Kai Episode 56 (09 May 2010)

[Bura]

Wow, it's got nothing on the original. Voice acting, pacing (it just seems to go so quickly, no build-up or drama), and especially music.

I absolutely agree. This was always my favorite DBZ episode. I adore Battle Power Unlimited and this episode just... I don't know. They chose some terrible music for this episode. Right before Cold died the music was so loud you could barely hear what he said.

The only positive thing is that Kusao Takeshi still sounded great as Trunks. I also didn't really mind the new actor for King Cold.

[TheLastSaiyan]

Anyone else feel like when Trunks was transforming, he was Jaws and Freeza was the boat.

[The Time Traveller]

Anyone else feel like when Trunks was transforming, he was Jaws and Freeza was the boat.

We're gonna need a bigger Freeza.

[Blue]

I really, really hated the insert song for this scene so I'm glad to see it gone, personally.

[Treklin]

Anyone else feel like when Trunks was transforming, he was Jaws and Freeza was the boat.

We're gonna need a bigger Freeza.

Not anymore, cause he is now history!

[kenisu3000]

I've got some YouTube videos up featuring all of the new BGM from the last two episodes if anyone's interested.

New BGM and "Kokoro No Hane" Translation (episode 55 BGM)
Part 2 (episode 56 BGM first half)
Part 3 (episode 56 BGM second half)

Anyway...

WeLcOmE tO DaIzEX ZoOm BoInG DiNg!

I smell a fellow EarthBound fan?

[Gaffer Tape]

Aw, damnit, Kenisu, I kept on meaning to point that sig out, but I forgot, and you beat me to it!

[Senzu_Bean]

It is funny how the typical giant, orange ki ball of Freeza (and Cooler) it isn't canon at all.

[dan2026]

It is funny how the typical giant, orange ki ball of Freeza (and Cooler) it isn't canon at all.

True, in the manga Freeza only fires one beam before getting diced.
I guess they kept the giant energy ball because it looked cool and it would be to difficult to edit round.

[KKZ]

How can you guys not like the music!? It sounds like John Williams or Ennio Morricone or someone along those lines, such beautiful music to behold. The original tune was one of my absolute favorites from the original series, but come on, this is sweeping, epic, film score-esque music like Dragon Ball Z has always deserved from the very beginning. I swear, it's like Toei's throwing pearls to swine when it comes to the Dragon Ball Kai forum. I guess people prefer to hear detective music and a Phil Collins B-side in their action shows in place of epic orchestrations that actually compliment the material.

[dan2026]

How can you guys not like the music!? It sounds like John Williams or Ennio Morricone or someone along those lines, such beautiful music to behold. The original tune was one of my absolute favorites from the original series, but come on, this is sweeping, epic, film score-esque music like Dragon Ball Z has always deserved from the very beginning. I swear, it's like Toei's throwing pearls to swine when it comes to the Dragon Ball Kai forum. I guess people prefer to hear detective music and a Phil Collins B-side in their action shows in place of epic orchestrations that actually compliment the material.

I do love the music in DB Kai.
Its great and easily matches or exceeds the original DBZ score in quality.

[Cold Skin]

How can you guys not like the music!? It sounds like John Williams or Ennio Morricone or someone along those lines, such beautiful music to behold. The original tune was one of my absolute favorites from the original series, but come on, this is sweeping, epic, film score-esque music like Dragon Ball Z has always deserved from the very beginning. I swear, it's like Toei's throwing pearls to swine when it comes to the Dragon Ball Kai forum. I guess people prefer to hear detective music and a Phil Collins B-side in their action shows in place of epic orchestrations that actually compliment the material.

I do love the music in DB Kai.
Its great and easily matches or exceeds the original DBZ score in quality.

Agreed. It is quite often that Kai has orchestra-like music which could actually sound like a film score. It also varies in style, you've got the atmosphere orchestra-like tunes, the upbeat rock tunes, the funny tunes, the dance tunes, the orchestra-R'N'B tunes, the opera-like tunes, the epic "super-hero" tunes, etc...
It is the perfect Dragon Ball music to me, it really makes you think of an actual movie score sometimes!

[Vino]

The Trunks transformation scene actually surpasses the DBZ one. The tension worked and it was perfect. I only wish they used this track in Goku's transformation.

[KKZ]

I'm amazed the lot of you agree with me. Everything about Kai surpasses the original series one hundred fold, I think I said in another thread that the only thing that bothers me about it are some of the retraced scenes and Goku's first SSJ transformation being a bit underwhelming (My favorite interpretation is the one in the original series in English with Faulconer's SSJ Transformation in the background, I mostly prefer English dialogue with Japanese BGM though). Ultimately though, It's truly the best anime I've ever seen and even the worst looking scenes don't bother me very much since it's such a wonderful editing job overall.

[Gaffer Tape]

Maybe the "pearls to swine" thing is a bit over the top. A lot of the time, the score for Kai can be pretty darned generic-sounding to me. But, yeah, "the scene" was handled quite well. The new tunes Yamamoto has composed for this part of the series is quite a step up from some of his earlier work on Kai, and "the scene" is easily comparable in scope to the original.

But yay for the timing on the DBoxes. I just got to this episode in Z. It'd been a while since I'd seen it, but, damn if it wasn't just as awesome as I remembered. Battle Point Unlimited does sound quite dated in places (unlike the actual score, which doesn't), but the part of that song used right when Trunks slashes Freeza in half and continuing on is just PERFECT. I've been watching "the scene" over and over again in Z, and it never fails to bring a sadistic smile to face.

So, yeah, both are pretty awesome.

EDIT: Ooh, also I should mention that Kai suffers just a tiny bit from "the scene's" placement in the episode. "The scene" is the perfect episode cliffhanger... arguably the best one in the entire series. The Kai version loses a little punch for just being in the middle of the episode, and it loses a bit more for the jarring animation shift that completes the second half of "the scene."

[penguintruth]

I do love the music in DB Kai.
Its great and easily matches or exceeds the original DBZ score in quality.

Oh god, my sides hurt from laughing.

The Yamamoto score for Kai is largely generic and unambitious. It would be fine if I were just listening to it in a video game, but Kikuchi's score dwarfs it in scale and quality. Half the time I feel like I'm listening to the soundtrack to Pokémon.

I enjoy a few tracks, but even Yamamoto's contributions to Z are exponentially better.

[ohaimynameiserik]

I do love the music in DB Kai.
Its great and easily matches or exceeds the original DBZ score in quality.

Oh god, my sides hurt from laughing.

The Yamamoto score for Kai is largely generic and unambitious. It would be fine if I were just listening to it in a video game, but Kikuchi's score dwarfs it in scale and quality. Half the time I feel like I'm listening to the soundtrack to Pokémon.

I enjoy a few tracks, but even Yamamoto's contributions to Z are exponentially better.

I still am undecided on which I like better.

Though it'd definitely be Yamamoto if there were more songs to pick from.

Though Kikuchi's is timeless, and who knows if Yamamoto's will be or not.

But once again with things like "Oh God, my sides hurt from laughing", you are crossing the line between disagreement and douchery.

[Blue]

I like Kai's music and Z's music a lot. I don't think one is better then another personally. But really being a smug douche is kind of unnecessary here.

[Chaotic Strike]

I prefer Kai's music in this scene, the man has really stepped up his game up as far as his music is concerned . I just hope they doesn't repeat the same tracks nearly as much as the earlier Kai episodes.

Honestly Battle Point Unlimited isn't that great to me. It fit with Freeza getting slashed and all but outside of that one scene it really does feel too dated for my taste.

[liquidcreativity]

First post.

I feel like the the new compositions bring Dragon Ball into today's time. It makes it feel more like an epic anime, IMO. The old DBZ music really doesn't sound as refined as these new tracks.