15th Anniversary of the Kenji Yamamoto controversy.

[Young-Jah]

March 9th, 2026 marks the 15th anniversary since Toei Animation announced that they had found that many of Kenji Yamamoto (former Dragon Ball Composer) musical works for the Dragon Ball Kai series infringed upon unidentified third-party copyrights. But it wasn’t just the Kai anime, this plagiarism was also been noticed by fans since May 2010, when many Dragon Ball Video Games songs tracks in the early 2000s composed by Yamamoto included unofficial homages and unquestionable knockoffs of copyrighted material.

As a result of this controversy, not only did Toei fired Yamamoto from working on Kai and replaced his score with Kikuchi music from episode 1 to 95, but many of the games were re-released, notably the Budokai HD Collection, Raging Blast 2, and Super Butōden 1 and 2 for the 3ds and Switch.

What was your thoughts and reactions to this announcement when this happened.

[Dragon Ball Ireland]

I was surprised that for someone involved with Dragon Ball for so many years it took TOEI so long to realize that his work was plagiarized. He even did Battle Point Unlimited way back in 1991 for Dragon Ball Z.

Still a shame that Yamamoto couldn't have at least given the credit to the artists whose songs he was using as the guy was a great arranger and not a talentless hack.

[JulieYBM]

This was so funny and surreal to see unfold. I hope that someone leaks all of the tracks that Yamamoto composed someday. They're such an interesting gem of history for Dragon Ball and I think we should be able to document them.

[ThunderPX]

The way this was handled is complete bullshit. It's almost certain Toei knew about this problem for a very long time, given that Battle Point Unlimited was kept off compilations despite being in the fucking show unlike a lot of the lame image songs. And yet they were happy to keep on trucking until they pissed off a big bad American corpo by ripping off a Hollywood movie and airing it on American TV, because that's the only time anything matters.

Speaking more practically, while there's definitely no excuse for Yamamoto's more egregious ripoffs like BPU or that one movie theme that's just Immigrant Song, I think a lot of the stuff is overblown because people really like being part of detective work and there's a mathematically limited amount of different ways you can put notes together (see also: Sonic fans trying to figure out which Sonic 3 tracks were made by Michael Jackson in increasingly stupid and tenuous ways). I don't think a lot of those would be legally actionable, and even if they were I don't necessarily think it would morally make sense, since the international copyright system is pretty busted and there's some incredibly questionable legal precedent that doesn't hold up to scrutiny. Hell, a lot of the time the most interesting parts of Yamamoto's work are the ones he changed (e.g. Cell's theme in SB2, the best part of which does not sound like Pink Floyd--not to mention Pink Floyd ripped that off from the Doctor Who theme anyway; or Challengers having a much better melody and tighter arrangement than whatever that Stratovarius song was called).

And unfortunately, since Yamamoto was erased from existence, we haven't had a decent DB soundtrack. The re-releases of old games with replaced music are downright embarrassing for how fucking generic they are.

[M16U3L2015]

Even though what he did was morally wrong, I have to say that the guy was very good at reusing other people's material. It's amazing how well the Battle Point Unlimited arrangement is done, combining three different songs and making them sound fluid.

[johnboy1]

This isn't a popular opinion, but I'll say it: "Intellectual property" is just a form of rent-seeking. Copyrights, trademarks, patents, whatever form it takes, it's all bullshit. The vast majority of Yamamoto's plagiarism was different enough to be considered transformative by the average listener, and the ones that were actually egregious ultimately caused no harm to the parties in question (an assertion that I defy anyone to argue against). If there's no material harm, why should there be a material punishment?

[MasenkoHA]

There’s nothing I can say about the copyright aspect that hasn’t been said here and other places but I will say he was second to Shunsuke Kikuchi for my favorite Dragon Ball composer, like no other composer Japanese or American has come closer after those two and it’s a shame the only way to hear his score for most of Kai is fansub rips of the original FujiTv broadcast of Kai.

[90sDBZ]

I always loved the Budokai game soundtracks, and agree it was a massive shame to see them replaced for the HD collection. Those tracks were plagiarised, but they were awesome, and really brought the spirit of DB.

I was lucky enough to get Raging Blast 2 at launch, so my copy has Yamamoto's music. At least with the Budokai games it's easy to track down the originals, but finding an early copy of Raging Blast 2 is much harder.

His Kai soundtrack was also great, and successfully gave the show a modern feel while still fitting the story. The Kikuchi replacement was a definite downgrade, although I personally like Sumitomo's TFC score.

[Hellspawn28]

I'm surprised it took this long. Even back in the 2000s, I knew the Budokai music sound a bit off.

[The Dark Knight]

Losing the Yamamoto score in Kai and having it be randomly replaced with Kikuchi's score with little to no attention to the scenes it was part of in Z really made me appreciate how necessary a soundtrack is for a story's delivery and impact.

[Jord]

Were they actually sued in the end? They made a lot of money using plagiarized music in both the enemy and the video games so I would sue as a musician/record company.

I remember there being a thread here in which people submitted newly discovered rip offs from video games and such. It was funny and depressive at the same time.

[MasenkoHA]

I'm surprised it took this long. Even back in the 2000s, I knew the Budokai music sound a bit off.

I would guess Toei just didn’t care until international pressure?

Like Dairanger has a recurring motif that is blatantly a rip off of the Imperial March from Star Wars but since that show didn’t really leave Japan beyond a very late DVD release in 2017 I don’t think it really mattered to Toei


Kai’s score was being blasted across airwaves around the world with music “inspired” by very recent Summer blockbusters like Avatar and Terminator Salvation.

[GhostEmperorX]

Battle Point Unlimited was kept off compilations despite being in the fucking show unlike a lot of the lame image songs.

I explained why this is in a thread no one paid attention to.

all of these MONOLITH-performed instrumentals, even the ones that didn't share that structure, never appeared on any other releases beyond their Hit Song Collection CD's, as opposed to most all of the songs on them.

[ThunderPX]

That's pretty interesting. I'm still suspicious of it though, given that BPU was in the show, unless somehow every single person responsible for making a DBZ song compilation just totally missed it.

It'd be cool if we could find out more about how insert songs were chosen for DBZ, since DB had quite a lot until we got to King Piccolo, then DBZ had... I think two(?) early on, and then nothing until the Android arc hits and we get several. It's like they just forgot they could do that, despite pumping out an egregious amount of CDs with image songs (and you can really tell the ideas start to be spread thin when we start getting stuff like "Memories of the Tenkaichi Budoukai").

Heck, it would have really livened up some of the padding during the Freeza battle if they'd thrown in a few insert songs. Like that mostly wordless Piccolo flashback to how he came to be while everyone is waiting around on Earth, that could've turned into a neat little AMV of sorts with a song playing.

[coola]

And people notice more and more stuff since Super Butouden 1 (Gremlins 2 main theme https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=84UXp1LzBic ) How he was able to get away with this for so many years? Anime and manga was popular worldwide since at least early 90's. And i know copyrights were pretty loose until 2000's or so, but he was still hired even after that.

[GhostEmperorX]

That's pretty interesting. I'm still suspicious of it though, given that BPU was in the show, unless somehow every single person responsible for making a DBZ song compilation just totally missed it.

It's a track that was used in-series 9 months after its CD release rather than being made with that intention, and while the same also goes for a lot of the vocal inserts that were made months before being used as inserts, they were still songs.
As far as compilation scope, their only consistent focus was on the songs (and anything else that had some kind of voice in it). There's even an instrumental track not done by MONOLITH in the 2nd Characters Special that never appeared on anything else beyond its album.

Of course, you also have the fact that BPU was re-arranged for Japanese RB2 with no problem, so it more than likely just wasn't on their radar as something to look out for (given zero indication to the contrary as the available evidence shows).

If they'd included any other instrumental track in these compilations (that isn't Solid State Scouter or the other unused one from the same volume), it would indeed be strange if BPU alone was left out.

It's like they just forgot they could do that, despite pumping out an egregious amount of CDs with image songs (and you can really tell the ideas start to be spread thin when we start getting stuff like "Memories of the Tenkaichi Budoukai").

Heck, it would have really livened up some of the padding during the Freeza battle if they'd thrown in a few insert songs. Like that mostly wordless Piccolo flashback to how he came to be while everyone is waiting around on Earth, that could've turned into a neat little AMV of sorts with a song playing.

It's undeniable that they went overboard to an even greater extent than the cumulative rate of movies and TV specials being produced, meanwhile the directors seemed to have a thing for extended silences in particular, evident especially in the movies where 1-minute battle scenes could go without anything at all in the background.

[MCDaveG]

I always loved the Budokai game soundtracks, and agree it was a massive shame to see them replaced for the HD collection. Those tracks were plagiarised, but they were awesome, and really brought the spirit of DB.

I was lucky enough to get Raging Blast 2 at launch, so my copy has Yamamoto's music. At least with the Budokai games it's easy to track down the originals, but finding an early copy of Raging Blast 2 is much harder.

His Kai soundtrack was also great, and successfully gave the show a modern feel while still fitting the story. The Kikuchi replacement was a definite downgrade, although I personally like Sumitomo's TFC score.

It's funny, I sold copy of RB2 from XBOX at JRC with the original soundtrack, as nobody wanted it on ebay or other sites (and it wasn't even expensive at all), hence it got sold for the shop's buyout pricing and someone unaware might got a gem in their hands for few bucks without knowing

[Jord]

And people notice more and more stuff since Super Butouden 1 (Gremlins 2 main theme https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=84UXp1LzBic ) How he was able to get away with this for so many years? Anime and manga was popular worldwide since at least early 90's. And i know copyrights were pretty loose until 2000's or so, but he was still hired even after that.

I guess people know, but without the Internet as we know it today, it would be hard to spread that information. I believe the only official release of some of those SNES games is the French PAL version, so outside exposure seems minimal.

[coola]

And people notice more and more stuff since Super Butouden 1 (Gremlins 2 main theme https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=84UXp1LzBic ) How he was able to get away with this for so many years? Anime and manga was popular worldwide since at least early 90's. And i know copyrights were pretty loose until 2000's or so, but he was still hired even after that.

I guess people know, but without the Internet as we know it today, it would be hard to spread that information. I believe the only official release of some of those SNES games is the French PAL version, so outside exposure seems minimal.

There were also emulators available since late 90's. I really don't understand why Yamamoto thought he could still get away with plagiarism...

[Yellow Flower King]

Me and my bro played Super Budoten 2 and 3 on his SNES.