Audio differences between DBZ movies on DBox and on drama tapes

[tronk21]

While buying my tapes, I discovered that the sound in DBZ movies on Dragon Box: The Movies (and all the other releases) is different from the audio on the drama (voice dramatization) kind of tapes.

Drama cassettes contain the entirety of sound for DBZ movies so not just the music but the sound effects and voices as well. The following movies have been released on those tapes: 1, 2, 4, 6 and 11. Since I don't own all of those tapes, I will only focus on those which I own. I haven't got the tape with the audio for DBZ Movie 1 in its shortened version called Koro-chan Pack (and I suspect that the full edition does not exist), the shortened Movie 4 cassette and any version of Movie 6 and 11. The only thing that I know about the Movie 11 tape is that the music is in stereo and there are no differences in content. The shortened tape with Movie 1 also contains the score in stereo since it's labelled as such on the cover of the book included to the tape. I know nothing about any possible differences in the content itself for the cassette. And there's the Movie 6 tape that not only has the music in stereo but 2 alternate musical tracks different than what was used in the movie proper. Also, I know nothing about the shortened Koro-chan Pack versions of Movie 4 and 6 tapes since they haven't joined my collection yet.

Thus I own 3 tapes with the audio for DBZ Movies: the full version of Movie 2 cassette, the shortened version of that same movie and the full version of the drama tape for Movie 4. The sound on these tapes is in mono just as it is on other releases with these movies. Also, the tape with the sound of almost the entirety of Movie 2 is not a bit different from the audio for this film on DBox except for one scene, which was cut out for the tape. However, I will write about the audio differences not in the number of channels since it's the same but in CONTENT in the case of the shortened Movie 2 and the full Movie 4 tapes! Let's get over the discrepancies!

EDIT: As of now, I own 4 tapes with movie audio, the fourth one being the cassette with the full audio from Movie 6. I will be mentioning differences in the number of channels after all.

EDIT: (16.01.2023) At this point I already have all the drama tapes with audio from the movies. Now all the tapes which in any way differ in sound from the movies themselves are included in this thread.

"Koro-chan Pack: Dragon Ball Z – Theatrical Movie Special"



This is the first Dragon Ball tape which contains re-mixed sound. There had been 4 drama tapes before this one. However, the first three contain a completely new material so there are dialogues that were produced exclusively for those tapes mixed with already-existing sound effects and music on those cassettes. Therefore they haven't mixed only materials that were readily available at the time in the case of the first 3 tapes. The fourth cassette contains only already-existing materials and nothing else but those haven't been re-mixed at all and instead they were taken from the anime as-is, in the exact same form as they had been featured in on the show. The tape that is described below features only readily-available materials, which are dialogues, sound effects and music but those elements have been re-mixed this time around!

The movie 1 drama tape has been incorrectly labelled as "STEREO". Only the vocal songs are in stereo but Kikuchi's music and the remaining elements are in mono. So it should have been labelled as "MONO-STEREO" or "STEREO-MONO" like the two movie drama tapes that succeeded this one and the episode 2 tape that preceded it as those cassettes also have some fragments presented in stereo and some in mono.

However, the mistake in labelling of this tape could have been caused by this one exciting moment, which is in stereo! This is the only case in the movie drama tapes, in which the drama part (the one featuring the story) that is always presented separately from the song part is heard simultaneously with the song part, which is always in stereo. So dialogues and sound effects from the always-mono drama part are featured during a vocal song, which means they have mixed those elements in music in stereo. Of course, on the tapes with movies 6 and 11 there are also dialogues and sounds incorporated into the stereo music. However, in those last two cases that is Kikuchi's music and in the case of this tape it's a vocal song. So this moment of this cassette is truly an anomaly in the world of the DBZ movie drama tapes. In the film itself, of course, the insert song "The World's Greatest Gohan" is in mono and on the tape it's in stereo and the same dialogues and sound effects can be heard. That is our first difference:

http://matela.stronazen.pl/wp-content/u ... ence-1.mp3

http://matela.stronazen.pl/wp-content/u ... ence-1.mp3

The difference number two is about several lines of dialogue and sounds being removed from the tape but they are featured during the insert song in the original movie presentation:

http://matela.stronazen.pl/wp-content/u ... ence-2.mp3

http://matela.stronazen.pl/wp-content/u ... ence-2.mp3

In the insert song there are voices and sound effects that can be heard in both media. However, they are placed in completely different moments of "Tenkaichi Gohan". In the film some pieces of dialogue and sounds are present near the end of the first verse and during the first chorus and on the tape these same elements are featured between the first chorus and the second verse (in the bridge of the song). Moreover, one instance of the sound of the moving cuckoo clock and Gohan sounding like a cuckoo was cut from the cassette and is heard only once there while in the movie there are two instances of these sounds:

http://matela.stronazen.pl/wp-content/u ... ence-3.mp3

http://matela.stronazen.pl/wp-content/u ... ence-3.mp3

The last difference in the song "The World's Greatest Gohan" and the forth one on this drama tape. Once more, the same lines can be heard in the movie and on the cassette albeit in different places. But this time these voices are featured during the end of the song in the original film and after the song ends on the tape!

http://matela.stronazen.pl/wp-content/u ... ence-4.mp3

http://matela.stronazen.pl/wp-content/u ... ence-4.mp3

All the remaining differences are concerned with the fact that Kikuchi's music is placed differently in both media. The first example of this is below. The cue begins earlier on the tape and later in the movie:

http://matela.stronazen.pl/wp-content/u ... ence-5.mp3

http://matela.stronazen.pl/wp-content/u ... ence-5.mp3

The sixth one! Shenlong's and Garlick Jr.'s theme starts clearly earlier on the cassette than in the film. Also, on the drama the entire BGM track isn't presented because it's heavily cut as the scene itself while in the theatrical version the full cue is there:

http://matela.stronazen.pl/wp-content/u ... ence-6.mp3

http://matela.stronazen.pl/wp-content/u ... ence-6.mp3

Another example of a piece of music being placed on the tape earlier than its film counterpart. And once again it isn't played in its entirety with the scene with it being severely edited as well.

http://matela.stronazen.pl/wp-content/u ... ence-7.mp3

http://matela.stronazen.pl/wp-content/u ... ence-7.mp3

The 8th difference is nothing new here, the track is featured earlier on the cassette. However, there's one interesting bit here. Since the cue begins on the tape half a second before it originally does, it also ends sooner. And after the piece on the drama the sound of Gohan peeing is cut out while it is heard at the very end of the BGM in the theatrical presentation because the music ends later there. However, it doesn't end so much earlier on the cassette for the voice of Kuririn worrying not to be included during the track. This instance of Kuririn's voice is edited out from the tape and in the movie it's featured near the end of the Kikuchi composition:

http://matela.stronazen.pl/wp-content/u ... ence-8.mp3

http://matela.stronazen.pl/wp-content/u ... ence-8.mp3

This one is something new because the track on the tape kicks in later than in the movie! Due to M814 starting later on the drama cassette, there is a short break between this cue and the previous one. In the film the piece begins immediately after its predecessor so there is no moment of breath between the two compositions:

http://matela.stronazen.pl/wp-content/u ... ence-9.mp3

http://matela.stronazen.pl/wp-content/u ... ence-9.mp3

The tenth difference begins just as the ninth one does, i. e. a track (M816) on the tape starts clearly later than in the movie and thanks to this, on the cassette there is a noticeable break between the pieces, which cannot be said about the theatrical audio. On the other hand, on the drama more than a half of the cue is cut out due to the scene it plays in being considerably shortened when in the film one can hear the Kikuchi piece in its fullest:

http://matela.stronazen.pl/wp-content/u ... nce-10.mp3

http://matela.stronazen.pl/wp-content/u ... nce-10.mp3

The penultimate discrepancy is refreshingly different than many of the previous ones. In this case, there is more of a track included on the tape than in the film! In the latter a piece labelled as M817 is very heavily edited out but in the former medium only the end of the cue is removed. Also, it starts slightly earlier than in the movie:

http://matela.stronazen.pl/wp-content/u ... nce-11.mp3

http://matela.stronazen.pl/wp-content/u ... nce-11.mp3

The last one is among the most interesting ones. On the cassette they used an alternative version of the final track of the movie, a quicker one called M819A. In the film M819B was used, a longer and slower arrangement of this cue. Therefore this marks the first case in which an alternate piece is being utilized on the drama tape. And there will be many cases like that in the following installments!

http://matela.stronazen.pl/wp-content/u ... nce-12.mp3

http://matela.stronazen.pl/wp-content/u ... nce-12.mp3

"Koro-chan Pack: Dragon Ball Z The World’s Strongest Guy – Songs and Stories"



This tape doesn't like Oolong... The differences between this tape and other releases can only be heard in the scenes which feature my favourite character from the Hunt for the Dragon Balls arch, the pig himself. Have a listen!

In this scene, you can hear Oolong's voice on DBox while it was cut out on the tape:

http://matela.stronazen.pl/wp-content/u ... ence-1.mp3

http://matela.stronazen.pl/wp-content/u ... ence-1.mp3

In the next scene, Oolong's voice was cut out again and this time he took others with him since Piccolo's and Gohan's voices were cut out on the tape while their lines are present in the movie:

http://matela.stronazen.pl/wp-content/u ... ence-2.mp3

http://matela.stronazen.pl/wp-content/u ... ence-2.mp3

Another difference is similar: the voices of Gohan and Oolong present on DBox cannot be found on the tape in the scene below:

http://matela.stronazen.pl/wp-content/u ... ence-3.mp3

http://matela.stronazen.pl/wp-content/u ... ence-3.mp3

This difference is the most interesting. First of all, Oolong's voice was cut out as usual. But besides that the music in this scene begins earlier than on DBox. Notice how on DBox Gohan breathes out first and the sound of the chair is heard right before the music while on the tape the music kicks in before the gasp and the sound. So consequently, on the cassette, Gohan finishes talking about what could've happened to Piccolo later - when only the last series of notes is left until the end of the track - on Dragon Box, Gohan stops talking in the middle of the second series of notes from the end:

http://matela.stronazen.pl/wp-content/u ... ence-4.mp3

http://matela.stronazen.pl/wp-content/u ... ence-4.mp3

Here is the usual absence of Oolong's voice on the tape. And once more the music kicks in earlier on the drama tape than on DBox. That's why when Dr. Wheelo's monsters leap to attack, the music still plays for a moment while on the drama version, the music cannot be heard once the sound effect of the leap begins:

http://matela.stronazen.pl/wp-content/u ... ence-5.mp3

http://matela.stronazen.pl/wp-content/u ... ence-5.mp3

The last difference is obvious: who else but Oolong didn't lend his voice on the tape despite his original line being quite lengthy. Compare:

http://matela.stronazen.pl/wp-content/u ... ence-6.mp3

http://matela.stronazen.pl/wp-content/u ... ence-6.mp3

"Dragon Ball Z: Super Saiyan Son Goku – Soundtrack-Drama Compilation"



In the case of this tape, the changes amount to only 4 and all of them are of musical nature.

The first one is that on the tape, they've used the full version of a track that plays in the scene below. On DBox, a fragment of this cue was cut out. On the tape, 2 series of notes are simply repeated and on DBox each can be heard only once. As a result, when Gohan screams in the movie version, there's no music to be heard anymore while the tape still features Kikuchi's composition well after the scream:

http://matela.stronazen.pl/wp-content/u ... ence-1.mp3

http://matela.stronazen.pl/wp-content/u ... ence-1.mp3

The second change that they made for the tape is that it features an alternate version of a track heard in the following scene. The difference between the two is kinda subtle but when you listen closely to cymbals in both, you can hear they are performed differently for the first half of both tracks. In the drama version of the cue, the cymbals are played faster in moments and more cymbal beats can be heard than in the DBox audio:

http://matela.stronazen.pl/wp-content/u ... ence-2.mp3

http://matela.stronazen.pl/wp-content/u ... ence-2.mp3

The third difference is not about the additional musical material on the tape, but in fact the absence of some music! In the scene below, the middle part of a cue can be heard on DBox. There's simply no music here on the tape:

http://matela.stronazen.pl/wp-content/u ... ence-3.mp3

http://matela.stronazen.pl/wp-content/u ... ence-3.mp3

The last alteration that was made is that the ending song for the movie was delayed on the tape. This resulted in the song starting right after Kamesennin's little work-out on the cassette while on DBox the ending theme kicks in long before The Turtle Hermit stops talking:

http://matela.stronazen.pl/wp-content/u ... ence-4.mp3

http://matela.stronazen.pl/wp-content/u ... ence-4.mp3

"Dragon Ball Z: Clash!! 10,000,000,000 Powerful Warriors – Soundtrack-Drama Compilation"



Here, like in Movie 4, differences are concerning music. There are as much as 7 differences in Movie 6!

First of all, this is the only difference not connected with content. It's about the music on the Drama tape being in stereo as opposed to mono on DBox. Please keep in mind that only the score is in stereo and sound effects and voices are still mono. Still some unreleased music can be heard in stereo here, like this cue:

http://matela.stronazen.pl/wp-content/u ... ence-1.mp3

http://matela.stronazen.pl/wp-content/u ... ence-1.mp3

The next difference is about the placement of music in relation to voices and sound effects. On drama tape you can hear that famous Goku's "khh" sound at the same time the music kicks in. However, on Dragon Box the expression of pain comes after the second note of the track. Meaning that the music starts playing earlier on DBox than on the cassette. That's why on DBox the tune ends and you can still hear the Super Saiyan aura sound while in the dramatization the sound stops and the music can be heard after that. Speaking of the SSJ aura sound effect - notice that on DBox you hear the sound after Goku is heard starting his transformation with this other famous SFX. Now on the drama tape, there's this aura sound faintly being heard BEFORE the transforming sound. So Goku was sounding like Super Saiyan before really changing into one? Weird.

http://matela.stronazen.pl/wp-content/u ... ence-2.mp3

http://matela.stronazen.pl/wp-content/u ... ence-2.mp3

Another difference between the two releases is that in the original movie the following cue gradually fades in while on drama tape it can be heard in its full volume from the start. Also the music again starts earlier on DBox so there's a longer silent gap between the sounds of the scene ending and the next scene beginning. That silence is shorter on the tape as the track is playing until later into the first scene:

http://matela.stronazen.pl/wp-content/u ... ence-3.mp3

http://matela.stronazen.pl/wp-content/u ... ence-3.mp3

Difference number four is good ol' usage of an alternate cue. Tracks with different beginnings play in the scene. Also, unsurprisingly, the music kicks in earlier on DBox once again!

http://matela.stronazen.pl/wp-content/u ... ence-4.mp3

http://matela.stronazen.pl/wp-content/u ... ence-4.mp3

Here's another example of an alternate track being used. This time the music plays at exactly the same time in both versions. How refreshing...

http://matela.stronazen.pl/wp-content/u ... ence-5.mp3

http://matela.stronazen.pl/wp-content/u ... ence-5.mp3

Another difference is more of the same... Placing the music later in the drama tape. I like this one because on DBox the peaceful track can be heard virtually in its entirety while in the dramatization, due to the cue starting later, it's cut by the thud of Goku and Vegeta falling. So the comedic timing is actually more effective in the tape:

http://matela.stronazen.pl/wp-content/u ... ence-6.mp3

http://matela.stronazen.pl/wp-content/u ... ence-6.mp3

And lastly on DBox the ending song starts after the sound effect of the spacepod is no longer heard. On the cassette the closing theme begins still when the ship sound is present there. What a shock! The music actually is played earlier in the drama tape for once...

http://matela.stronazen.pl/wp-content/u ... ence-7.mp3

http://matela.stronazen.pl/wp-content/u ... ence-7.mp3

That's all. I hope you like all the samples and comparisons. I think it's quite interesting how they've changed things for those tapes so that their existence can be slightly justified. Enjoy!

[MadSpecialist]

Thanks for sharing these intriguing comparisons, reminds me of how you can listen to either the regular audio or score itself on the movies' Japanese LaserDiscs. It's somewhat hard to think differences like this are still being discovered, or at least becoming more known outside of Japan.

I wonder if there's any other reasonable explanation(s), other than being shortened or separate from the originals for these changes. Wouldn't mind these as alternate tracks to the movies themselves, even if they're only minor adjustments.

[tronk21]

Thanks for being interested in those changes. I've added two more difference to the Movie 4 drama tape-Dragon Box comparison so check them out! It's hard to come up with any reason other than the general need for the tape to be different from other releases to make it more significant or less redundant. But I will try.

For DBZ Movie 2, I really can't think of any other cause for cutting out Oolong's voice (and in one instance two other characters' shorter lines) other than maybe they wanted this version to be "cleaner" or without any filler. So perhaps they deemed Oolong's lines as unnecessary and by removing them they thought they would go right to the point or essence of the plot. I really can't wrap my head around it especially since there are instances on this cassette where the pig's voice wasn't cut out although these lines and sounds that he made were extremely short in those examples.

It's easier to explain changes in Movie 4 in my opinion. Alhough this is just speculation, the first one may be that Columbia wanted to present the entire track untouched for the tape so that the music ends later than in the movie. The scene when the tune plays is the last moment of Side 1 on the cassette so I figured they want to end the side more dramatically hence the music is prolonged. The second change is maybe due to simply picking the wrong take of the track because these two versions of the cue are nearly identical. This happened before with releases of Kikuchi music when they put a very similar but different version of a cue and clearly they wanted to go with the version of a track that was in the movie and put the alternate there by mistake (for reference, listen to Track 2 with DBZ Movie 01 musical suite on the album called "Dragon Ball Z: Music Collection Vol. 1 and check the last cue in that suite, which is not the version of the cue that was supposed to be there). So the second difference may have been a simple mistake. The third one is, I think, an artistic choice. They may have thought that the music and Gohan's whistling do not go well together so they could have removed the music for dramatic purposes. The last change is more technical than anything else. The sound on Dragon Box: The Movies for this film is in mono for its entirety so including the ending theme as well. On the tape it's different - the audio from the movie proper is in mono but the songs are in stereo. So they may have delayed the song so that it begins after the sound from the movie itself ends because otherwise the song in stereo and the movie audio in mono would play at the same time and I don't think that would be technically possible. For DBox, it didn't matter when the song started because it's all in mono anyway.

These are my guesses and again this is pure speculation so the reasons are not to be taken all that seriously.

[Danfun64]

Maybe they removed Oolong's voice because they didn't want to pay royalties to who voiced him.

[tronk21]

I don't think so. As I mentioned, there are three instances where his voice can be heard on the tape: an expression of surprise "Huh?", the affirmation sound "Uh-huh" and one short line "What to do?". So his voice is still sorta present there. Besides, they didn't have any problem with fully including Oolong's lines in the full versions of the DBZ Movie 2 and 4 tapes. So I don't think that's the reason. I'm not sure if what you describe is how royalties work... I think the reason is less logical and more artistic. I mean, Oolong's voice doesn't seem to be particularly dramatic... Maybe that was their thinking. We'll never know for sure.

I just wanted to add that my favourite change is difference 3 in Movie 4 - removing the music from the Gohan whistling scene. Due to the lack of music, we can see how important Kikuchi's tunes are and appreciate the presence of the music in the original all the more. The scene without the score is so dry and emotionless.

[HakkaiBills93]

I don't think so. As I mentioned, there are three instances where his voice can be heard on the tape: an expression of surprise "Huh?", the affirmation sound "Uh-huh" and one short line "What to do?". So his voice is still sorta present there. Besides, they didn't have any problem with fully including Oolong's lines in the full versions of the DBZ Movie 2 and 4 tapes. So I don't think that's the reason. I'm not sure if what you describe is how royalties work... I think the reason is less logical and more artistic. I mean, Oolong's voice doesn't seem to be particularly dramatic... Maybe that was their thinking. We'll never know for sure.

I just wanted to add that my favourite change is difference 3 in Movie 4 - removing the music from the Gohan whistling scene. Due to the lack of music, we can see how important Kikuchi's tunes are and appreciate the presence of the music in the original all the more. The scene without the score is so dry and emotionless.

happy to discover your topics , thoses tapes are really interesting, little like drama cd for movie 11 where bgm placement, sfx seems to be differrently placed

[LostTimeLord]

Interesting to hear about these. I find the idea of releasing the Dragon Ball movies as audio cassettes/CDs really weird when so much of it is fighting and action that would be totally lost without visuals. Was the idea that you listened to the tape while reading the book that came packaged with it?

[HakkaiBills93]

i have to check into movie 6 drama cassette i have if there is any other differrence

[tronk21]

Interesting to hear about these. I find the idea of releasing the Dragon Ball movies as audio cassettes/CDs really weird when so much of it is fighting and action that would be totally lost without visuals. Was the idea that you listened to the tape while reading the book that came packaged with it?

Thanks! Well, you can do it that way although these books don't include every scene or shot from the movie. I personally get bored quickly when I start looking at the books while playing the tapes and after a few minutes I just end up listening to only the sound itself. You can take a look at them yourself on my site:

DBZ Movie 2:

http://matela.stronazen.pl/22-koro-chan ... -ohanashi/

DBZ Movie 4:

http://matela.stronazen.pl/30-koro-chan ... to-dorama/

I've also got the DBZ Movie 1 book:

http://matela.stronazen.pl/17-koro-chan ... e-special/

I think they're cool visually and may serve as a nice guide to these drama tapes.

i have to check into movie 6 drama cassette i have if there is any other differrence

Oh, nice! So you own this tape? That's some gem you got there. I have yet to find this tape for sale and recently there hasn't been much luck in this department...

happy to discover your topics , thoses tapes are really interesting, little like drama cd for movie 11 where bgm placement, sfx seems to be differrently placed

Thanks, I'm glad to spark some interest in a few people, even if there's only a handful of them.

[HakkaiBills93]

Oh, nice! So you own this tape? That's some gem you got there. I have yet to find this tape for sale and recently there hasn't been much luck in this department...

only digital version not physically

[tronk21]

I've updated the OP with the differences from the Movie 6 tape that I recently managed to buy! Been looking for that one for so long... I hope all the differences can justify a little bit of necroposting. Have fun!

Also, the photos of the tapes are still there if you right-click on the broken image icon and pick "show image" or something like that. Strange that my photos aren't displayed not only on this thread but on all of my posts. It happened after the upgrade.

[tronk21]

I've edited the thread opener for one last time. I've inserted the legendary Movie 1 tape, which I was looking to buy for the past 9 years! Sorry for the huge case of necroposting here... However, I think it can be forgiven in this case. This thread is about all the differences between the drama tapes and movies themselves. So the Movie 1 cassette was included here instead of being the subject of another new thread so that all the data is in one place. It was done for the sake of consistency and accessibility of information. This is the time when I finally tracked down this rare tape and not sooner so I couldn't avoid refreshing this thread after almost 4 years. Again, sorry about that. However, I've said everything there is to say about the DBZ Movie drama tapes so that's definitely my last post on this thread.

P.S. Kei17, you were right, unfortunately. The Movie 1 tape was in mono after all... But there is more to this than it first appears as shown in the updated first post.