was a website operated by fans of the original DBZ Uncensored who wanted to continue and expand upon where Psaros had left off. The phrase "The Anime Cauldron" also keeps coming up in my memory which, from the looks of things, appeared to be the hosts of DBZ Uncensored 2. I use "appeared" in the past tense because, like I said, DBZ Uncensored 2 appears to be gone, with all of the links leading to "Not found"-error pages.

It's a pity, because we lost some good interviews there. There was also an interview with an animator who worked on the final episode of GT who saw FUNimation's dub and was disgusted with it. One of the biggest "irony diamonds" found in that interview was him discussing with the interviewer the recent (as in 2003) news that FUNimation had acquired One Piece. As we all know now, 4Kids ended up getting it first, but at first all signs were pointing to FUNimation getting it, including the fact that they registered the domain name for a One Piece website (and they confirmed years later that they produced a "test episode" to send back to Toei). The animator said that if Eiichiro Oda knew what kind of company FUNimation was, he probably would have not agreed to letting them dub the show. The interview concluded with both of them lamenting how FUNimation was "going to ruin One Piece the same way they ruined DBZ and GT."

.........My oh my, how ironic fate turned out to be.....

[MasenkoHA]

Some of those international dubs were bankrolled by big multi-media conglomerates like AB Groupe (France) and Televisa (Mexico). Funimation was a much smaller company at the time the in-house dub of DBZ was first produced. Pioneer's American division at the time was an arm of a major Japanese electronics company.

.

Some is the operative word.

Because it’s funny that of all the international companies that licensed Dragon Ball Z only Funimation and Ocean found it cheaper to get a brand new score (albeit Ocean just recycled music from other shows)

[TheBlackPaladin]

Because it’s funny that of all the international companies that licensed Dragon Ball Z only Funimation and Ocean found it cheaper to get a brand new score (albeit Ocean just recycled music from other shows)

For context, it's important that word "cheaper" be replaced with "more profitable," because that's what was really going on. Even Saban Entertainment and 4Kids Entertainment, both of whom had no shortage of money, made a common practice out of replacing the scores to the animes they dubbed. Those royalties came back in even greater amounts when they would sub-liscense their dubbed versions to other countries.

Now, that's not to say that "appealing to American audiences" wasn't part of the equation when deciding to change the music, because by the admission of all the CEOs involved, it was (in the cases of FUNimation, Saban/Ocean, Westwood/Ocean, and 4Kids)...but getting those royalties was the bigger consideration.

EDIT: Yay, I found the interview! DBZ Uncensored 2 is indeed down...but that's why we have a wonderful thing called the Wayback Machine, which is how you'll have to view it now.

[SuperSaiyaManZ94]

Unfortunately, the website that hosted the interview is down. That said, a fan site did an interview with FUNimation CEO Gen Fukunaga back in the late 90's/early 00's in which they asked Fukunaga why the score was changed. He admitted that it was done mostly for financial reasons. He didn't say that it cost a lot of money to keep the Japanese score, but he did say that creating a new score allowed for them to charge and receive royalty payments for the new score, noting that literally every second of a replacement score was chargeable (hence the reason that the revised score, unlike Kikuchi's score, was non-stop throughout the entirety of the episodes).

As for whether the Japanese score costs "a lot"...well, "a lot" is a subjective term depending on who's paying for it and what their budget is. So I don't know that it necessarily cost FUNimation a lot to use the original Japanese score. Whether it cost a lot or not, though, it was not nearly as profitable as creating an original score. So, since FUNimation was a teeny-tiny company with relatively little money to spend in the early days, it made all the financial sense in the world to create a new score. It made zero creative sense, but plenty of financial sense.

I think i saw some other archived interview that discussed to some extent why the score was replaced among other aspects of the old dub on one of the old school Dragon Ball fan websites, it may have been on DBZ Uncensored or something though i am trying to remember if that is exactly where i saw it at the moment.

Now that i think about it, i believe it was either Fukunaga or Barry Watson that Psaros was chatting with on that.

While Psaros did indeed interview both Fukunaga and Barry Watson, it wasn't DBZ Uncensored that conducted the particular interview I was referring to.

I wanna say it was actually DBZ Uncensored 2, a website that Psaros had nothing to do with. Rather, it was a website operated by fans of the original DBZ Uncensored who wanted to continue and expand upon where Psaros had left off. The phrase "The Anime Cauldron" also keeps coming up in my memory which, from the looks of things, appeared to be the hosts of DBZ Uncensored 2. I use "appeared" in the past tense because, like I said, DBZ Uncensored 2 appears to be gone, with all of the links leading to "Not found"-error pages.

It's a pity, because we lost some good interviews there. There was also an interview with an animator who worked on the final episode of GT who saw FUNimation's dub and was disgusted with it. One of the biggest "irony diamonds" found in that interview was him discussing with the interviewer the recent (as in 2003) news that FUNimation had acquired One Piece. As we all know now, 4Kids ended up getting it first, but at first all signs were pointing to FUNimation getting it, including the fact that they registered the domain name for a One Piece website (and they confirmed years later that they produced a "test episode" to send back to Toei). The animator said that if Eiichiro Oda knew what kind of company FUNimation was, he probably would have not agreed to letting them dub the show. The interview concluded with both of them lamenting how FUNimation was "going to ruin One Piece the same way they ruined DBZ and GT."

.........My oh my, how ironic fate turned out to be.....

Wow, i had no idea that at the time all indications were that FUNi was going to license One Piece before 4Kids beat them to it. It makes me wonder if things had gone the former way because we would have been spared the god awful travesty of a production that was the 4Kids One Piece dub, though of course as we all know their license lapsed and FUNimation immediately snatched it up and began not only dubbing onward from where 4Kids had left off but going back and re dubbing from the start of the series and undoing the damage they had wreaked on the show with their horrible edits among other things. I just got to say, thank heavens for that because they certainly provided a much better dub than what had come before.

[TheBlackPaladin]

I think i saw some other archived interview that discussed to some extent why the score was replaced among other aspects of the old dub on one of the old school Dragon Ball fan websites, it may have been on DBZ Uncensored or something though i am trying to remember if that is exactly where i saw it at the moment.

Now that i think about it, i believe it was either Fukunaga or Barry Watson that Psaros was chatting with on that.

While Psaros did indeed interview both Fukunaga and Barry Watson, it wasn't DBZ Uncensored that conducted the particular interview I was referring to.

I wanna say it was actually DBZ Uncensored 2, a website that Psaros had nothing to do with. Rather, it was a website operated by fans of the original DBZ Uncensored who wanted to continue and expand upon where Psaros had left off. The phrase "The Anime Cauldron" also keeps coming up in my memory which, from the looks of things, appeared to be the hosts of DBZ Uncensored 2. I use "appeared" in the past tense because, like I said, DBZ Uncensored 2 appears to be gone, with all of the links leading to "Not found"-error pages.

It's a pity, because we lost some good interviews there. There was also an interview with an animator who worked on the final episode of GT who saw FUNimation's dub and was disgusted with it. One of the biggest "irony diamonds" found in that interview was him discussing with the interviewer the recent (as in 2003) news that FUNimation had acquired One Piece. As we all know now, 4Kids ended up getting it first, but at first all signs were pointing to FUNimation getting it, including the fact that they registered the domain name for a One Piece website (and they confirmed years later that they produced a "test episode" to send back to Toei). The animator said that if Eiichiro Oda knew what kind of company FUNimation was, he probably would have not agreed to letting them dub the show. The interview concluded with both of them lamenting how FUNimation was "going to ruin One Piece the same way they ruined DBZ and GT."

.........My oh my, how ironic fate turned out to be.....

Wow, i had no idea that at the time all indications were that FUNi was going to license One Piece before 4Kids beat them to it. It makes me wonder if things had gone the former way because we would have been spared the god awfultravesty of a production that was the 4Kids One Piece dub, though of course as we all know their license lapsed and FUNimation immediately snatched it up and began not only dubbing onward from where 4Kids had left off but going back and re dubbing from the start of the series and undoing the damage they had wreaked on the show with their horrible edits among other thinga. I just got to say, thank heavens for that because they certainly provided a much better dub than what had come before.

Precisely. Anime fans were (somewhat understandably) shocked and horrified at the prospect of FUNimation dubbing it at first, but flash-forward a few years later to when 4Kids dropped the license, people were actually celebrating how well FUNimation was now treating the dub, and indeed, the show itself by making the subbed version available.

On that note, some fun facts...

Fun Fact 1: FUNimation wasn't the only one to try and get a hold of it. Ocean and Blue Water tried as well, with all three companies producing test episodes. Clips were even made available of all three of these test dubs via a podcast interview with a FUNimation exec who brought the clips for fans to listen to.

Fun Fact 2: Just like the edit I made to my last post where I managed to find that interview with Fukunaga via the Wayback Machine, here's the aforementioned interview with the GT animator where they lament FUNimation's impending acquisition of One Piece.

[SuperSaiyaManZ94]

While Psaros did indeed interview both Fukunaga and Barry Watson, it wasn't DBZ Uncensored that conducted the particular interview I was referring to.

I wanna say it was actually DBZ Uncensored 2, a website that Psaros had nothing to do with. Rather, it was a website operated by fans of the original DBZ Uncensored who wanted to continue and expand upon where Psaros had left off. The phrase "The Anime Cauldron" also keeps coming up in my memory which, from the looks of things, appeared to be the hosts of DBZ Uncensored 2. I use "appeared" in the past tense because, like I said, DBZ Uncensored 2 appears to be gone, with all of the links leading to "Not found"-error pages.

It's a pity, because we lost some good interviews there. There was also an interview with an animator who worked on the final episode of GT who saw FUNimation's dub and was disgusted with it. One of the biggest "irony diamonds" found in that interview was him discussing with the interviewer the recent (as in 2003) news that FUNimation had acquired One Piece. As we all know now, 4Kids ended up getting it first, but at first all signs were pointing to FUNimation getting it, including the fact that they registered the domain name for a One Piece website (and they confirmed years later that they produced a "test episode" to send back to Toei). The animator said that if Eiichiro Oda knew what kind of company FUNimation was, he probably would have not agreed to letting them dub the show. The interview concluded with both of them lamenting how FUNimation was "going to ruin One Piece the same way they ruined DBZ and GT."

.........My oh my, how ironic fate turned out to be.....

Wow, i had no idea that at the time all indications were that FUNi was going to license One Piece before 4Kids beat them to it. It makes me wonder if things had gone the former way because we would have been spared the god awfultravesty of a production that was the 4Kids One Piece dub, though of course as we all know their license lapsed and FUNimation immediately snatched it up and began not only dubbing onward from where 4Kids had left off but going back and re dubbing from the start of the series and undoing the damage they had wreaked on the show with their horrible edits among other thinga. I just got to say, thank heavens for that because they certainly provided a much better dub than what had come before.

Precisely. Anime fans were (somewhat understandably) shocked and horrified at the prospect of FUNimation dubbing it at first, but flash-forward a few years later to when 4Kids dropped the license, people were actually celebrating how well FUNimation was now treating the dub, and indeed, the show itself by making the subbed version available.

On that note, some fun facts...

Fun Fact 1: FUNimation wasn't the only one to try and get a hold of it. Ocean and Blue Water tried as well, with all three companies producing test episodes. Clips were even made available of all three of these test dubs via a podcast interview with a FUNimation exec who brought the clips for fans to listen to.

Fun Fact 2: Just like the edit I made to my last post where I managed to find that interview with Fukunaga via the Wayback Machine, here's the aforementioned interview with the GT animator where they lament FUNimation's impending acquisition of One Piece.

I mean given where FUNimation was back in 2002-2003 i could seen why people would have been concerned about them getting it, given their questionable dubbing methods at the time with DBZ/GT and such. Still, i have to say it was really great how just a few years later right after 4Kids had lost the rights that they swooped in and saved the show with producing a way more faithful dub than the former had. There's no question in my mind that FUNi's One Piece dub is a whole world of difference because i can watch it any day and not totally cringe in disgust, unlike the total freaking mess that 4Kids' radically altered version had been with the terrible editing and ridiculously cheesy accents for some the characters. Not to mention the cherry on top which was cutting out large chunks of episodes from the story arcs they had dubbed, from the start of the series at East Blue up to just before Skypeia that as a consequence threw some crucial plot points of the story right out the window.

Now that said, even as infamously bad as the 4Kids dub is i'll still occasionally watch some clips on YouTube for a good laugh including some of the characters' hilarious accents. Especially in the case of Sanji's "sinus infection, almost Stallone-esque" voice which makes me break down laughing every time because it's just so ridiculously cartoony sounding that i can't help but bust a gut whenever i hear it.

[WittyUsername]

Wow, i had no idea that at the time all indications were that FUNi was going to license One Piece before 4Kids beat them to it. It makes me wonder if things had gone the former way because we would have been spared the god awfultravesty of a production that was the 4Kids One Piece dub, though of course as we all know their license lapsed and FUNimation immediately snatched it up and began not only dubbing onward from where 4Kids had left off but going back and re dubbing from the start of the series and undoing the damage they had wreaked on the show with their horrible edits among other thinga. I just got to say, thank heavens for that because they certainly provided a much better dub than what had come before.

Precisely. Anime fans were (somewhat understandably) shocked and horrified at the prospect of FUNimation dubbing it at first, but flash-forward a few years later to when 4Kids dropped the license, people were actually celebrating how well FUNimation was now treating the dub, and indeed, the show itself by making the subbed version available.

On that note, some fun facts...

Fun Fact 1: FUNimation wasn't the only one to try and get a hold of it. Ocean and Blue Water tried as well, with all three companies producing test episodes. Clips were even made available of all three of these test dubs via a podcast interview with a FUNimation exec who brought the clips for fans to listen to.

Fun Fact 2: Just like the edit I made to my last post where I managed to find that interview with Fukunaga via the Wayback Machine, here's the aforementioned interview with the GT animator where they lament FUNimation's impending acquisition of One Piece.

I mean given where FUNimation was back in 2002-2003 i could seen why people would have been concerned about them getting it, given their questionable dubbing methods at the time with DBZ/GT and such. Still, i have to say it was really great how just a few years later right after 4Kids had lost the rights that they swooped in and saved the show with producing a way more faithful dub than the former had. There's no question in my mind that FUNi's One Piece dub is a whole world of difference because i can watch it any day and not totally cringe in disgust, unlike the total freaking mess that 4Kids' radically altered version had been with the terrible editing and ridiculously cheesy accents for some the characters. Not to mention the cherry on top which was cutting out large chunks of episodes from the story arcs they had dubbed, from the start of the series at East Blue up to just before Skypeia that as a consequence threw some crucial plot points of the story right out the window.

Now that said, even as infamously bad as the 4Kids dub is i'll still occasionally watch some clips on YouTube for a good laugh including some of the characters' hilarious accents. Especially in the case of Sanji's "sinus infection, almost Stallone-esque" voice which makes me break down laughing every time because it's just so ridiculously cartoony sounding that i can't help but bust a gut whenever i hear it.

On the subject of One Piece, if FUNimation had picked up the series back in the early 2000s, I can only assume they would’ve gotten Laura Bailey to voice Nami or something. From what I can tell, it seems like FUNimation was really fond of her back then, especially given that their talent pool wasn’t what it is today.

[SuperSaiyaManZ94]

Precisely. Anime fans were (somewhat understandably) shocked and horrified at the prospect of FUNimation dubbing it at first, but flash-forward a few years later to when 4Kids dropped the license, people were actually celebrating how well FUNimation was now treating the dub, and indeed, the show itself by making the subbed version available.

On that note, some fun facts...

Fun Fact 1: FUNimation wasn't the only one to try and get a hold of it. Ocean and Blue Water tried as well, with all three companies producing test episodes. Clips were even made available of all three of these test dubs via a podcast interview with a FUNimation exec who brought the clips for fans to listen to.

Fun Fact 2: Just like the edit I made to my last post where I managed to find that interview with Fukunaga via the Wayback Machine, here's the aforementioned interview with the GT animator where they lament FUNimation's impending acquisition of One Piece.

I mean given where FUNimation was back in 2002-2003 i could seen why people would have been concerned about them getting it, given their questionable dubbing methods at the time with DBZ/GT and such. Still, i have to say it was really great how just a few years later right after 4Kids had lost the rights that they swooped in and saved the show with producing a way more faithful dub than the former had. There's no question in my mind that FUNi's One Piece dub is a whole world of difference because i can watch it any day and not totally cringe in disgust, unlike the total freaking mess that 4Kids' radically altered version had been with the terrible editing and ridiculously cheesy accents for some the characters. Not to mention the cherry on top which was cutting out large chunks of episodes from the story arcs they had dubbed, from the start of the series at East Blue up to just before Skypeia that as a consequence threw some crucial plot points of the story right out the window.

Now that said, even as infamously bad as the 4Kids dub is i'll still occasionally watch some clips on YouTube for a good laugh including some of the characters' hilarious accents. Especially in the case of Sanji's "sinus infection, almost Stallone-esque" voice which makes me break down laughing every time because it's just so ridiculously cartoony sounding that i can't help but bust a gut whenever i hear it.

On the subject of One Piece, if FUNimation had picked up the series back in the early 2000s, I can only assume they would’ve gotten Laura Bailey to voice Nami or something. From what I can tell, it seems like FUNimation was really fond of her back then, especially given that their talent pool wasn’t what it is today.

Perhaps she would've if they had gotten the rights to the series at that time, though now i couldn't imagine anyone other than Luci Christian playing Nami because she really nails the role. Some others in FUNi's OP dub cast that i also really personally enjoy are Brina Palencia's Chopper, Stephanie Sheh's Robin and Eric Vale's Sanji.

[Robo4900]

Re: OP

Simple: Money was never the problem.

Something a lot of people don't think about in regards to the Westwood Z dub is that its score wasn't Anitunes being brought in to do a score largely made up of reused tracks, at least not at first. At the very least, for the majority of its run, the score was just the guys at Ocean throwing their library music (which was basically all music Anitunes had made for them, for other shows) onto the show to get a functional score.
Since they showed no issue in getting the Kikuchi score for DB and GT, both of which were produced using video masters from AB Groupe rather than Funi, and since we know about Ocean using Funi materials for Z...

Though, actually, funny thing about that...

Ocean getting Funi's production materials is slightly more complicated than a lot of people assume; all of Funi's episodes that aired in Canada generally aired using a different edit from the American version, produced by Ocean. Ocean did small things like some additional censoring and cutting, but they also sometimes rearranged the score, and used alternate takes of lines, some of which you won't hear elsewhere (IIRC they had something like "Don't tick off the dragon god of love!" rather than the accidentally-left "Piss off" from Funi's edit).

So, we know Ocean had the materials from Funi's production that would allow them to assemble their own edits of episodes, going as in-depth as using alternate takes of lines, rearranging the score, etc.
And we know the Westwood dub used Funi's scripts and video masters.
So, most likely, Ocean didn't actually have the Kikuchi score. They may have had the Faulconer score, but anything from costs of licensing, to the licensing behind the Westwood dub simply being too complex to re-negotiate to also figure something out for the score, must have meant Ocean just couldn't use it in the dub they were producing for Westwood. Or perhaps Westwood just didn't want Funi's score, that's entirely possible (especially since the royalties would have likely been annoying for them to deal with).

In any case, as soon as Funi were out of the picture, and Ocean started doing DB and GT, using in-house scripts (kind of, anyway... DB's scripts seem to have referenced Funi's scripts, but were heavily rewritten, seemingly with direct translations for reference. GT was entirely new in-house translations, though), and video masters from AB Groupe, the original score was used.

There's also the factors that the Westwood dub used the Vancouver cast, the switch to Blue Water was Ken Morrison of Ocean wanting Blue Water to get a big project to sink their teeth into, and the original score usage in GT and DB, all of which point to money not really being a problem with the Westwood dubs anyway; all the problems with the Westwood dubs came down to time, and the poor decision of moving DB and GT to Blue Water.

So, I don't think the replacement score for Westwood Z was a deliberate choice over Kikuchi, I think it was simply a necessity in absence of other options; Kikuchi wasn't available, and Faulconer was undesirable/unavailable.