The real Frieza theme from Kikuchi is similar to a Movie 5 track

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Rafa Fast
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Re: The real Frieza theme from Kikuchi is similar to a Movie 5 track

Post by Rafa Fast » Wed Mar 29, 2023 4:03 am

I noticed this too 2 years ago, by a comment in one of my old/alt yt channel videos, and indeed, but unfortunately it's just one track, I only consider leitmotifs when there's at least two tracks with the same melody, so I prefer to call this one a "reference", which is really cool, as Movie 5 came out 4 years prior to Movie 12, and the last Cooler theme material composed was 3 years prior to it, the guy really cared a lot about thematic continuity and I love that (well, except when he decided to change leitmotifs for the same character multiple times, but I do understand it, I can't see his Tree of Might Goku theme keeping up for 10 more films either)

I'm since 2021 working in a project where I list every single character leitmotif Kikuchi has ever composed for the franchise, from the TV series scores and the Movies as well (with GT, Kai 2014, Super TV and the Super Movies included as well, but the focus goes to Kikuchi due to his thematic continuity being stronger)
I'm probably going to finish it this year, planned to release videos in order but my preference is to start with Dead Zone, as the A-J 86 score is my least favorite Kikuchi score, of course it's all speculation and I won't say that x track indeed contain x theme, it's just a fan project
Some themes were really hard to analyse, and I couldn't even come to results regarding some of them
I see many people saying that Cooler's theme returns in Movie 6, which is true, but I don't see anyone talking about a "Metal Cooler" theme, because I swear that there is a separate theme for Metal Cooler
I also saw someone swearing that Vegeta's theme is present in Broly 1993, but I absolutely just can't hear it, even if I force myself to.

Btw it was really fun to make it and specially interesting ^^ as by making it I noticed that from DB Movie 1 to Z Movie 9, Kikuchi delivered a good amount of leitmotifs for a lot of character each arc/movie, main chars, secondary chars, main villains, villain's minions, and even objects or ideas, but starting from Broly 2 the number of themes starts to decay considerably, with almost no new themes showing up, just returning ones (which makes sense for Broly 2 and Bio Broly, but that also happens in Fusion Reborn and Wrath of Dragon as well)
I simply wouldn't want to imagine my life without Dragon Ball, thank you Akira Toriyama (1955-2024), you are now immortal.


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Re: The real Frieza theme from Kikuchi is similar to a Movie 5 track

Post by Rafa Fast » Sun Apr 09, 2023 11:04 pm

TheRed259 wrote: Wed Mar 29, 2023 12:20 pm I would like to see that list when it's finished.
Sorry for taking to long to reply, I really appreciate the interest ^^
I'm just really not decided how I'm going to do it yet, can you give me your thoughts? Do you think it's better for me to only show each leitmotif, or you prefer that I analyse each track individually and say how many leitmotifs are present in them?
Also, when I make each video, you prefer that I DM them for you, or to link them as a reply to this thread, or link them in a new thread?

Also, plans changed, I'm almost 100% decided that I'm going to start with Battle of Gods, then continue til DBS Broly, then maybe Super Hero, and then after it, follow with the Kikuchi scores
BoG-Super Hero were much easier to analyse, the thematic continuity isn't very strong, with much less themes than Kikuchi's works
Sumitomo's pentalogy is very confusing to be honest
Battle of Gods gives us a good start with a few themes
Then Kai 2014 keeps the things consistent, bringing back some themes from BoG and introducing new ones.
Then, Fukkatsu no F, I'm not sure if Sumitomo wanted to do a reboot or something, but only two themes from BoG are brought back, and the Kai ones are ignored, Freeza's theme is a new notable melody, but aside from it, the thematic continuity in this movie is very weird, some themes just disappear.
And then Super is where unfortunately everything fell apart, I don't know if it's related to the rushed production of the series, but thematic continuity is completely inexistent here, no new themes introduced and neither old ones are brought back, I tried my best to find something, and at most, I could only catch the obvious Freeza's theme in "Freeza is Resurrected" and "Golden Freeza's Theme", both have the same choir from Fukkatsu no F and the melody is very similar, but I don't know if it's only supposed to be a reference, and there's also maybe the SSJ Blue theme in "The Birth of a God" (which is weird, that track was made for the Beerus saga, that's why I'm not sure about this one), that's pretty much it.
And things end in DBS Broly, where fortunately, things get very consistent again, it's Sumitomo's score with the best continuity, introducts lots of new themes and brings back themes from all the two previous movies and Kai for a epic finale (maybe a redemption after his work in Super)

Super Hero is basic, everyone recognize the main theme, idk but Sato really tried to hide all of the other leitmotifs, the only exception is Gamma 2's theme.
I don't know what I'm going to do with Super's soundtrack, I believe I'm going to skip it and say in the Fukkatsu no F video which tracks from Super contain the Freeza theme.

So the current order: Battle of Gods > Kai 2014 > Fukkatsu no F > DBS Broly > Super Hero > DB 86 > DB 86 Part 2 > DB Red Ribbon > DB Movie 1 > DB Red Ribbon Part 2 > DB Movie 2 > DB Piccolo > DB Movie 3 > DBZ Saiyans > DBZ Movies 1-9 > DBZ Boo > DBZ Movies 10-13 > DB GT > DB Path to Power
Because I can hear Piccolo's leitmotif even in tracks where we hadn't accociated them with Piccolo:
https://youtu.be/2DyywcICNx0?t=3
Tracks like these are the reason why Kikuchi scores were the hardest for me to analyse, I won't say that you're wrong, but that same tune can also be heard in M1920, and we know that Piccolo isn't even in Movie 11.
I'm pretty sure that these videos are going to make people disagree with me a lot XD

Here are some spoilers about my Kikuchi analysis ^^
▪︎The Saiyans/Super Saiyans theme is much longer, there's more to it than just the classic "tan-tan-tan"
▪︎It seems that Piccolo actually got two themes
▪︎There's a secondary theme made to represent the villains in the Z movies, it's introduced in the Saiyans Saga Score and returns in every movie starting from Slug.
▪︎The Shenlong theme was originally two individual themes.
▪︎Goku got at least 4 themes, the first one being the Makafushigi Adventure variations, the latter 3 are compositions totally made by Kikuchi, but, the fourth theme is actually the third theme reworked, so it's a new motif and at the same time, it's not.
▪︎Goku's theme is present in Movie 9.
▪︎Movies 7 and 9 are the only ones (not counting Z Movies 1-3) lacking the SSJ leitmotif, not sure why, but I discovered a new motif in Movie 7 that maybe had the purpose of replacing the SSJ motif, and Movie 9, maybe the absence has something to do with Kikuchi thinking that he should've composed something new for the SSJ2.
I simply wouldn't want to imagine my life without Dragon Ball, thank you Akira Toriyama (1955-2024), you are now immortal.

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TheRed259
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Re: The real Frieza theme from Kikuchi is similar to a Movie 5 track

Post by TheRed259 » Mon Apr 10, 2023 12:47 am

Rafa Fast wrote: Sun Apr 09, 2023 11:04 pm Sorry for taking to long to reply, I really appreciate the interest ^^
I'm just really not decided how I'm going to do it yet, can you give me your thoughts? Do you think it's better for me to only show each leitmotif, or you prefer that I analyse each track individually and say how many leitmotifs are present in them?
Do whatever suits you best!
Rafa Fast wrote: Sun Apr 09, 2023 11:04 pm Also, when I make each video, you prefer that I DM them for you, or to link them as a reply to this thread, or link them in a new thread?
A reply here would be fine as well.

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Re: The real Frieza theme from Kikuchi is similar to a Movie 5 track

Post by Rafa Fast » Sat May 13, 2023 3:44 am

Thanks ^^ so, I deciced that it's better to start from the beginning and analysing each track individually, so in the first video I'll cover the first two Shunsuke Kikuchi scores, the A-J and the M00 scores (I like to call then the "Pilaf Saga score" and the "21th TB score", name for the second one is explained in the video) I decided to include these two in one video because A-J have a lot of generic cues and it mostly focuses in introducing us to some of the recurring leitmotifs, and the M00 score almost lacks any thematic continuity, but they are still special, tracks containing leitmotifs are analysed, the generic ones are skipped, I just want to make it very clear that this is all speculation of mine, and you can disagree with anything said in the video, just really watch it to have fun, in the end there are some stuff that I believe are some cool trivia, starting from the next score "M100" i'll analyse each score in separate videos, hope you like it ^^

And here we go! Dragon Ball BGM Analysis - Pilaf & 21th Tenkaichi Budokai (A-J) (leitmotif part starts from 1:54)
I simply wouldn't want to imagine my life without Dragon Ball, thank you Akira Toriyama (1955-2024), you are now immortal.


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