Toei Officially Acknowledges Yamamoto's Kai Rip-Offs

[ShadowDude112]

I guess I'll wait a while to get Part 4 and keep my Parts 1, 2, and 3. I can't wait to hear Kikuchi in Kai. I loved him in Z and hearing him in this show, with a new dub, sign me up!

[BlazingFiddlesticks]

Damn, take the franchise seriously, eliminate or manipulate all elements that might make it's not taken seriously (= anything outdated)

My own opinion is: to me, the show has to forget what it was back then and be reborn to fit nowadays standards if we want it to live on, both in the world and in our hearts.

Enjoy.

Ha ha, nicely thought!
However, this film:
1) was basically loved by no one, neither critics nor fans, so you can't say it meets the standards of what is considered nowadays great quality. The objective is to get more impressive and more worthy of the author's great fiction, not more unfaithful and ridiculous. How is this movie "taken seriously" by the industry, fans of the genre and fans of the show?
2) in the end, is it Dragon Ball, really? I'm talking about refreshing the technical side, not changing the characters, story, events, fictional universe, qualities of the original manga, etc... This is no remake, it's an unrelated story loosely using a few of the franchise's elements for commercial convenience...

But I understand that some people feel like the original Dragon Ball Z is perfect in terms of music and/or visual stuff. But as far as I'm concerned, quality improves in the industry, and so do my expectations. Nostalgia is nice, and most fans (of any work, not just Dragon Ball) seem driven by it, but there's always room for improvement, and everything should always be improved, especially if it has become legendary, and I think Dragon Ball has that status. They should rethink the whole adaptation of the manga to make it better, and it doesn't go with taking back music from good old times. No remake does that, it just counters the whole point of "being new". Kai was half new at least, but now it will only be 15% new (minor visual improvement, minor dub changes, filler cut, and that's it, not much of a change...). If only this infringement problem had taken place just a few weeks later, when the series was done... But whatever, now the new interest is: what will they do next to revive the franchise, since this remastering led to nothing big?

It's the fact that Dragonball has that status which has stopped it from getting this treatment, both Kai and the development trends in most of the video games attest to that.

[Cipher]

How come these 2 orchestral soundtracks sound like actual orchestra when none of Kikuchi do? Oh, I know: maybe they were never orchestral to begin with...

Because Yamamoto's tracks were recorded in the last few years, while Kikuchi's weren't?

Japan wasn't very good about keeping quality recordings of soundtracks around back then, apparently. So we don't really have high quality recordings of Kikuchi's material anywhere.

Also, he's not using a full orchestra. It's mostly brass and mostly single instruments rather than a full section.

It's great that Kikuchi's score was recorded with a huge, symphonic orchestra absolutely out of reach for worldwide TV series, I'm glad he was given a high movie budget for his music.

Oh man. Two things here.

One, most of Kikuchi's material was actually recorded for the Dragon Ball movies, which were given a substantially higher budget than any of the TV episodes. Tracks used in the movies would show up in the TV show later in the year after they were released.

Two, it's not actually that crazy to have an orchestra score a series. For example, there's a straight-to-DVD series based on the Hellsing manga being released in Japan right now. That's a pretty niche series, compared to something like a big shonen property, being released in a pretty niche format. Yet Geneon was still able to score it with new tracks performed by the Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra.

And hell, thirdly, every TV show aired before the use of synthesizers still had a soundtrack. The used real instruments without breaking their budgets. They did that because it's something TV shows do literally all the time.

[Chibi Mystic Gohan]

The original Fullmetal Alchemist TV series also had an (absolutely amazing) orchestral score. It's not that uncommon.

[penguintruth]

The original Fullmetal Alchemist TV series also had an (absolutely amazing) orchestral score. It's not that uncommon.

Bones isn't cheap. Toei is.

[kei17]

How come these 2 orchestral soundtracks sound like actual orchestra when none of Kikuchi do?

That's obviously because of fewer people/instruments and less reverb.

[Majin Buu]

My own opinion is: to me, the show has to forget what it was back then and be reborn to fit nowadays standards if we want it to live on, both in the world and in our hearts.

So for Dragon Ball to live on in the hearts of everyone, including fans, it has to be reborn? I don't think that's an issue for people who are already fans of Dragon Ball. As a Dragon Ball fan, Dragon Ball will "live on in my heart" the way it was, it doesn't need to be reborn with some big revolutionary change for that to happen. And the people who aren't fans most likely won't be persuaded to give it a shot with this big revolutionary change that you're advocating.

Such a change isn't necessary, and would probably end up like Kai, or Evolution.

[xzero]

I really hope Funi keeps the Yamamoto stuff, at least for the 5th set. I don't even know if they're legally allowed to do so, but assuming they are, I at least want everything through the Freeza Saga to have consistent music (after that, I don't really care much; I haven't watched Kai past the end of Freeza, so I have no real attachment to that music).

[jpdbzrulz4sure]

I really hope Funi keeps the Yamamoto stuff, at least for the 5th set.

So do I, if nothing else, because it'd have a BGM that I want that was going to be included on the now cancelled "Dragon ball Kai Original Soundtrack 集", and I'd want someone to try to rip it from the 5.1 dub track.

[Vernichter]

Is the Kikuchi score going to be the exact same as in DBZ, or is the BGM going to be used differently than it was?

[Goku100xKamehameha]

Is the Kikuchi score going to be the exact same as in DBZ, or is the BGM going to be used differently than it was?

You mean the placement of the BGM?

[Vernichter]

Yes. With the BGM being the same stuff from Z recycled, I'm strongly considering not picking up more of Kai past the three volumes I already have. The new music made up about 85% of the reasons I even became interested in Kai.

But, if the song placement is the exact same, that's gonna be the final nail in the coffin for Kai for me.

[Goku100xKamehameha]

I'm don't know about that, but at least I know that the BGM for "SSj 2 Gohan Transformation" was changed...

[kei17]

They are not able to put the exact same pieces because they do not have instant access to the unreleased BGMs that have not been digitized from the open-reel master tapes yet. They are replacing the whole score in a rush, so I guess they do not have enough time and money to digitize all of them.

[Namekjin]

Did they replace all of the score?!

[GotenDaisuki]

Did they replace all of the score?!

If they're not done already, then they are as we type.
The replacement of the score is being extremely rushed, so we may have some negative opinions on what they chose to put in there.

[penguintruth]

I wish there were video examples of this replacement in action.

[Namekjin]

Do you think they will replace it on the Nicktoons airing too?

[GotenDaisuki]

Do you think they will replace it on the Nicktoons airing too?

Possibly. I'm not entirely sure, though, since I don't follow when Kai airs on Nicktoons, nor do I watch it on television in general.

[Kendamu]

Has FUNimation responded to anything regarding this yet?