Why do the Season sets default to English with Japanese ost?

[90sDBZ]

I've always wondered why this is the default setting. It seems like the setting the least amount of people would watch with. Dub fans want the Jonson/Faulconer scores with the English voices and Japanese fans want the Japanese voices to go with the music. Furthermore the dub doesn't fit with the Japanese score as well as it's own score. It is a nice option to have that I do appreciate but I don't see why Funi always make it the default setting on both the Bricks and the Level sets. The dub score is pretty much the biggest appeal of these sets and is the main reason people buy them over the Dragon Boxes aside from the price so I don't see why it isn't the default setting.

[OutlawTorn]

Probably because that is the 5.1 track. Depending on your hardware, you can set it to default to either English or Japanese (don't know if you can actually define which English track you want, however).

[VegettoEX]

Dub fans want the Jonson/Faulconer scores with the English voices and Japanese fans want the Japanese voices to go with the music.

You're assuming "dub fans" were buying the sets, whereas what the sales figures told us was that it was simply "fans" buying the set.

And there is a difference. "Fans" watched the show ten years earlier on Cartoon Network -- likely not again since then -- and didn't necessarily know who wrote what music, what music was even what music in the first place, and so on and so forth.

Additionally, FUNimation was moving away from putting the limelight on the Faulconer Productions score for a variety of seasons, and making it a secondary track was part of that process.

[eledoremassis02]

I think there a lot of dub fans buying the season sets. I think there was a lot "Hey I used to watch this!" The buy a season or two. I think that's part of the reason why the season dvd sell well on ebay.

But I don't think they mind witching the audio. I don't and I prefer dub music with dub audio, though I prefer the Japanese over the dub most of the time.

Now we have Kai fans who parents might buy these by mistake, or kids who want to see Z or might not even know it's not kai.

Additionally, FUNimation was moving away from putting the limelight on the Faulconer Productions score for a variety of seasons, and making it a secondary track was part of that process.

I think this may be the nail on the head.

[Ringworm128]

Probably Funi trying to separate themselves from the replacement score as much as possible. As far as I know the whole "must have Faulconer" thing started with the Dragonboxes which came two years after the OB's. Also the average joe who bought the season sets wouldn't even care. My brother is a pretty casual fan and he never switched to the Faulconer score. Also I disagree that the dub and Kikuchi music don't fit. I found most of the time it fit perfectly, sometimes even better than the Japanese version. The Kaioken X20 scene is a good example of this. EDIT: VegettoEX already beat me to it.

[90sDBZ]

Probably Funi trying to separate themselves from the replacement score as much as possible. As far as I know the whole "must have Faulconer" thing started with the Dragonboxes which came two years after the OB's. Also the average joe who bought the season sets wouldn't even care. My brother is a pretty casual fan and he never switched to the Faulconer score. Also I disagree that the dub and Kikuchi music don't fit. I found most of the time it fit perfectly, sometimes even better than the Japanese version. The Kaioken X20 scene is a good example of this. EDIT: VegettoEX already beat me to it.

If they were really trying to separate themselves from the replacement scores then why did they opt to use the Nathan Jonson score for the TV Broadcast of redubbed episodes 1-67 not that long before the Season sets were produced?

Also to address some of the other comments I'm pretty sure dub fans made up a large amount of the sales. The general reaction to Kai having the Japanese score and countless fans complaining that it "ruined" many of the great moments from the Z dub should be enough to indicate that. The people that didn't care about the score would have most likely have been casual viewers and wouldn't have bothered buying the entire series. I'm sure the bulk of the sales came from fans of the dub who actually cared enough to buy the whole series.

[Ringworm128]

That's only because the Faulconer fans are more vocal. A good chunk of the kids who watch Kai probably just stick to the Nicktoons boards or talking about it with their friends at school. It's like with Star Wars if you went by what you saw on the internet you would think everyone hated the prequals and special editions when in reality most people who watch Star Wars enjoy the prequals and don't even notice or even care about the changes in the special editions.

[jjgp1112]

I fail to see any process in phasing the dub music out, though. It only wasn't on the Dragon Boxes, which were a niche release for a specific part of the fanbase. The score was the default option on the level sets, anyway.

[VegettoEX]

I fail to see any process in phasing the dub music out, though. It only wasn't on the Dragon Boxes, which were a niche release for a specific part of the fanbase. The score was the default option on the level sets, anyway.

None of FUNimation's streaming options -- their own + Hulu verisons -- had the replacement score. It was their dub exclusively with the original Kikuchi score.

[kei17]

I hope that kids in the English speaking countries got familiar with the Kikuchi score because of this.

[Kid Buu]

I hope that kids in the English speaking countries got familiar with the Kikuchi score because of this.

Kai uses the Kikuchi score, so they probably will.

[TheAldella]

Kai uses the Kikuchi score, so they probably will.

Kai uses a single Kikuchi track, so they probably won't.* Fixed that for ya. XD Nah, but in honesty, I feel as though this was just a slip-up, or a mindless decision because 'Well, why not?'

[TheBlackPaladin]

I hope that kids in the English speaking countries got familiar with the Kikuchi score because of this.

Well, I don't know about kids, but I think it was a good way to introduce the score to fandom in general. The very first time I heard the Kikuchi score was with the season sets (on the dub track), and I fell in love with it from the first note. It was also the first time I learned that the music had been changed at all...back when I was a kid, I didn't particularly love the Faulconer score, but I didn't know the music had been replaced, so I just sort of said, "Well, the music's no big deal, but whatever." Then when I heard Kikuchi's score, I instantly understood why so many sub fans were upset.

I seem to be a rarity, though. Most dub fans were really turned off by it. I that's mostly because they just weren't used to hearing orchestral music in DBZ, but I also think that a less significant reason is because Kikuchi's music wasn't mixed very well on the dub track...the loudness of the music varies from episode to episode and from movie to movie.

[DragonBoxZTheMovies]

Because it'd be silly if they didn't.

They went through the trouble of mixing a new audio track specifically for these sets and it's in 5.1; I think they'd want people to hear it and not have it as this neat little extra off to the side. It was also a huge novelty that a lot of fans had wanted nearly a decade previously, so I have to imagine it was a big selling point and something that FUNimation really wanted to push in when they were promoting the sets.

[jjgp1112]

The Kikuchi score never really stood out to me when I first heard it as a kid in I want to say...2002-ish. It just sounded like old-timey orchestra stuff.

[TheMightyOzaru]

It's the original original soundtrack. Why not have default to that? You're also assuming that most dub fans prefer Faulconer. I mean, I used to, but after getting used to Kikuchi, I realized it was much better for the show. Silence is golden sometimes.

[Super Sonic]

Like the others said I'm guessing it's the 5.1. Personally, I only own 1 set with the Faulconer music fully, which I haven't opened yet so can't talk too much on the subject. If anyone wondered why it wasn't the Japanese default, most anime dvds do English as default. Only ones I have that have Japanese as default are His and Her Circumstances and the X-Men anime. Switched to English rather than watching the default like I normally do for different reasons on those though.

[penguintruth]

The Kikuchi score never really stood out to me when I first heard it as a kid in I want to say...2002-ish. It just sounded like old-timey orchestra stuff.

Yeah, Kikuchi's score is old-timey. That's the charm. It's kung fu movie, Lalo Schifirin-meets-John Philip Sousa-meets-Dominic Frontiere, Godzilla University Marching Band with a sprinkle of YMO. It's the essence of the seventies and eighties combined in one garish Fusion that grips the imagination.

[Zenkai]

It seems like the setting the least amount of people would watch with. Dub fans want the Jonson/Faulconer scores with the English voices and Japanese fans want the Japanese voices to go with the music.

I like the the English voices (probably because I speak English...) with the Japanese music.

[The Time Traveller]

I fail to see any process in phasing the dub music out, though. It only wasn't on the Dragon Boxes, which were a niche release for a specific part of the fanbase. The score was the default option on the level sets, anyway.

Funimation started doing single releases for the movies after doing the double feature steel boxes, they didn't have the English dub scores, though they were cancelled too.