Was Nathan Johnson unfairly bashed?

[GS7X7]

http://thedaoofdragonball.com/blog/inte ... es-on-dbz/

Reading this interview a LOT of what he says seems to suggest a low opinion of himself and his work at times. It just kinda seems like he took criticism of the redub really hard.

TBH, it was a pretty gargantuan task- he not only had to compose a soundtrack with less resources than Menza/Faulconer but it was also going to go head to head against a massive corporation with an unlimited AAA budget that was essentially the Japanese version of Disney (Toei) AND he had to compete with loyalists who preferred the original Saban score. It seems like most reviews of the redub kinda just trashed his work or skipped straight to the J. soundtrack. I'm definitely glad the J. soundtrack is there but I can totally sympathize with him having to compete directly against it.

What do you guys all think of Nate Johnson and his work?

TBH, I never listened to all the redub but looking at some of his songs online he seems to have some quality stuff. Not quite as good as Team Faulconer but still much better than most of Menza's work.

[EmmaWinters]

TBH, it was a pretty gargantuan task ... What do you guys all think of Nate Johnson and his work?

I can appreciate the amount of work that Johnson put in, but I can't give him points for simply doing what he was paid to do. More often than not, his pieces feel stagnant and tend not to fit the scenes they're were made for. To me, the entire thing comes across as a forced coat of paint.

His score is by far the weakest of the three in my opinion. Or five if we're including Kai.

[Kakacarrottop]

I'll say this; i think he made some okay music that sort of fits Dragon Ball Z, i'd even take his score over Kikuchi's for the first 67 episodes, it's just when compared to the older Saban score (by Ron Wasserman/Shuki Levy/whoever) it seems pretty boring and uncreative. If you listen to some dub comparison videos which compare the Saban dub and FUNi redub then you'll see he was obviously trying to recreate the old Saban score's creepy horror feeling whilst also imitating Faulconer's electronic rock vibe. In the end most people don't "like" his work since it just wasn't anything new and there were other better scores available for the episodes/movies it was used in. Seriously not trying to personally bash him or anything but any random semi-professional with a keyboard/laptop & guitar could compose his generic sounding music, whilst for the Kikuchi score you'd need an entire orchestra, and for the Saban score you'd need an extremely talented and experienced musician like Ron Wasserman. If his score was first used back in the early 2000s when FUNi was originally dubbing Dragon Ball Z (instead of the Faulconer productions score) then i think people would hold it in higher regard (due to nostalgia obviously).

[ImmaDeker]

The formatting on this interview is really gross.

The actual content is nice, at least.

[Valerius Dover]

I heard his music before Faulconer's, so while I will say the music wasn't as memorable compared to that or the Kikuchi music heard in DB, the overall mood I think fits the tone of the series pretty well. I think the music got a lot more interesting once Vegeta and Nappa arrived on Earth, which was where the more notable pieces are first heard and the recycling starts. Yes, I think it is unfairly bashed, but everyone's entitled to their own opinion. There was one Ocean fan on YouTube who would go out of his way to make negative comments on every Johnson music piece, though. Stuff like that, I don't think is deserving. I think he did great given the time and manpower that went into this, which wasn't much. We have no idea how rushed the production of these episodes were.

[Kakacarrottop]

I heard his music before Faulconer's, so while I will say the music wasn't as memorable compared to that or the Kikuchi music heard in DB, the overall mood I think fits the tone of the series pretty well. I think the music got a lot more interesting once Vegeta and Nappa arrived on Earth, which was where the more notable pieces are first heard and the recycling starts. Yes, I think it is unfairly bashed, but everyone's entitled to their own opinion. There was one Ocean fan on YouTube who would go out of his way to make negative comments on every Johnson music piece, though. Stuff like that, I don't think is deserving. I think he did great given the time and manpower that went into this, which wasn't much. We have no idea how rushed the production of these episodes were.

That person (no idea who he is) was probably just bitter the score he grew up with and loved had been replaced. Can't blame him really, i'm sure that person didn't really think Nate's music was terrible or anything. It's not just Ocean/Shuki Levy score fans who are like that, Faulconer supporters for example attack the Kikuchi Kai score on Youtube (since they're only familiar with Faulconer for the Android/Cell sagas), and JPN version fans attacked the Shuki Levy and Faulconer scores back in the 90s/early 2000s since the only music they were familiar with on Dragon Ball Z (The Kikuchi score) had been replaced.

[Lord Beerus]

I thought Nathan Johnson brought a flavour to the Dragon Ball Z score that was certainly something different but not really unique enough to distinguish itself. Although, I do think his scores for Fusion Reborn and Wrath Of The Dragon were awesome.

[MagicBox]

I don't see any reason to praise the man's work on DBZ. The only single melody I remember in his score was that brief tune that would play whenever they showed Goku riding on Kinto-Un towards the Vegeta battle.

With that said, I also don't see any reason to bash the man because he was hired to do a job. Someone at FUNimation paid him to compose what he composed, and someone approved it for use in the dub. Man's gotta make a living. And who's to say he isn't a great composer outside of DBZ? I didn't read the interview, but it saddens me to think that he took any criticism too seriously. Hang in there, man!

Dubbies tend to say they like his movie 12 music. I see a lot of praise for it. Hopefully he's heard that.

[ABED]

I always find it ridiculous when people make the claim that something's unmemorable and then go on to make a bunch of other negative claims. They clearly remember it, hence the number of comments. However, that's not the case here. I can't remember any bit of score that Nathan did.

[TheBlackPaladin]

Well, define "unfairly bashed."

I don't think it's fair for him to be criticized as a person based on his DBZ score, if that's what you mean. I'm sure he's a perfectly nice person in real life, and any criticism that somebody made that took a jab at him personally was going too far.

However, when it comes to his DBZ score, no, I don't think it was unfairly bashed. It's not that the music was incompetent or bad to listen to, it's just that it felt out of place (in my opinion, of course) when used with DBZ. Which, quite frankly, is the problem I've had with every replacement score I've ever heard except for one. To date, the only replacement score I've ever heard that seems to fit the source material more naturally than the original music is the replacement score composed for the English dub of an anime called Cyber City Oedo 808.

[Valerius Dover]

The person on YouTube in question did note that his scores for Movies 12 and 13 were at least good, though. As far as the music not fitting, that's all up to opinion and what you're exposed to first. For me, this happened to be what I was exposed to first. Plus, there were surely a lot of directorial requests involved. I didn't really think it sounded strange or unfitting at all. The sad scenes I think were handled better than some of the earlier sad scenes in the Faulconer score.

But, yes, I'm well aware that Faulconer fans don't like his stuff, either. Personally, I like both.

[MagicBox]

I actually went back and read (most of) the interview this time.

Wait, so... he originally started working on Detective Conan's dub? They were originally planning a replacement score for that?

... I'm so glad Barry Watson's gone.

Anyway, looks like Johnson apparently didn't like the Faulconer Productions music and his first exposure to the series was through some GT DVDs. I guess that explains why his stuff sounds closer to Menza's music. Neat interview. I learned a lot. Hopefully he didn't take any of the criticism too hard. That pretty much comes with the territory when you're writing replacement music. Even if it's good, a fraction of your audience is already going to disapprove of it on principle.

[ABED]

I don't remember the score itself, but I remember thinking it was better than Faulconer's score which was memorable for all the wrong reasons (except for a few good bits)

[dbboxkaifan]

The music's bland, forgettable, tasteless and worst of all, it can be resumed as a bunch of noise than actual music. FUNimation should've gone with the Faulconer group since the start of Z than this 'musician'.

Even Menza's score is better than Johnson but it doesn't mean it's actually good. It's just more tolerable.

[ABED]

The music's bland, forgettable, tasteless and worst of all, it can be resumed as a bunch of noise than actual music. FUNimation should've gone with the Faulconer group since the start of Z than this 'musician'.<br abp="685"><br abp="686">Even Menza's score is better than Johnson but it doesn't mean it's actually good. It's just more tolerable.

Forgettable and a bit bland, but it still fit better (from the impressions that I remember) than Faulconer's "music". Menza's score didn't fit GT at all.

[Tatakae!!Ramenman]

I can't stand watching DBZ with his music. I think he definitely tried his hardest, but I can't find a single track of his that I like. I can find at least 1 track that I like to listen to from every composer except him. He worked on the soundtrack for movie 12, which was good, but there was another musician working on that one with him.

[TheKingOfKamehamehas]

I would say he was be the most underrated out of the American Replacement scores unless you like Menza
To be honest, I enjoyed his music. It made Dragon Ball Z sound like it was actually a real movie or video game instead of a TV show. It had dramatic, suspense, and a few comedy-like music sequences.
You know I might be a loner here, but out of all the replacement scores, this has to be my favorite. It also felt the most Japanese out of all the other scores.

[GS7X7]

"Wait, so... he originally started working on Detective Conan's dub? They were originally planning a replacement score for that?

... I'm so glad Barry Watson's gone."

It sounds like Barry Watson (and the Cocanoughers who assisted him with this, and the Fukunagas) were big believers in the "Funimation Americanizing DBZ made it more profitable and successful" theory.

I'm surprised he wanted to alter the music for another show but ultimately enough people at Funimation must have overruled him/them that Funimation decided against it. It's kind of interesting to know that somewhere in a vault at Funi or Nate's headquarters there's an alternate theme song for DConan out there, I'd love to hear it someday.

[Codarik]

After all this time of being a user on this website I'm beginning to believe I'm the #1 fan of Johnson's score here. Every time his score gets brought up I'm one of few who defends it. Now was it unfairly bashed? Yes. Simply because his came last. We already had Kikuchi, Levy/Wasserman, Faulconer Productions, and Mark Menza's score to judge it from. Now for those who say his tracks are "unmemorable", it's because his score is so subtle, you really got to pay attention to it solely while trying to not pay attention to the voices or sound effects. A lot of his better tracks are covered by voices/sound effects, take for example this (skip to 2:28). Very memorable but because you can barley hear it people will pass it off as nothing.

[Valerius Dover]

^I'm a big supporter of this composer's music, too!

That track, I do remember. It was used in the majority of Goku's heavy training sequences in the Namek Saga. I usually pay attention to Plot, Visuals, Voices, and Music when watching stuff. I have no problem picking out tracks even if my focus is balanced. I was surprised to learn that other people can go as far as to not notice music, though. I'll usually recnognize a track if I've heard it even once.