Wow, the Japanese soundtrack is horrible!

[Piccolo Daimaoh]

Here's my opinion on the Original vs. FUNimation score debate. I haven't really been able to give you guys my thoughts on the matter at all during my time here on the Daizex forums so I apologize if this gets too long but that's because I wanted to write this like an essay.


First off, I'll say that I was born in the '90s. Which means, growing up I was exposed to a lot of rock and techno music which is probably why I like it today. Orchestral and classical music was unheard of at the time and I knew of no one who actually listened to it.


Kikuchi's score was created in the '80s for a Japanese audience and the first time most of the American audience heard it was on the uncut DVDs in 2000-2001. This is probably why people find it dated, boring and repetitive compared to Faulconer's score. This brings me back to what I said before: Rock and Techno music was cool and hip at the time and Orchestral music was certainly not, which is why FUNimation replaced the score when licensing the series in North America.


Back in 1999, kids thought it was cool and it fit well with the action in the series. This is true; it did fit well with the action of the series and did sound appealing to children at the time, including myself. But now as a teenager, I can look back at Faulconer's score and see that it had decent music, but didn't fit the martial arts tone of Dragon Ball. It instead would fit something like wreslting or UFC, but definately not martial arts like karate.


People on this forum say that Kikuchi's score is very reminiscent of old Kung-Fu movies. I'm not at all suprised by this and I wouldn't be against watching a Bruce Lee movie with Kikuchi's score in it.


Other people say it doesn't fit Dragon Ball Z as it does Dragon Ball because Z is more Sci-Fi themed. I have seen all the Star Wars movies and the first three Star Trek movies and there was no techno or rock music playing in the background in those movies. In fact, the score was more like Kikuchi's than Faulconer's.


My opinion on Kikuchi's score being better than Faulconer's score is not based on which one is the original, which one sounds cooler or which one everyone else likes. It is based on the fact that Kikuchi's score fits the series better in terms of tone, variety and setting. Sure it does get repetitive at times but with 444 episodes, it's hard not to be.

[mystic trunks]

I'm not sure why people are playing up this 'martial arts' gimmick so much. DBZ stopped being about martial arts halfway through the saiyan saga. It became more about inhuman speed and supernatural powers after that point.

And of course Star Wars didn't have tecnho and synths. It was made in the 70's. I think Faulconers' tracks fit the futuristic , fantasy type world of DBZ much better than 70s orchestra.

[Piccolo Daimaoh]

I'm not sure why people are playing up this 'martial arts' gimmick so much. DBZ stopped being about martial arts halfway through the saiyan saga. It became more about inhuman speed and supernatural powers after that point.

And of course Star Wars didn't have tecnho and synths. It was made in the 70's. I think Faulconers' tracks fit the futuristic , fantasy type world of DBZ much better than 70s orchestra.

Okay, so the martial arts got a bit superhuman but it was still martial arts right up until the end of the Boo arc.

[Puto]

I'm not sure why people are playing up this 'martial arts' gimmick so much. DBZ stopped being about martial arts halfway through the saiyan saga. It became more about inhuman speed and supernatural powers after that point.

And of course Star Wars didn't have tecnho and synths. It was made in the 70's. I think Faulconers' tracks fit the futuristic , fantasy type world of DBZ much better than 70s orchestra.

Let's rescore Star Wars with Faulconer's DBZ soundtrack, then. I'm sure it'll sound great and totally fitting of that futuristic world. </sarcasm>

[Bussani]

DBZ stopped being about martial arts halfway through the saiyan saga.

Dragon Ball is a martial arts story. The story has martial arts tropes from start to finish. The plot doesn't change into speculative fiction over the effects of technology or alien life on humanity. The technology and aliens in Dragon Ball are circumstantial.

I think Faulconers' tracks fit the futuristic , fantasy type world of DBZ much better than 70s orchestra.

I respectfully disagree.

[Blue]

I'm not sure why people are playing up this 'martial arts' gimmick so much. DBZ stopped being about martial arts halfway through the saiyan saga. It became more about inhuman speed and supernatural powers after that point.

And of course Star Wars didn't have tecnho and synths. It was made in the 70's. I think Faulconers' tracks fit the futuristic , fantasy type world of DBZ much better than 70s orchestra.

Let's rescore Star Wars with Faulconer's DBZ soundtrack, then. I'm sure it'll sound great and totally fitting of that futuristic world. </sarcasm>

It would fit the general quality of the prequel series much better to be fair.

[cRookie_Monster]

Let's rescore Star Wars with Faulconer's DBZ soundtrack, then. I'm sure it'll sound great and totally fitting of that futuristic world. </sarcasm>

Same thing in reverse. The original DB score isn't exactly Williams music. To me it suffers from the same thing that most 80s cartoon's soundtrack suffered from. They were mostly scored by has been jazz arrangers who didn't really have a feel for epic score or rock music. Usually the score needed to go one of those directions. They used too much trumpet and trombone because that's what they were familiar with, when really the king of epic scores is the french horn. Their rock stuff again was tainted with weird jazz horns and bad mixing. Mostly what I'm picturing in my head right now are the Transofmers G1 and GIJoe scores from about the same time, but DBZ's original score definitely reminds me more of that sound than it does a classic Williams score. Where it differs is that it is actually more based on classical music, but kind of simplified. For reference I called up a random track: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pk8xnDQ_6M4

Exactly as I stated earlier, no french horns anywhere, all tbones and trumpets, making it sound like a jazz band. Then there's this basic classical harmony, but way too many unisons, not enough harmony. The strings are badly played, out of tune, made worse by the fact that its unison. Synths strings might sound fake and cheesy but at least they are in tune. Then there's the ridiculous over use of the diminished chord. To m the diminished chord is something that was supposed to sound scary in silent movie piano scores...but come on, its had it's day. Lets do something more modern....

At 4:20 is another thing that bothers me about the Japanese score, the overuse of the vibraslap....to me that thing just sounds silly.....but it's not worse than the Faulconer Production's score's over use of the clarinet which is equally as goofy....

My favorite parts of the original DBZ score are when they go synth, and they seem to escape that old jazz or badly done classical kinda taint.

Sorry, I kinda just went off on Kikuchi. I just don't think the original DBZ score is comparable to Star Wars.
I'm not saying the Faulconer Productions score is better...it has plenty of problems as well (bad MIDI, no silence, too much Mickey Mousing, rough editing\transitions, overdone metal, etc). I have things I hate and love about both scores (and the same for the Ocean score too).



(incidentally I did a parody of the Japanese score for the land mine scene in Plan to Eradicate the Saiyans
http://www.morganstudios.com/LandMines.mp3
I demonstrate many of the things I talked about, cheesy muted jazz tbones, ratchets, cheesy diminished chords played by tremelo strings....hehe and jawharp)

.

[Blue]

http://www.morganstudios.com/LandMines.mp3

I know you said this was a parody but I actually really really like this piece of music.
I wonder if Funi would have let you get away with scoring the show like that?

[cRookie_Monster]

http://www.morganstudios.com/LandMines.mp3

I know you said this was a parody but I actually really really like this piece of music.
I wonder if Funi would have let you get away with scoring the show like that?

Thanks
They might have for that scene. I did it because it was a comedic scene. The thing is, the Japanese score would do stuff like that for serious scenes on a regular basis and I just didn't think it fit.

[ThunderPX]

Speaking of which, remember how the Ocean dubs of the first few movies had cheesy sound effects put in? In the Buu saga, one of the Japanese songs actually has something like that in the song, and it's really distracting when it plays during, say, Goku and Vegeta's fight.

[VegettoEX]

Speaking of which, remember how the Ocean dubs of the first few movies had cheesy sound effects put in? In the Buu saga, one of the Japanese songs actually has something like that in the song, and it's really distracting when it plays during, say, Goku and Vegeta's fight.

I guess it has nothing to do with the musical score, but I noticed this very same thing when ripping the audio examples for this most recent podcast episode. The joke needs to be slammed into dub viewer's head with twangs and zings, whereas in the original, it's the awkward silence that sells it.

Subtlety, hurray!

[ThunderPX]

At about 4:10 in this video is the bit I mentioned. The sound just comes out of nowhere; at first I thought there was something funny about Goku and Vegeta punching each other in the face that I was missing, but it's actually part of the song. Now don't get me wrong, I like the Japanese score, but this is one of the parts where I just need to ask... what were they thinking?!

[mystic trunks]

I'm not sure why people are playing up this 'martial arts' gimmick so much. DBZ stopped being about martial arts halfway through the saiyan saga. It became more about inhuman speed and supernatural powers after that point.

And of course Star Wars didn't have tecnho and synths. It was made in the 70's. I think Faulconers' tracks fit the futuristic , fantasy type world of DBZ much better than 70s orchestra.

Let's rescore Star Wars with Faulconer's DBZ soundtrack, then. I'm sure it'll sound great and totally fitting of that futuristic world. </sarcasm>

I never said, or even implied that Star Wars should use anything remotely close to Faulconers music. You are putting words in my mouth.

[jjgp1112]

I don't think that the Japanese score is horrible until the Buu saga, but mystic trunks is right it does get pretty damn repetitive. I've been watching the Dragon Box lately, and after the 3000th time hearing the theme from the Ginyu Force intro or the theme from when Garlic Jr. opened up the dead zone, it gets pretty headscratch-worthy

And I'm also gonna agree with most of what cRookie_Monster said, too.

[cRookie_Monster]

At about 4:10 in this video is the bit I mentioned. The sound just comes out of nowhere; at first I thought there was something funny about Goku and Vegeta punching each other in the face that I was missing, but it's actually part of the song. Now don't get me wrong, I like the Japanese score, but this is one of the parts where I just need to ask... what were they thinking?!

lol, that's a slide whistle....and I used one of those in landmines.mp3 as well...but after I'd started doing the Faulconer Productions brand of stupidity.

Edit: It kinda looked like that first one went with the punch.

if you are interested the landmines scene is @ 4:06 in this vid:
http://www.dragonflickz.com/fandubs/pla ... /part-two/

I used the slide whistle for monster goes up, monster goes down XD

[Piccolo Daimaoh]

At about 4:10 in this video is the bit I mentioned. The sound just comes out of nowhere; at first I thought there was something funny about Goku and Vegeta punching each other in the face that I was missing, but it's actually part of the song. Now don't get me wrong, I like the Japanese score, but this is one of the parts where I just need to ask... what were they thinking?!

That was funny. ZZZZuuuuuuuuupppppppppp (Goku punches Vegeta).

[Rory]

Kai's soundtrack has them both beat in my opinion.

I gotta go with ma'Amigo on this one. Kai just seems to cover the strong points of both the Kukichi and the Faulconer score (whatever strong points the latter has), and is more exciting, powerful, and well (obviously) modern. Also, it feels more Dragon Ball to me (personal opinion), especially for the portion of the series it's covering.

[Sebastian (SB)]

I would agree if the Kai music wasn't being used on an existing product that was essentially re-edited. That's my huge problem with it...and the constant loops I mentioned before. The music itself is fine (great, even), but it wouldn't been a helluva lot better if used on a newly animated Dragon Ball product. I can't think of the DBZ anime without the Kikuchi score.

[penguintruth]

Well, the original Japanese score isn't exactly Yoko Kanno or Yuki Kajiura, but it's the best music for the show.

Shunsuke Kikuchi produced a wonderful variety of big, operatic orchestral pieces that created a "force of nature" feel to it, more martial arts movies inspired pieces that carried over from the original series but still fit in well within the scenes they were used in, the cute little "children's show" music used for scenes with Gohan as a young child, and these sort of triumphant horn pieces. They help build the scene themselves and add an impact to the material, instead of sitting on top of them like the dub scores.

I'll admit that the instrumental version of "We Were Angels" was used a few too many times during the Buu arc, but that is hardly the composer's fault.

Bruce Faulconer and Mark Menza's "music" sounds little more than early 90s MIDI music from video games, with a few generic guitar riffs thrown in for good measure to create a sense that DBZ's dub is an American cartoon, not a foreign one. It's a lot of Casio and commercial music bed-sounding nonesense most of the time. It sits on top of the scenes, not weaving into it. A lot of the time it sounds like a bunch of electronic farts strung together trying to stress only the action element of DBZ.

As far as the Yamamoto score for Kai is concerned, it's very limited, sound-wise. There's not a lot of variety, not just in the number of tracks, but the sort of music it sounds like. Where you do find variety, the soundtrack is decent, but it also pales in comparison to Kikuchi's. It feels like Yamamoto is too afraid to venture out of the central sound of his pieces. I'd rate it on about the same level as the GT soundtrack in terms of quality.

[cRookie_Monster]

It's a lot of Casio and commercial music bed-sounding nonesense most of the time.

For the record, there's zero Casio in the Faulconer Productions score. Though some of the orchestral instruments sound like it I personally never use the "acoustic" instruments that gave that sound....I use more modern stuff like the products from East West (http://www.soundsonline.com )