OG Z vs Kai - Subtitled Version

[DB_Fan1991]

My opinion is this, if you want to watch in Japanese watch Z, but if you want to watch it in English watch Kai. I’ve tried watching Kai in Japanese and couldn’t get past the Saiyan arc as the returning cast sound so phoned in and there is no passion unlike in Z where they brimmed with energy. The dub on the other hand fixes the script issues that plagued the Z dub. While I disagree with FUNi keeping some legacy castings (Kaio & Recoome being the worst offenders) they do good with a faithful script. The highlight is of course the late Chris Ayres as Freeza. He had all the nuances Ryusei Nakao had, but in English.

[Vegetto95]

And it's quite the interesting double standard with even modern DB media, which is completely a carry-over from those "localization" dark ages. You just don't see it anywhere else.

Even to this day, I still see people in some circles whining about how "I wish the dubs of Kai/Super still had the Bruce Faulconer score!! waaaah, It's just not the same without it!! waaaah", despite the fact that no Dragon Ball product has used the Cakemix Studio compositions in over 20 years at this point and obviously never will again. Hell, I even see videos on YouTube from time to time where people edit that score into Kai and Super scenes (which really just serve to further prove that the Faulconer Productions score just wouldn't work with Kai or Super any more than it did with Z, which is to say not at all).

Like, I never had a a huge attachment to Yamamoto or Sumitomo's scores as I never watched Kai past the first ten episodes (gave it a shot, wasn't for me for a huge myriad of reasons, went back to Japanese Z lol) and I'm... not fond of Super as a whole whatsoever (which is to say, I kinda fucking despise it XD), and I wasn't super impressed by the arrangement of Kikuchi's cues that were reworked into Kai after Yamamoto was fired... but they're all decently okay at least! They're not GREAT, and certainly not the first thing I think of when I think of Dragon Ball music (that would obviously be Kikuchi), but I don't hate them or insult them or refuse to listen to them. I think Akihito's score for GT is pretty average, but it definitely gets the job done satisfyingly enough (can't say the same for Menza's replacement score though. Just... eww. Talk about unfitting for the show it's played in lol). I wasn't plugging my ears refusing to listen to it until someone made an edit of GT replacing Akihito's cues with Kikuchi's.

I LOVE Kikuchi's score. To me, and to MANY other people, it is THE definitive music of Dragon Ball. However, I also accepted LOOOONG ago that Dragon Ball Z episode 291 is the final time that any new Dragon Ball music was ever going to be made by him (especially now that he's no longer with us)... and I am totally, 100% fine with that. I already had FOUR HUNDRED AND FORTY FOUR episodes and SIXTEEN movies with his music, I'm not chomping at the bit needing more and more and MORE lol. I totally recognize and accept the fact that Dragon Ball (mostly, aside from very occasional re-uses or remixes like in Yo! Son Gokū and his Friends Return, the Sparking! games, Kakarot, etc.) moved past Kikuchi 27 years ago, and that several other composers have taken the musical reins of the franchise since. That's fine. That's just evolution. That's totally par for the course for a franchise that has gone on for almost 40 years now. I'm not sitting here stubbornly refusing to move past 1996 because I can't accept or appreciate or enjoy any new Dragon Ball product simply because it wasn't scored by Kikuchi.

I know there are a lot of people (*cough*strictly millennial American fans*cough*) who still love the Faulconer score because #nostalgia #LITERALLYMYCHILDHOOD, but it's definitely very strange and nonsensical to see so many people still be so attached to it to the point where they're pretty much superglued to it after two entire goddamn decades without it. It's like these people just can't MOVE ON. I wasn't stubbornly refusing to listen to Sabbath after they kicked Ozzy out, and if I was, I wouldn't have come to love Ronnie James Dio as my favorite singer of all time. I wasn't screaming at Benjamin Wallfisch and Hans Zimmer when I heard their (great) score for Blade Runner 2049 (made a whole 35 years after the original film) because I can't accept anyone scoring a Blade Runner film other than Vangelis. It's practically inevitable that something that has to do with music in that way will have some kind of major change if it goes on for long enough, and Dragon Ball is no different. I wish the American fandom would just move on past their blind worship of that cheap, amateurish numetal technosynth Saturday morning kiddie cartoon crap from 1999-2003 the way fans of the Japanese version like myself have moved on past Kikuchi's vastly more fitting, professional, brilliant, and artistic compositions.

And hey... if you're (as in a general "you" meant for no specific person) someone who likes the Faulconer/Cakemix score for whatever reason and think that it fits DBZ perfectly... cool. I don't agree at ALL, but you do you, brother. Watch what you wanna watch, like what you like. Don't let me stop you. But... can we just agree that the Faulconer shit is NEVER coming back? It's September of 2023. The last time any new Faulconer stuff was made for DB was April 2003. It's high past time to move on lol

Or, to put it another way...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sXE8LdXzeHM

P.S. I KNOW not every fan of the Faulconer score is like that, and that the ones that are are most likely the minority. This isn't about the people who love it but also enjoy the other scores in the Dragon Ball franchise without issue. This isn't talking about them, this is talking about the "I never wanna grow up" types of nostalgia babies who still after all this time maintain a worringly strong desire to polish off Bruce Faulconer's knob and despise Kikuchi Shunsuke for the simple fact that he's not Bruce Motherfucking Goddamn Faulconer (despite the fact that almost none of those types of fans, in my experience, are even aware of the fact that Bruce himself composed next to none of the music that they love so much lol)

[BootyCheeksJohnson]

It's not the worst way to watch it, but it's not the best way to watch it either. I guess if you really need the extra time it saves then watch Kai 1.0 in Japanese. Kai 2.0 (Boo saga) just isn't worth watching in any form.

[Koitsukai]

Aside of the score replacement that makes no sense, what bothers me the most about Kai is the "remasterization" or whatever they want to call the recoloring or reshading they've done. Kai looks like a videogame opening and I don't like it.

I'd rather watch Z and skip a few episodes or filler scenes if they are that unbearable than sit through a show with weird score and colors. I kinda like most of Z's filler scenes anyway.
For a full Toriyama experience, the manga remains unbeaten.

[SavageDragon]

There are a FEW moments, largely because of the music used. The scene where Freeza impales Kuririn in Kai incorporates Freeza's new theme song to great effect, which really gives the scene a much more chilling feel than it had in Z.

Tada Kogoeru Elegy? Dude, that song is amazing. I first heard it probably over ten years ago, but it wasn't until three or four years ago that I first started listening to Seikima-II, one of the best metal bands to ever come out of Japan (I've since listened to all their albums, most at least a few times each )... and finding out that their vocalist, Demon Kakka, sang it knocked me on my ass. Made the song just that much more awesome to me lol

It just sucks that that episode ends RIGHT before his kickass vocals actually start once the chanting part is over at the beginning of the song...

Fun to see another fan! I got into Seikima-II big time in the past few years, they rock so hard. Demon himself has a cameo in Godzilla vs Biollante which is fun too.

On Kai vs Z, it seems like Kai is great for fans who have trouble with the 1.3 chapter per episode on average pacing DBZ has (according to this site's episode guide). But it sounds like there are pros and cons to each way, unless you just love the original pacing, which is great if you do.

For example, I love One Piece, and the early stuff has pacing that holds up nicely, about 2 chapters an episode on average in the early stuff like East Blue saga. A friend of mine lately just can't get into it with that pace, but for me that pacing is terrific, especially since it becomes 1 chapter per episode later on, much like Buu in DBZ.

For me 2 chapters an episode, or 1.5 at the lowest on average is what feels doable for me with fight episodes of a show generally. It's nice to have options for different preferences like we do. And I think Dragon Ball has the most interesting cool fan edits around too.