(Blue Brick) English Voice with Jap music, not totally true

[GTx10]

So I bought the Dragon Ball (Blue Brick) Season 1 DVD and watched it. (Duh) During the final battle between Son-Kun and Jackie Chun, the song "Aim to be the Greatest on Earth" played in the background. So after watching it Japanese I went back to watch said scene in English and nothing! The song was absent! Yet the back of the DVD box says "English Voice Track with Original Japanese Music". I feel lied to. Where the heck is my "Aim to be the Greatest on Earth" insert song with my English voice track?!
I'm not sure if this is a issue with any other Season set because I haven't spot checked scenes.


Edit: This first post has been edited to include all findings of missing/altered Japanese music when the Option "English voice track with Original Japanese music" is picked on the Blue/Orange/Green DB/Z/GT Season DVD sets. (Note: When the DVD option "Original Japanese Mono" is selected all insert songs and pretty much all the music within DB/Z/GT is present. These musical issues only plague (some) non Japanese dubs)

According to forum member, MagicBox's findings: (Thanks and ALL credit goes to MagicBox for this list)


Kept In The Dub:
- The "Mezase Tenkaichi" instrumental in episode 19 (The Tournament Begins)
- "With A Burning Heart ~Defeat The Red Ribbon Army~" in episode 65. (Confront the Red Ribbon Army)
- "The Dragon Ball Legend" in episode 76. (The True Colors of the Masked Man)
- "Blue Travelers" in episode 78. (The Eternal Dragon Rises)
- "Mezase Tenkaichi" in episode 86. (Then there were Eight)

Removed From The Dub:
- "Mezase Tenkaichi" in episode 28. (The Final Blow)
- "A Mysterious Wonderland" in episode 29. (The Roaming Lake)
- "The Dragon Ball Legend" in episodes 30, 33, & 35. (Pilaf and the Mystery Force, The Legend of a Dragon, Cold Reception)
- "The Son Gokū Song" in episode 43. (A Trip to the City)
- "The Red Ribbon Army" in episode 48. (Deep Blue Sea)
- "Wolf Hurricane" in episode 87. (Yamcha vs. Tien)
- "Mezase Tenkaichi" in episode 95. Goku vs. Krillin)
- "The Teachings Of Muten Rōshi" in episode 130. (Goku's Doll)

Japanese music not within the DBZ English voice track with Original Japanese Music DVD option.

"Battle-Colored Warriors,"
"MIND POWER ...Ki...,"
"The Day Of Destiny ~Spirit VS Spirit~"

"...But the instrumental insert songs ("BP∞ Battle Point • Unlimited" and "Solid State • Scouter") were included."

Dragon Ball GT's English Voice Track with Original Japanese Music option seems to be fully intact.

Member MagicBox further states:

"Certain pieces of Shunsuke Kikuchi's background music are excluded from FUNi's dub of DBZ as well, most notably the choir chants during Piccolo's sacrifice against Nappa. Their "uncut" redubs of DBZ movies 02 and 03 each lost a 20-30 second piece of Kikuchi music, if I remember correctly. It's not certain if the latter example is due to an error in Toei's music-& effects tracks or just due to an oversight when FUNi was mixing the audio."


Forum Member TheBlackPaladin points out that the song "Day of Fate" is absent when one chooses the "English Voice Track with Original Japanese Music" on DBZ Season 6 DVD. Some (non English) dubs also have this problem. Forum Member kei17 points out that the Cantonese Dub of DB/Z/GT includes all of the insert songs.

[Daisetsu]

Dragon Ball is a bit of an oddball when it comes to insert songs. Some are included on the English track and some aren't (due to legal issues, I would guess). But the oddest is the song you mentioned, it is played during the Yamcha Vs Tenshinhan fight but no where else.

DBZ also suffers from the lack insert songs on the English track, except for Battle Point Unlimited; that is left fully intact. Can't remember if there's any insert songs at all for GT.

[GTx10]

Dragon Ball is a bit of an oddball when it comes to insert songs. Some are included on the English track and some aren't (due to legal issues, I would guess). But the oddest is the song you mentioned, it is played during the Yamcha Vs Tenshinhan fight but no where else.

DBZ also suffers from the lack insert songs on the English track, except for Battle Point Unlimited; that is left fully intact. Can't remember if there's any insert songs at all for GT.

I don't recall GT having insert songs. The Japanese version played Dan Dan over and over if I recall. It can't be legal reasons could it? How could "Aim to be the Strongest on Earth" be on the Japanese track but not the English track. If you have the rights to use it within the Japanese track, how could that not reflect on the English track?

So DBZ suffers from this as well? (AT least Battle Point Unlimited was saved. It truly is Future Trunks's theme song!) I mean its not a huge deal because I can simply view the Japanese track for the correct music. But if the DVD box says English voices with Original Japanese music than I assume I'm hearing all of the Original Japanese music during the English track.

[Daisetsu]

I can't say with 100% certainty that it is legal issues, because there are other dubs that have all the insert songs. It might also have to do with Funi not wanting to pay royalties.

About the JP track having the songs (I'm going off memory and assuming some things here), back before the 00's, it never crossed anyone's mind at Toei the Dragon Ball (or any of their shows, for that matter) would eventually be released on home video. Therefore, once the recording onto masters that would be used for broadcasts was done for each episode, they threw away the original voice masters to save some space. By consequence, it's nigh-impossible to remove music from the JP track without also affecting the voices in some way.

[Valerius Dover]

The song doesn't play in the Yamcha vs. Tien battle at all. The only time it's played in the dub is in Episode 86 during the prelimary montage. The only other songs kept in the dub are the Red Ribbon Army flashback montage song in Episode 65, the Dragon Ball Legend song in Episode 76, and that song in the lily pad scene in Episode 78. Also, the instrumental bit of the tournament song in Episode 19.

It's a downside, and I don't know why, but almost all the insert songs are missing in the dub. My theory was that they had already been removed since they had gotten the M & SE tracks from Intertrack in Mexico (seeing as how apparently the same songs are missing in that dub according to a list that was in a thread here somewhere), but I was told this rumor was false.

[GTx10]

I feel I should update my first post with these various changes everyone has brought up. Keep a comprehensive list as it were.

[TheKingOfKamehamehas]

It makes no sense why Battle Point Unlimited is still on all of the English releases even after 2011 though it was plagiarized which should make it harder to get the rights to use the insert song since Toei banned Yamamoto while they can instead use other insert songs like Aim to be the Greatest on Earth. Battle Point Unlimited is still on the Blu-Rays https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=waPBAoYKqxE
Maybe Funimation is still using the same source for the musical score... and I am guessing Daisetsu is correct.

[Valerius Dover]

^Battle Point Unlimited is still on there because Funi is using the same audio track that's on the Orange Bricks. Removing it won't do any good, because it would still be there on the Japanese Audio Track.

[TheBlackPaladin]

It may also be that the audio masters provided to FUNimation by Toei simply didn't have the songs on them. The English dub isn't the lone offender when it comes to absent insert songs, I've heard a lot of dubs, both of Dragon Ball and of other anime series, where certain insert songs don't play. Toei was infamous back in the day for providing less-than-stellar video and audio material to licensing companies for dubbing purposes.

Besides that insert song, a ton of the dubs of DBZ don't have "Day of Fate" playing when Gohan goes SSJ2 (which is also true of the 5.1 "English Voices With Original Music" track for the English dub). In most dubs, there's simply no music playing at all during that scene. There are YouTube clips where it is playing, but the vast majority of them are fan-edits. Of the few dubs that aren't silent during that song...

-The French dub has an instrumental track of "Day of Fate" playing, without the vocals. Perfect opportunity to dub the song, but France often doesn't dub songs.
-The German dub had a piece of music from a publicly-available music library playing...it's reasonably good in my opinion, but definitely not as good as "Day of Fate." It was also used twice before: once for a German car commercial, and once for a German......well....porn. I must emphasize, its use as porn music is what I've been told, not what I found out for myself.
-Finally, the Catalan dub is the only dub that actually went ahead and dubbed the song. I think I read somewhere that they're actually the only dub that had all the insert songs intact in one way or another (either using the original version or dubbing them into Catalan).

[kei17]

-Finally, the Catalan dub is the only dub that actually went ahead and dubbed the song. I think I read somewhere that they're actually the only dub that had all the insert songs intact in one way or another (either using the original version or dubbing them into Catalan).

The Catalan dub still lacks Shura Iro no Senshi on DBZ episode 20. It's the Cantonese dub that has all the insert songs intact through the entire series.

[MagicBox]

To re-recycle an old post of mine...

The general consensus is that certain insert songs just weren't included on the music-&-effects tracks that FUNimation received from Toei. FUNi can't work with what they aren't given.

Kept In The Dub:
- The "Mezase Tenkaichi" instrumental in episode 19
- "With A Burning Heart ~Defeat The Red Ribbon Army~" in episode 65.
- "The Dragon Ball Legend" in episode 76.
- "Blue Travelers" in episode 78.
- "Mezase Tenkaichi" in episode 86.

Removed From The Dub:
- "Mezase Tenkaichi" in episode 28.
- "A Mysterious Wonderland" in episode 29.
- "The Dragon Ball Legend" in episodes 30, 33, & 35.
- "The Son Gokū Song" in episode 43.
- "The Red Ribbon Army" in episode 48.
- "Wolf Hurricane" in episode 87.
- "Mezase Tenkaichi" in episode 95.
- "The Teachings Of Muten Rōshi" in episode 130.

"Battle-Colored Warriors," "MIND POWER ...Ki...," and "The Day Of Destiny ~Spirit VS Spirit~" aren't on FUNi's music-&-effects tracks for DBZ either. But the instrumental insert songs ("BP∞ Battle Point • Unlimited" and "Solid State • Scouter") were included. Luckily, the insert song versions of "Don't You See!" and "DAN DAN" were included in their respective episodes of FUNi's dub of GT.

Certain pieces of Shunsuke Kikuchi's background music are excluded from FUNi's dub of DBZ as well, most notably the choir chants during Piccolo's sacrifice against Nappa. Their "uncut" redubs of DBZ movies 02 and 03 each lost a 20-30 second piece of Kikuchi music, if I remember correctly. It's not certain if the latter example is due to an error in Toei's music-& effects tracks or just due to an oversight when FUNi was mixing the audio.

As for why FUNi didn't write/record English versions of the insert songs... your guess is as good as mine. I don't think anyone ever reached out to them about this.

[TheBlackPaladin]

As for why FUNi didn't write/record English versions of the insert songs... your guess is as good as mine. I don't think anyone ever reached out to them about this.

One of the more peculiar instances of this is that on the 5.1 track for their re-dub of "The World's Strongest," they actually made a synthesizer-based instrumental cover of "Piccolo-san Daisuki" (the song that plays when Gohan daydreams about homework and Piccolo). I find it odd that they made an instrumental cover, but didn't bother with English vocals. You'd think they'd either go the whole nine yards or just keep things silent (or, as was done in the Pioneer dub, just leave the original song as-is).

[Valerius Dover]

^Wait, wasn't this done for both Movies 1 and 2?

And I don't think silence would work for those scenes at all. They were very much animated with the songs in mind. The actual dub music works too since it was scored to match the picture, but leaving no music at all definitely wouldn't work.

[GTx10]

I've updated the first post with the relevant info. If I missed anything or stated something in error PLEASE inform me and I will update the First Post accordingly. Thanks everyone for your input!