Should Norihito Sumitomo go back and re-score Kai?

[MarCas92]

I feel that there is just too much inconsistency with the music up to the Cell arc now. I think it'd be great if he went back and rescored the whole thing. What are your guys' thoughts?

[Ajay]

I've only heard his work in one episode outside of Battle of Gods and I can't say I loved it. It's very different from the Yamamoto score that I consider near perfect in the initial releases of Kai.

I think once we've seen how he'll be handling all the major fight scenes, we'll be able to form a clearer opinion but right now, I'm personally gonna have to say no. Still many episodes to come that may well reverse that so take it with a pinch of salt.

However, with that said, I do agree it would be pretty cool to have all of Kai with his score purely for consistency's sake with the new movie too. If they all have a similar tone and feel to them because of the music, that's not a bad way of creating a modern consistency for new fans.

To have Kai and Battle of Gods linked so closely like that would certainly not be a bad thing.

[coola]

I hope they won`t hire whoever was responsible for music placement of Kikuchi score, unfortunately, i doubt it will happen, Kai sold poorly on DVD/Blu-ray in Japan, and i don`t think that new score would convince more people to buy it.

[RocktheDragon]

Yeah, I find the whole concept of going back and re-scoring Kai to be just a huge waste of time. The recycled Kikuchi score isn't enough to bug me for the three episodes that it is present in. I guess for those that are stuck with an American release, or a recent release, where the Yamamoto score has been entirely replaced it's more of a problem. But I would say that even those fans wouldn't want to buy another release of Kai just to have a more varied soundtrack.

I just don't think it makes financial sense in the long or short term. All things being equal, perhaps it would be a better option if it wasn't so financially damaging for Toei, but even then I kind of cringe at having such a standardized soundtrack across Kai, BOG, and maybe even a new DBZ movie.

[El Diabeetus]

I own the series from the first versions of their releases here. So, pretty much Saiyan/Freeza = Yamamoto, Android/Cell = Kikuchi and when Buu's out = Sumitomo. It'll be a neat little novelty that each section of the story has it's own music and will show how out of whack the Yamamoto scandal was. It's like owning a piece of DB history in a way, haha! I don't think it's needed. It would be a neat endeavor for someone to do, as I actually like Sumitomo's score.

[dbboxkaifan]

Isn't Nagasaki still the one handling the music placements in Dragon Ball Kai or something? Yeah, great going Toei Animation!

Despite the crappy staff member they have in charge it'd still be better than watching Kai 53-98 with Kikuchi's repetitive music due to the lack of variety, though.

[Valerius Dover]

I think I've said this before, but we're no strangers to the music randomly changing. At least it does it between arcs here, and not smack in the middle of the whole Ginyu Force shenigans (Applies to both Levy to Faulconer and Johnson to Faulconer, just at slightly different points). While that would be cool (as I am always open to new interpretations), I agree it makes no sense to do so.

[Arian]

Yes, yes, yes, yes, and yes! I'm no Kai fan, but his compositions for the cutscenes in Ultimate Tenkaichi were absolutely astounding, some of the best stuff I've heard overall. He definitely has my vote.

[Codarik]

Yep, anything is better than Kikuchi Kai at this point. imo

[Arian]

So repetitive and annoying, I know.

[jpdbzrulz4sure]

Yes, yes, yes, yes, and yes! I'm no Kai fan, but his compositions for the cutscenes in Ultimate Tenkaichi were absolutely astounding, some of the best stuff I've heard overall. He definitely has my vote.

Sumitomo didn't score the UT cutscenes. That was Hiroshi Takaki.

[Rukura]

Sweet mother of Dende, please no.

[dbboxkaifan]

Yep, anything is better than Kikuchi Kai at this point. imo

Although Sumitomo's Kai soundtrack is bland, uninteresting and inferior to even Kenji Yamamoto's "work" I'd rather take Sumitomo's score for DB Kai Parts 5-8 over that irritating overly repetitive Kikuchi soundtrack Toei Animation used to cover it up quickly.

I'm not hating on Kikuchi I actually love his music but when they keep replaying the same BGM it just hits the nerves, plus it's clear that this butchered version of Kikuchi's Z score is nowhere near as good or complete as in Dragon Ball Z.

[Arian]

Yes, yes, yes, yes, and yes! I'm no Kai fan, but his compositions for the cutscenes in Ultimate Tenkaichi were absolutely astounding, some of the best stuff I've heard overall. He definitely has my vote.

Sumitomo didn't score the UT cutscenes. That was Hiroshi Takaki.

My bad, I thought that's who we were talking about. I'll go sit in the corner for 2 minutes. T_T

[NessMudkip]

After hearing some of his work, I've pretty much lost interest in Kai. If he did go back and re-score the rest at the very least we would have a consistent, albeit bland soundtrack. But at this point Kai is just such a clusterfuck to me. If an American fan bought the first printing of each Kai part, there would be three soundtracks from different composers throughout the whole series, all completely different and random in terms of style, one making heavy usage of recycled tracks from Battle of Gods, and one ONLY using recycled tracks from Z. Combine that with the drop in remastering quality half-way through the series, and those tiny newly animated bits that look really out of place and it's just... Fuck it, they just need to start again and make a new remake from the ground up. To me, Kai is like a poorly co-ordinated fan remake where people on the team were constantly changing, or going on hiatus and the end result is just choppy.