Would Z have been as successful on US TV if JPN BGM was kept

[Man-Child]

Given the level of censorship and cheese the show was going through at the time, I'm not sure that Kikuchi's music would've fit all that well with Funimation/Saban's DBZ.

Heck even the Levy score in that dub didn't fit sometimes because of how cheesy the dialogue was.

Just watch this clip for example, Nappa's childish, jokey diagloue and the dark music playing in the background don't fit together very well.

Very true. I always thought Levy's score worked best in Saban's first three episodes of Z, where "death" wasn't an issue and there was generally less censorship. After that, the gap between some of the darker tracks and the lightheartedness of the dialogue definitely seemed to grow.

[Bardo117]

To be completely honest, this scene is so sh**** with it's original score https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LM9SlgWRqgo

As compared to the American Score, holy crap, what a difference in tone, you can feel the epicness of the scene and the impact it leaves simply because of the BGM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ec6fR11dHUk#t=2m10s

[SaiyamanMS]

As someone who grew up on (and still likes a good amount of) the Faulconer music, it was entirely unnecessary. Dragon Ball Z was a hit in spite of the changes made to it, not because of them. However, doing things like that was just the way things were done back then. (And not just by Funimation.) It's very much a product of its time.

[LuckyCat]

To be completely honest, this scene is so sh**** with it's original score https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LM9SlgWRqgo

As compared to the American Score, holy crap, what a difference in tone, you can feel the epicness of the scene and the impact it leaves simply because of the BGM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ec6fR11dHUk#t=2m10s

This isn't a good comparison. This Kai scene was made using hastily thrown in Kikuchi tracks following plagiarism accusations. The original Kikuchi placement was much more thought out and used different tracks.

[Blade]

Dragon Ball Z was a hit in spite of the changes made to it, not because of them.

I think that's arguably as hard to prove as the opposing argument. The fact is that Dragonball Z has been successful both with, and without, replacement scores, and that various degrees of alteration for localisation purposes to a number of different languages and territories have been both warmly received by new fans and derided by fans of the original.

The formula to Dragonball's success is inherently complex to isolate. I mean, heck, if the factors pertaining to a sure-fire success were simple to map, then they would be reverse engineered repeatedly when launching Anime titles worldwide, and as we have seen with the likes of One Piece, what's successful in Japan isn't necessarily successful elsewhere. The localisation implemented by 4Kids is a commonly attributed as a factor towards One Piece's failure to make waves in the English-speaking market, but truthfully, I think that's an overly simplistic and innately flawed assumption to make - after all, a similar approach did nothing to hurt Pokemon.

[ABED]

a similar approach did nothing to hurt Pokemon.

Pokémon was a very popular game first.

[thomas1up]

To be completely honest, this scene is so sh**** with it's original score https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LM9SlgWRqgo

As compared to the American Score, holy crap, what a difference in tone, you can feel the epicness of the scene and the impact it leaves simply because of the BGM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ec6fR11dHUk#t=2m10s

The Kikuchi Kai placement for that scene is pretty bad I agree however...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ahWyqIaTVw

The original Z placement for the JPN score in that scene is miles better in my opinion.

[LuckyCat]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ahWyqIaTVw

The original Z placement for the JPN score in that scene is miles better in my opinion.

*sniff* Single tear rolls down my face. But in all seriousness, do people think a placement like this would have made DBZ USA unsuccessful?

[MagicBox]

I think that's an overly simplistic and innately flawed assumption to make - after all, a similar approach did nothing to hurt Pokemon.

But by your very same argument, isn't that just as hard to prove? Pokemon's doing great, but who's to say it wouldn't be a little better received if it was given a more faithful dub? It's sort of in the same boat that DBZ used to be in. I know plenty of people who avoid the dub because of the treatment it was given (especially nowadays, when the dub seems to be getting even worse now that they're using replacement scores for the movies again).

I understand what your post was saying and I agree, by the way. I'm just playing devil's advocate, I guess.

[Bardo117]

I have such contradicting opinions, I got to watch the Mexican/Spanish Dub before I saw the english dub, so I love both, just certain arts are way better with the Falcouner track.

[EXBadguy]

But in all seriousness, do people think a placement like this would have made DBZ USA unsuccessful?

Nope! As people said, DBZ can go with anything. But I think the original score itself could've had a mixed reception, juuust like how Faulconer was received from this community.

just certain arts are way better with the Falcouner track.

I feel ya, brotha!

[Cure Dragon 255]

The Early Pokemon dub was actually pretty faithful in the early days, 4kids only filled moments of silence with their additional OST pieces. Yu Gi Oh fits your argument better.Major ratings success despite being Butchered and having a replacement score and being a much more dark Shonen Jump Property.

But even then your argument still falls apart whe you realize that One Piece never had the history of international success DBZ had. DBZ was a success in most countries with the soundtrack intact. One Piece actually struggled to get fans outside of Japan from the get go. Toei was so desperate to have someone bring One Piece to America that they gave it to 4kids as bundle with Ojamajo Doremi. Of course 4kids only made things worse.

Sailor Moon was also a huge success with the soundtrack intact in most countries. In Fact Sailor Moon never did reach the major success most countries that kept the soundtrack intact in America. I'm not really dissing the DiC Score because it did fit the show and was decent in its own right. But Sailor Moon did see most success with its soundtrack intact.

[LuckyCat]

Nope! As people said, DBZ can go with anything. But I think the original score itself could've had a mixed reception, juuust like how Faulconer was received from this community.

I agree the music is going to have a mixed reception no matter what it is. And for what it's worth, I think most criticisms of Faulconer aren't of the music itself, but of its constant placement. For example, the Levy score, which is less persistent, tends to get way less criticism.

[Kamiccolo9]

Oddly enough, and a bit off-topic, I suppose, I vastly prefer the Faulconer music in the latter LoG games to the Faulconer music in the dub.

[BlackCatScott]

Interesting question but I would say yeah, it would still have been equally as succesful.

As a kid when I started watching DBZ I really didn't care too much about the music. It was as someones said in this thread, more about the action for me.

I appreciate the score in the Japanese, the Ocean Dub and the Funimation dub now. I don't particularly prefer one over another.

[Blade]

Pokémon was a very popular game first.

I'm not certain about America, but in the UK, at least, it was the other way around. The popularity of the games and trading cards was spawned from the popularity of the anime.

But by your very same argument, isn't that just as hard to prove? Pokemon's doing great, but who's to say it wouldn't be a little better received if it was given a more faithful dub? It's sort of in the same boat that DBZ used to be in. I know plenty of people who avoid the dub because of the treatment it was given (especially nowadays, when the dub seems to be getting even worse now that they're using replacement scores for the movies again).

Yeah, of course, but I guess my point is that the only unquestionable terms we're dealing with here pertain only to the relative successes and failures of certain properties, to which there is arguably no resounding correlation between success and a replacement score, and equally no real evidence that replacement scores or wholesale localisation changes in any way have a negative effect on the establishment of an anime brand. Furthermore, for the layman or regular viewer, most adaptation changes appear to go by unnoticed, and are mostly accepted unquestionably as original aspects of the production, therefore perhaps leading to what one could consider as cognitive dissonance when exposed to the original, unedited material - hence the situation, where those who were first exposed to the dub of Dragonball Z are often bemused by tone, sound and aesthetic of the original Japanese version, and visa versa.

The Early Pokemon dub was actually pretty faithful in the early days, 4kids only filled moments of silence with their additional OST pieces. Yu Gi Oh fits your argument better.Major ratings success despite being Butchered and having a replacement score and being a much more dark Shonen Jump Property.

Yu-Gi-Oh is a pretty good example, actually. Consider the change of the name of a protagonist to 'Joey Wheeler' as to be more identifiable to a young western audience, but the concurrent preservation of the inherently Japanese-sounding 'Yugi Muto' and 'Seto Kaiba'. There's no real continuity to the logic in the decision, yet nevertheless, for the layman viewership, the interchange between distinctly Japanese sounding and distinctly Western sounding names within the narrative material is more or less unquestioned, but the estrangement of those who are familiar with the name Joey when encountering the original name of the character in the Japanese original is marked. Some may argue that the interjection of concepts, words and sounds more familiar to Western audiences, such as the odd name here and there, helps serve as safe points-of-entry, or anchor points, to help smooth out cultural differences in the tone and style of the source material, whereas others may see it as purely unnecessary, unwarranted, crass or even disrespectful - and therein lies an innate difficultly in attempting to discuss this in a location such as this forum, or the dreaded Youtube video response comment trails, where the source material is too close to the emotional attachments of those engaging in the debates, allowing little objectivity and often descending into ugly, adhominum tirades.

But even then your argument still falls apart whe you realize that One Piece never had the history of international success DBZ had. DBZ was a success in most countries with the soundtrack intact. One Piece actually struggled to get fans outside of Japan from the get go. Toei was so desperate to have someone bring One Piece to America that they gave it to 4kids as bundle with Ojamajo Doremi. Of course 4kids only made things worse.

Sailor Moon was also a huge success with the soundtrack intact in most countries. In Fact Sailor Moon never did reach the major success most countries that kept the soundtrack intact in America. I'm not really dissing the DiC Score because it did fit the show and was decent in its own right. But Sailor Moon did see most success with its soundtrack intact.

I'm not arguing against shows being successful during that era with the original soundtrack maintained, you could also take Gundam Wing as another example of that, but my point is that it's much to simplistic to attribute success or failures to these issues, and perhaps even harder when compare different titles and mediums.

I think it's important to keep in mind the broadcasting climate in which Dragonball Z was first aired to English audiences, and most importantly, who the people were who were localising it. With Power Rangers, Saban achieved a feat of localisation which has never really been replicated since in terms of success, in that they cannibalised actual footage and concepts from the Japanese source material to re-purpose it in a very different context by supplanting originally produced material. Although Saban's take on Dragonball Z was not as wholesale as their approach to live action material, it set a tone and precedent that Funimation looked to follow up with their in-house dub, and that's a very important starting point to consider - when Funimation started dubbing Dragonball Z in-house, their mandate was all about continuity, and essentially trying to pick up where the previous dub left off, even hiring guys like Schemmell off the back of their ability to impersonate the previous voice cast. It has been stated in the past that their initial mandate for the style and tone of the work they hired Faulconer and his team to do on the score was supposed to carry over the stylistic aesthetic of the Levi score that preceded, but clearly something changed early on in that respect, leading to the end product sounding somewhat departed.

One thing that not a lot of people seem to be considering is that, in many ways, Dragonball arrived before, and in turn helped propagate, the early 2000's boom in Western appetite for Anime. The combined success of the multiple-media forms of the Pokemon franchise, followed by the rise of Cartoon Network's Toonami block, gave birth to a whole different climate, not just in America, but overseas too, not least fueled by increases in communications technology, internet connection speeds and demographic shifts in internet user-ship to encompass a much larger young user-base. This, along with the mass surge of fan-sites, new usages of the internet as a promotional tool by media outlets, and the rise of BitTorrent and paradigm shift of fansubbing from the murky world of disjointed VHS bootlegging circles to online distribution networks through the likes of AnimeSuki, created a unique climate in pop culture and media consumption, the legacy of which is not just the modern anime community and on-demand viewership platforms such as Crunchyroll, but arguably modern online video piracy and even the social media boom in general. Without the fansite era, message boards and the communities who frequented instant messaging services such as AIM at the turn of the century, there would have been no appetite for the likes of Myspace or its contemporary cousins.

[Kakacarrottop]

Nope! As people said, DBZ can go with anything. But I think the original score itself could've had a mixed reception, juuust like how Faulconer was received from this community.

I agree the music is going to have a mixed reception no matter what it is. And for what it's worth, I think most criticisms of Faulconer aren't of the music itself, but of its constant placement. For example, the Levy score, which is less persistent, tends to get way less criticism.

I'd definitely disagree with the claim it's less persistent. After years of watching the Saban episodes i can say there are literally only about 5 moments with silence - A scene where Bulma and Popo are in the city, a moment in HFIL, when Tien tells a joke on King Kai's planet, and a few times when the Ginyu Force arrive. Levy's score escapes criticism since it was used in far less episodes than the Faulconer productions score, although it did get a lot of hate from people familiar with the Kikuchi score back when DBZ was first starting in America. The Menza GT score, which seems to get the most hate, was also constantly droning on in the background (i read somewhere it had only 2 minutes of silence in total), although most people hate that score since it was pretty terrible music to begin with, especially when compared to the vastly superior Japanese GT score.

[Cure Dragon 255]

Pokémon was a very popular game first.

I'm not certain about America, but in the UK, at least, it was the other way around. The popularity of the games and trading cards was spawned from the popularity of the anime.

But by your very same argument, isn't that just as hard to prove? Pokemon's doing great, but who's to say it wouldn't be a little better received if it was given a more faithful dub? It's sort of in the same boat that DBZ used to be in. I know plenty of people who avoid the dub because of the treatment it was given (especially nowadays, when the dub seems to be getting even worse now that they're using replacement scores for the movies again).

Yeah, of course, but I guess my point is that the only unquestionable terms we're dealing with here pertain only to the relative successes and failures of certain properties, to which there is arguably no resounding correlation between success and a replacement score, and equally no real evidence that replacement scores or wholesale localisation changes in any way have a negative effect on the establishment of an anime brand. Furthermore, for the layman or regular viewer, most adaptation changes appear to go by unnoticed, and are mostly accepted unquestionably as original aspects of the production, therefore perhaps leading to what one could consider as cognitive dissonance when exposed to the original, unedited material - hence the situation, where those who were first exposed to the dub of Dragonball Z are often bemused by tone, sound and aesthetic of the original Japanese version, and visa versa.

The Early Pokemon dub was actually pretty faithful in the early days, 4kids only filled moments of silence with their additional OST pieces. Yu Gi Oh fits your argument better.Major ratings success despite being Butchered and having a replacement score and being a much more dark Shonen Jump Property.

Yu-Gi-Oh is a pretty good example, actually. Consider the change of the name of a protagonist to 'Joey Wheeler' as to be more identifiable to a young western audience, but the concurrent preservation of the inherently Japanese-sounding 'Yugi Muto' and 'Seto Kaiba'. There's no real continuity to the logic in the decision, yet nevertheless, for the layman viewership, the interchange between distinctly Japanese sounding and distinctly Western sounding names within the narrative material is more or less unquestioned, but the estrangement of those who are familiar with the name Joey when encountering the original name of the character in the Japanese original is marked. Some may argue that the interjection of concepts, words and sounds more familiar to Western audiences, such as the odd name here and there, helps serve as safe points-of-entry, or anchor points, to help smooth out cultural differences in the tone and style of the source material, whereas others may see it as purely unnecessary, unwarranted, crass or even disrespectful - and therein lies an innate difficultly in attempting to discuss this in a location such as this forum, or the dreaded Youtube video response comment trails, where the source material is too close to the emotional attachments of those engaging in the debates, allowing little objectivity and often descending into ugly, adhominum tirades.

But even then your argument still falls apart whe you realize that One Piece never had the history of international success DBZ had. DBZ was a success in most countries with the soundtrack intact. One Piece actually struggled to get fans outside of Japan from the get go. Toei was so desperate to have someone bring One Piece to America that they gave it to 4kids as bundle with Ojamajo Doremi. Of course 4kids only made things worse.

Sailor Moon was also a huge success with the soundtrack intact in most countries. In Fact Sailor Moon never did reach the major success most countries that kept the soundtrack intact in America. I'm not really dissing the DiC Score because it did fit the show and was decent in its own right. But Sailor Moon did see most success with its soundtrack intact.

I'm not arguing against shows being successful during that era with the original soundtrack maintained, you could also take Gundam Wing as another example of that, but my point is that it's much to simplistic to attribute success or failures to these issues, and perhaps even harder when compare different titles and mediums.

I think it's important to keep in mind the broadcasting climate in which Dragonball Z was first aired to English audiences, and most importantly, who the people were who were localising it. With Power Rangers, Saban achieved a feat of localisation which has never really been replicated since in terms of success, in that they cannibalised actual footage and concepts from the Japanese source material to re-purpose it in a very different context by supplanting originally produced material. Although Saban's take on Dragonball Z was not as wholesale as their approach to live action material, it set a tone and precedent that Funimation looked to follow up with their in-house dub, and that's a very important starting point to consider - when Funimation started dubbing Dragonball Z in-house, their mandate was all about continuity, and essentially trying to pick up where the previous dub left off, even hiring guys like Schemmell off the back of their ability to impersonate the previous voice cast. It has been stated in the past that their initial mandate for the style and tone of the work they hired Faulconer and his team to do on the score was supposed to carry over the stylistic aesthetic of the Levi score that preceded, but clearly something changed early on in that respect, leading to the end product sounding somewhat departed.

One thing that not a lot of people seem to be considering is that, in many ways, Dragonball arrived before, and in turn helped propagate, the early 2000's boom in Western appetite for Anime. The combined success of the multiple-media forms of the Pokemon franchise, followed by the rise of Cartoon Network's Toonami block, gave birth to a whole different climate, not just in America, but overseas too, not least fueled by increases in communications technology, internet connection speeds and demographic shifts in internet user-ship to encompass a much larger young user-base. This, along with the mass surge of fan-sites, new usages of the internet as a promotional tool by media outlets, and the rise of BitTorrent and paradigm shift of fansubbing from the murky world of disjointed VHS bootlegging circles to online distribution networks through the likes of AnimeSuki, created a unique climate in pop culture and media consumption, the legacy of which is not just the modern anime community and on-demand viewership platforms such as Crunchyroll, but arguably modern online video piracy and even the social media boom in general. Without the fansite era, message boards and the communities who frequented instant messaging services such as AIM at the turn of the century, there would have been no appetite for the likes of Myspace or its contemporary cousins.

Yeah,I know Yu Gi Oh is a great example, that's why I mentioned it. And the last paragraph is very true and interesting, but I dont see what it has to do with anything. DBZ's popularity helped the anime boom in a major way,true. But much like Jason De Marco (I love him to death. He CAN get on my nerves though) you seem to think the USA was most instrumental in the anime boom abroad when this is DEFINITELY not the case. We've had anime looong before Toonami was even a thing. And it didnt just do good, IT DID AMAZING. Anime was humongous in Latin America, Europe, and even places liek the Middle East long before Cartoon Network even aired anime on major networks with major success. And the toys sold like hotcakes. We never got half of what Toonami got. We didnt get Outlaw Star. Gundam Wing flopped.Toonami never was the household name it was in the USA. It did wonders for the anime fandom in the USA.

Toonami was awesome, yes. But you are giving it waaaay too much credit.

[Super Sonic]

I don't think Xenophobia has anything to do with it. As long as the cartoon is dubbed, I don't think many people have a problem with watching anime, even then.

Well, if they actually knew it was anime.

It was the goal of a lot of dubbing companies back then to disguise anime shows as domestic productions. FUNimation did it with Dragon Ball, DiC did it with Sailor Moon, and 4Kids did it with........well, everything they could touch. And, to be honest, speaking purely from personal experience, it worked. Never once as a kid did I have the slightest inkling that perhaps these shows were Japanese in origin. I thought I was watching American cartoons. Only when I saw the Japanese intro to Gundam Wing on the midnight run of Toonami (*que nostalgic sigh here*) did I slowly begin to put the pieces of the puzzle together.

However, I also have to take note that, as I watched more anime shows on Toonami, I actually found that I liked the more Japanese aspects, specifically because of how different it was. So I don't blame FUNimation (on a business level) for not taking the perceived risk of including the original score, but I think if they had, the show might have been even more popular. The show was already popular enough for how different it was, after all.

That's how things used to be. On the Voltron dvds they mentioned that back then, the thought was "The more Japanese, the more American kids won't like it". Went back to Astro Boy days, though that was not too long after WWII, when lot of folks still had grudges at Japan. Guy on there did say he thought it was interesting that nowadays the reverse was the norm. And Sailor Moon was despite the changes still stated it took place in Japan. But yeah, after watching Voltron and Go-Lion, have to say, a lot of Voltron's music I prefer, especially the transformation music having the theme song that still holds up, whereas the songs about the Black Lion (one plays about them all, but Black and Blue mostly and Yellow, only once) isn't as epic. Especially since it didn't have the epic roaring.

[Cure Dragon 255]

I actually think that Voltron and even earlier with Battle Of The Planets had much more of an international effect than Toonami ever did AND this too, fits your argument better than the one you mentioned.

Voltron's music changes were genuinely instrumental in its success. See, while the original Go Lion's music was monaural the Voltron's Music Score was in Stereo. It was THE first show of its kind in animation. This led to many TV stations to air it to showcase their new stereo capabilities. And when people think of Voltron they IMMEDIATELY remember its american opening theme. Sure, Ichirou Mizuki Go Lion song was epic in its own right, but its a MAJOR example of Adquired Taste, especially if you arent into 80's Super Robot anime. And that's only if you actually do go out of your way to watch the show uncut. Now has any parody or even homenages of DBZ in America ever mention Rock the Dragon and other Dub Only music?

Battle of The Planets was the same, but what many dont know is that Sandy Frank didnt intend to replace the soundtrack at all. They only commisioned Hoyt Curtin (Composer of many Hannah Barbera cartoons and quite the talented man in his own right) to make a new theme song. But since the original show (Kagaku Ninja Tai Gatchaman) was so violent and so much had to be cut and also having to edit in some American Made Segments to make it seem like it took place in outer space(Long Story) Jameson Brewer (The show's Head Writer) asked for new music and they called Hoyt Curtin again. Also unsual was that Curtin DID watch some of the show unedited to make his new music for BoTP and loved the chance to make music for a "More Serious and Action Oriented show".


And these shows success did transcend the USA. Before these 2 shows no one really thought imports (I'm not saying anime because they've been changed so drastically) were capable of major success. These shows owe their success to Sandy Frank and World Events Productions. Outside the USA no one is familiar with Faulconer, DBZ never needed Funimation, Saban and other companies. They DEFINITELY did need Toonami. I'm not saying they arent awesome and they did make or break a shows popularity... but only in the USA.


Sure Toonami actually got the hardcore anime fandom rolling. But these were the shows that actually showed the world the allure of imports and are examples of shows who really do owe their success to their music replacements.