Who is your least favorite Dragon Ball composer?

[Sun Wukong]

I don't really have a worst composer. I think they all had their hits and misses. I do have a favourite though: Bruce Wayne Falcouner.

[EXBadguy]

A tie between Kikuchi(for Z) and Menza(for GT) for me.

[Sayo-chan]

I'd probably have to go with Kikuchi, I can't stand the repetitively dull nature of most of his pieces. I'd say Menza comes in a close second though, his work sounds like a lifeless version of Johnson's.

[TheKingOfKamehamehas]

This is a hard one for me, but I have to go with Menza. He seems like an awesome guy, but his repetitive music usually sounds the same sometimes. Its just sounds like some random notes played on an electric guitar with some drums being played in between. At least Faulconer and Ron Wasserman mixed it up.

Yamamoto and Sumitomo came pretty close though. Sumitomo makes some decent music as shown by BOG but I feel he hasn't been making enough tracks with Instrumental unless they tend to be a really important scene and usually just wastes the unimportant scenes with some crappy synthesizer music that sounds horrible. Yamamoto plagiarized

[theoriginalbilis]

Probably Nathan Johnson or Mark Menza. Their tracks tended to make Z and GT even more of a slog than they already were and killed a lot of the emotional impact of scenes that Kikuchi and Tokunaga (or even Faulconer Prod.) were placed in.

On the plus side, Mark Menza's opening theme for DBZ (the one heard on the "Orange Bricks") was actually pretty good, and I felt it fit the series.

[Cipher]

Nathan Johnson, I guess? Although that hardly seems fair because I've seen maybe two full episodes with his score. On other hand, I couldn't really sit through them. On the other other hand, he was doing the kind of wall-to-wall music FUNimation had requested, and maybe if I'd hit it at a time during which it was the only way to watch the dub of those episodes and I was still watching the dub, I'd have found something to like about it (as it stands, while I was still watching the dubbed version at the time, the Season Sets were what got me back into Dragon Ball and I found the Kikuchi score much, much more tolerable).

I can more confidently say I don't like the Yamamoto score though, and if I had to pick one -- bearing in mind the kind of instructions Johnson was given, and the difference in resources -- that would get my vote. Very, very generic and unfitting for the series, and that's aside from the plagiarism scandal. And really, when I think about Dragon Ball composers, I think about the Japanese ones, and there Yamamoto's handily my least favorite of the bunch.

[Ree]

Bruce Faulconer for being a lying fraud. -_-
Kenji Yamamoto is second, lost all respect for him.

[Pokewhiz7]

Nathan Johnson, just for being incredibly dull and unmemorable. Granted, I haven't really watched any more than maybe a few episodes with his score, but the only song I can really think of is the Ginyu Force theme.

I'm surprised how many people dislike Yamamoto though. Plagiarized or not, I thought it was good music.

[Daisetsu]

Toss up between Mark Menza, Nathan Johnson and Shuki Levy. Replacing the original music aside, none of them made a soundtrack as memorable as Kikuchi, Tokunaga and Falconer (and crew).

I'm surprised how many people dislike Yamamoto though. Plagiarized or not, I thought it was good music.

I'll agree with you up until androids appearing; afterwards, his music was, for lack of a better word, lackluster.

[Ree]

offtopic but does anyone know how to pronounce Shuki in Shuki Levy? is it Shoo-kee or Shuh-kee?

[kei17]

Definitely Yamamoto for moral reasons, but purely music-wise, it's Mark Menza. I've never heard anything impressing in his compositions. Even Nathan Johnson's score had some good pieces fairly infrequently though they don't fit the atmosphere of the series. Peter Berring is my second least favorite because I can't stand its purely Western, cartoony, and infantile style.

[floofychan333]

I'd say any of FUNimation/Ocean productions composers. I personally love the Japanese soundtrack and I don't think it needed to be replaced. I am currently watching DBZ with the English voices and the Japanese soundtrack, and I am thoroughly enjoying it, because it reminds me of Dragon Ball, which I watched first and adored.

[Piccolo Daimaoh]

I'm going with Menza too. Just too much guitar. Don't get me wrong; he's a great player, but this is a 60+ episode series, not a movie (where it kinda worked in the case of the first Broly movie).



Don't really remember much of the Nathan Johnson score, apart from that cool outro song. He composed that, right?

[Kuririn Fan]

Bruce Faulconer, he's just terrible.

[Wezenheim]

Out of the ones I've personally heard, probably Menza. Out of the composers that have worked on the Japanese anime, probably Sumitomo. I loved his score in Battle of Gods, but some of Super's songs are killing me. Although part of the blame has to fall on the placement of the music as well. Why would anyone think it'd be a good idea to play the OST that must not be named while Vegeta was using the Gallick Cannon?! The song sucks in general, but it feels really out of place for moments like that.

[Ajay]

Don't even really want to acknowledge the US composers, but if I had to, it'd be Mark Menza as the worst.

Otherwise, it's easily Sumitomo. No contest.

[SaiyàBitō]

Mark Menza I most certainly dislike...

It's either the same variations in different BGM tracks or even using the same beat in some tracks... Something like that.

Yamamoto for sure, I definitely lost respect for him.

If he didn't plagiarize his BGM tracks, things would've been alright... But no...no.

Bruce Falconer.... Eh.

Shunsuke Kikuchi.

I mean like yes! I actually like his BGM tracks, excellent variations and whatnot.

Finally, Norihito Sumitomo.

I most definitely like his BGM tracks.

Though, I feel there are like.... two tracks I've heard on YT that sounded quite similar to his.

I need to check again to make sure if he didn't plagiarize anything as well.

DEFINITELY LOVE TOKUNAGA'S BGM

Rather have of him as a composer now than of Sumitomo really.

[Iberian_Saiyan]

I would vote for Nathan Johnson and Mark Menza. Their 'songs' were very bland, uninspired and didn't fit Dragon Ball Z/GT at all not to mention they weren't memorable either. Faulconer Productions' should have composed for the entire Z series rather than a batch of episodes being composed by Nathan and then by FP. FP could've possibly done a better job than Menza but it's all past now as to what or should have been done better.

But in terms of better = Just stick to the original soundtrack.

Anyhow, my three DB composers are; Kikuchi, Yamamoto and Tokunaga.

[dbzfan7]

Oh that's easy. It's SumitoZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ....Sorry. I mean it's SumitomZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ. Oh man just picturing his score puts me to sleep. It's Sumitomo. No contest. ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ

[Zephyr]

Menza's is the most boring, grating, and sleep inducing for me. However, Sumitomo's takes the cake. If I'm watching GT, I can escape Menza's score by putting on the Tokunaga score on. If you want to watch Super though? You're fucking stuck with Sumitomo. The fact that I have to suffer his music if I want to watch Super only amplifies my dislike for it.