Why no Kikuchi for DBGT?

[MCDaveG]

I am sorry, if this was discussed before in the past, but this thing bugs me since I was Dragon Ball GT as a kid.
Why they didn't continue with Shunsuke Kikuchi after DBZ? I know it must be a connection to the 10th Anniversary Special with the same composer, but why?
If DBGT is direct anime sequel, then it would make sense to continue with the same composer. I would love to hear some more music from the 13th movie.
Also it would've been interesting to have Kikuchi's take on the adventurous and fun parts in the first episodes of GT. He really progressed a lot trough the series.

[Lord Beerus]

Kikuchi was very expensive to hire in Japan as the demand for him to conduct a score for a anime, TV movie, live action show etc. is very high. And my guess is that Toei didn't think it was worth shelling out more money to rehire the very expensive composer for what was originally planned as a spin off to last no more than 30-40 episodes. For what it's worth though, Akihito Tokunaga score for GT was pretty damn good.

[MCDaveG]

Then the situation was probably the same for the Saint Seiya spin-offs to not to hire Seiji Yokoyama again, who did orchestral scores for Harlock and ton of Tokusatsu/Sentai shows (Kikuchi did Kamen Riders).
Hmmm, shame
Yeah, well, I hold Tokunaga in high regard and I think he did better job than Kenji Yamamoto (who plagiarised like everything, wonder what his original works are) and Norihito Sumitomo, who sounds like he did elevator and game boy advance music before.
That's how I wonder, how will the GT feel with Kikuchi, because thanks to it's colour pallete and Tokunaga's minimalistic and darker piece, felt a lot darker (well, not exactly, but more alien to Z) and different than DBZ.

[Gyt Kaliba]

I don't know how accurate this is, but in addition to the other information above, I've also read that it was because Kikuchi had already signed on to do the score for Tenchi in Tokyo.

[kei17]

My guesss is that it was because of the record label that they made a contract with. Also they porbably wanted to refresh the series.

I don't know how accurate this is, but in addition to the other information above, I've also read that it was because Kikuchi had already signed on to do the score for Tenchi in Tokyo.

That has nothing to do with his retire because he had been always handling multiple series. For example, when DBZ started in 1989, he was scoring five different TV series at the same time.

[Gyt Kaliba]

Ah, I wasn't aware that he had previously handled more than one series at a time. That properly debunks that theory then.

[SpiritBombTriumphant]

I don't get it. I hear commonly that Toei is the "master of all things cheap." I know that Japan loves Kikuchi more than a liberal loves Obama, and that Kikuchi is very talented and expensive. If so, how and why did they pay him for a show like Dragon Ball? I assumed that they half-assed the animation because they knew it would be a hit (similar to J.C. Staff's handling of Little Busters!) and if that's correct then why bother paying someone a lot of money to compose the score?

[kei17]

I don't get it. I hear commonly that Toei is the "master of all things cheap." I know that Japan loves Kikuchi more than a liberal loves Obama, and that Kikuchi is very talented and expensive. If so, how and why did they pay him for a show like Dragon Ball? I assumed that they half-assed the animation because they knew it would be a hit (similar to J.C. Staff's handling of Little Busters!) and if that's correct then why bother paying someone a lot of money to compose the score?

Because it's not Toei who paid Kikuchi. In the TV anime industry, record companies pay for theme songs and scores and provide them to anime production companies to advertise their CD releases. It's why the Sumitomo score for Buu Kai is said to have been produced with a very limited budget; The show was originally not intended to air in Japan, so Toei must have had to pay for it themselves.

[TheBlackPaladin]

I don't get it. I hear commonly that Toei is the "master of all things cheap." I know that Japan loves Kikuchi more than a liberal loves Obama, and that Kikuchi is very talented and expensive. If so, how and why did they pay him for a show like Dragon Ball? I assumed that they half-assed the animation because they knew it would be a hit (similar to J.C. Staff's handling of Little Busters!) and if that's correct then why bother paying someone a lot of money to compose the score?

Because it's not Toei who paid Kikuchi. In the TV anime industry, record companies pay for theme songs and scores and provide them to anime production companies to advertise their CD releases. It's why the Sumitomo score for Buu Kai is said to have been produced with a very limited budget; The show was originally not intended to air in Japan, so Toei must have had to pay for it themselves.

So to think, we might have gotten a better score had Toei intended to air it in Japan from the very beginning...

The thing I've noticed with Sumitomo's work in Kai is that the orchestral stuff he's done is actually pretty good (even if the placement is off)...but good God, all that synthesized stuff...there are times where I've actually been preferring Bruce Faulconer's work over his (and you have absolutely no idea how much it pained me to just type that)! If he had gotten more of a budget, I think it's fair to say that we would have gotten more orchestral pieces.

[SpiritBombTriumphant]

I don't get it. I hear commonly that Toei is the "master of all things cheap." I know that Japan loves Kikuchi more than a liberal loves Obama, and that Kikuchi is very talented and expensive. If so, how and why did they pay him for a show like Dragon Ball? I assumed that they half-assed the animation because they knew it would be a hit (similar to J.C. Staff's handling of Little Busters!) and if that's correct then why bother paying someone a lot of money to compose the score?

Because it's not Toei who paid Kikuchi. In the TV anime industry, record companies pay for theme songs and scores and provide them to anime production companies to advertise their CD releases.

I see. Thank you for the information. I never knew this.

It's why the Sumitomo score for Buu Kai is said to have been produced with a very limited budget; Toei must have had to pay for it themselves.

This made me laugh pretty hard.