Why couldn't America's DBZ have great music like the Japanese

[Mr. Manhattan]

He must be a Weeb.

I hate anime and weebs and the OG is still better than the US, deal with it nikka

 

[RennisDeynolds]

Bruce Falconer soundtrack >>>>>>>>

shyt is epic and cinematic. Japs had some cool music but they have the weaker voice cast as well

 

[Emoryal]

 

[wise prophet]

Funi dub was some cheap ass sounding 80's synth rock straight from some 80's action cartoon and WOULD. NOT. SHUT. THE. fukk. UP.

OG/Jap version music felt way too lighthearted at times.

Both OST's are mediocre and are only propped up by nolstalgia.

Dragonball Super OST > both

And for the record Naruto/One Piece/Bleach OST>>>>>> Dragonball

 

[Emoryal]

Funi dub was some cheap ass sounding 80's synth rock straight from some 80's action cartoon and WOULD. NOT. SHUT. THE. fukk. UP.

OG/Jap version music felt way too lighthearted at times.

Both OST's are mediocre and are only propped up by nolstalgia.

Dragonball Super OST > both

And for the record Naruto/One Piece/Bleach OST>>>>>> Dragonball

Only thing I agree with you on Bleach OST

 

[Days of Future Piff]

Listen to that epic music







All I remember hearing was circus noise in the US version

I remember digging the song in the OP until I found out it was a straight jack from another group.
Kenji Yamamoto's "Battle Point Unlimited" was plagiarized note-for-note from the German synthpop band Propaganda's "The Murder of Love":



"Battle Point Unlimited's" synth riff is also directly copied from Propaganda's "P-Machinery":



It was so bad that the dude got fired and that the studio went back and replaced the previous episodes soundtrack with new songs:

Link: Features | Kenji Yamamoto Retrospective

"Almost immediately, broadcasts of repeat episodes of the series in Japan had nearly the entire musical score replaced. While the opening theme (“Dragon Soul”), closing theme (“Kokoro no Hane”), eyecatch and preview music remained the same, the background music used from the very beginning of the “refresh” composed by Kenji Yamamoto was replaced with the original musical score from the Dragon Ball Z TV series by Shunsuke Kikuchi, and the next new episode (96) continued with this trend. Yamamoto’s name was removed from both Fuji TV’s and Toei’s website staff listings, and Dragon Ball Kai was even removed from Yamamoto’s profile page on Office One-Two, Inc. Furthermore, international broadcasts of the series very quickly started shifting Kikuchi’s score into the series, as well."

 

[Mr. Manhattan]

I remember digging the song in the OP until I found out it was a straight jack from another group.
Kenji Yamamoto's "Battle Point Unlimited" was plagiarized note-for-note from the German synthpop band Propaganda's "The Murder of Love":



"Battle Point Unlimited's" synth riff is also directly copied from Propaganda's "P-Machinery":



It was so bad that the dude got fired and that the studio went back and replaced the previous episodes soundtrack with new songs:

Link: Features | Kenji Yamamoto Retrospective

Wow no wonder it sounded so dope they literally jacked that whole sound, were there any lawsuits?

 

[Days of Future Piff]

Wow no wonder it sounded so dope they literally jacked that whole sound, were there any lawsuits?

I've never heard anything about lawsuits, but his career is effectively sunk either way.

tl:dr warning:

Spoiler

Yes, it was 5 years ago today that Kenji Yamamoto, the longtime composer and arranger for the Dragon Ball franchise, was fired by Toei for plagiarism that had been around for about 20 years. Wow. Time really passed by so quickly.

To understand how and why did this happen to Yamamoto, we have to start at the beginning. Yamamoto's link with the Japanese music industry began when he was hired by Toei as a music arranger for the Dragon Ball franchise in 1987. His very first project was on With a Blazing Heart: Defeat the Red Ribbon Army, the insert song to episode #065 of the show.

His role on the show expanded even further when Dragon Ball evolved into Dragon Ball Z in 1989. For the next four years, Yamamoto worked as an arranger on many of the songs in the show, including the opening and ending themes (CHA-LA HEAD-CHA-LA and Come Out, Incredible ZENKAI Power! respectively), all the DBZ movie ending themes up until Movie 9, the ending themes to the Bardock and Trunks specials, insert songs such as Mind Power …Ki… and Day of Destiny: Spirit Vs. Spirit (from episodes #139 and #184 respectively),and all the albums in the DBZ Hit Song Collection Series from Vol. 1 to Vol. 16. The same year DBZ premiered, he composed his first song: Battle Colored Warriors, the insert song to episode #020. Many of his arrangements featured the multi-talented Hironobu Kageyama on lead vocals. The two struck up a friendship in 1989, and have been friends since.

Then in 1991, Yamamoto composed and arranged what is generally regarded as his opus: Battle Point Unlimited. The song originally appeared on Vol. 6 of the Hit Song Collection, and became more well-known when it was played twice as the insert song of episode #120, when Future Trunks battled a revived Frieza. Songs that were composed by Yamamoto were usually performed by him and his band, which was called Monolith.

During this time, Yamamoto crossed over to other Shows from Toei, including the Super Sentai series. He was the arranger on the Fiveman, Zyuranger, Dairanger, and Kakuranger shows. He would go on to be a composer for Bakuryuu Sentai Abaranger. He also arranged the opening theme to Bishoujo Kamen Poitrine, the 11th entry in the Toei Fushigi Comedy Series franchise. He even worked on non-Toei shows, including Kiteretsu Encyclopedia and Bomberman B-Daman Bakugaiden.

In 1993, Yamamoto added video game music to his resume, when Dragon Ball Z: Super Butoden, his first composition for a DBZ video game was released for the Super Nintendo. There was another Kenji Yamamoto who worked on video game music, but he had nothing to do with the one known for DBZ, and his name used different Kanji (山本 健誌 instead of 山本健司).

In 2002, Dragon Ball Z Budokai was released on Playstation 2 in the United States. This was when Yamamoto's music started getting more exposure outside of Japan. It also became something of a pastime on forums to point out that there was one thing many of his compositions had in common: They all sounded suspiciously similar to many western rock 'n' roll songs. For instance, Challengers from DBZ Budokai sounded like Hunting High and Low by Finnish band Stratovarius and Battle Point Unlimited from DBZ sounded like three different songs from the German band Propaganda. Now, it had never been an uncommon thing for musicians in Japan to compose similar sounding music, almost to the point of ripping off. In fact, trying to compile a list of video game BGM tracks that sound just like real songs would fill up an entire book. However, there was something about Kenji Yamamoto that set him apart from all the others.

In 2009, Yamamoto was announced as the composer for the refurbished and remastered Dragon Ball Kai. In 2010, the shows' English dub debuted in America with his BGM. Unfortunately, this was the beginning of the end for Yamamoto. The plagiarism in his composition was becoming way too obvious, and right off the bat, a few of his tracks were discovered to have been rip-offs of Hollywood movie scores (I.E. Terminator: Salvation, Avatar and Elizabeth).

In 2011, the fallout began. On March 7, Nippon-Columbia announced that Vol. IV of the soundtrack to Dragon Ball Kai was cancelled indefinitely. It was supposed to have been a "Best Of", featuring 76 tracks, including 6 previously unreleased. Two days later, it was a done deal. After 24 years with them, Yamamoto was shown the door by his bosses at Toei. Toei then issued a statement that they had now acknowledged muisc in Dragon Ball Kai, that possibly infringed other peoples' works. Fuji TV was at episode #095 of the refurbished Cell arc, and had three more to go until the series was over. The timing of Yamamoto's termination could not have been anymore coincidental, as yet another two days later on March 11, Japan was devastated by a massive combination of earthquakes and tsunamis. Dragon Ball Kai had to be preempted on March 13, and the Yamamoto BGM that they had ready to go for the last three episodes was hastily replaced with the Shunsuke Kikuchi BGM from Dragon Ball Z. Eventually, the rest of the series' BGM would follow suit. Many fans, even those who were otherwise fans of the Kikuchi BGM, criticized the placement of the cues; the fact that only a portion of his music had been converted from analog to digital didn't help either. Japan, on the other hand, couldn't have cared less; they welcomed back the Kikuchi BGM with wide-open embrace. Episodes #096 and #097 respectively aired on March 20 and 27, while #098 was exclusive to DVDs and Blu-Rays.

In addition, they had to go back and replace the Yamamoto BGM on the DBZ video games. Japan has always been known to take controversies like this VERY seriously (There was also the time singer Noriko Sakai, who narrated the Pokemon short Pichu and Pikichu, was arrested for a drug abuse scandal in 2009, and her narration was removed from ALL further reissues of the short).

In 2012, Hironobu Kageyama decided not to renew his contract with Nippon-Columbia, since Yamamoto was no longer involved with the Dragon Ball franchise. Supposedly, Yamamoto disappeared from the public eye after March 2011. However, that's not true as he arranged music for a Japan tribute album, after the events of March 11. He also continutes to arrange music for Kageyama, and in a statement that he released only privately, he said that he was banned from ever composing music for obvious reasons.

After Yamamoto was fired, Toei hired saxophonist Norihito Sumitomo to replace him. He composed music for Dragon Ball Kai 2.0, the two new DBZ movies in Battle of Gods and Revival of F, and Dragon Ball Super. Since then, Toei has also tried their best to make sure that something like this will never happen again.

Taken from: 5 years ago on March 9, Kenji Yamamoto was fired • Kanzenshuu

tl;dr version- It started becoming more and more obvious that he was jacking his sound from other songs, so Toei fired him, hired a new composer, and replaced the music in ALL of the previous episodes that he worked on. Yamamoto supposedly still arranges for smaller projects, but is no longer involved with anything DBZ-related as far as I know. He's supposedly banned from composing music, however.

Another example of Yamamoto biting from Western artists:

Hunting High and Low- Stratovarius (a Finnish rock group)


Challengers- Dragon Ball Z Budokai 1


More examples of Yamamoto biting Western groups:


Bruce Faulconer. Say what you will about the man, but at least he wasn't a biter

 

[FunkDoc1112]

I've never heard anything about lawsuits, but his career is effectively sunk either way.

tl:dr warning:

Taken from: 5 years ago on March 9, Kenji Yamamoto was fired • Kanzenshuu

tl;dr version- It started becoming more and more obvious that he was jacking his sound from other songs, so Toei fired him, hired a new composer, and replaced the music in ALL of the previous episodes that he worked on. Yamamoto supposedly still arranges for smaller projects, but is no longer involved with anything DBZ-related as far as I know. He's supposedly banned from composing music, however.

Another example of Yamamoto biting from Western artists:

Hunting High and Low- Stratovarius (a Finnish rock group)


Challengers- Dragon Ball Z Budokai 1


More examples of Yamamoto biting Western groups:


Bruce Faulconer. Say what you will about the man, but at least he wasn't a biter

Kenji Yamamoto didn't compose the DBZ soundtrack, just that song, Kai, and the video games. Shunsuke Kikuchi did OG Dragon Ball and Z.

And Bruce Faulconer took credit for other guys' work. He actually composed very little of the soundtrack - 90% of it was Scott Morgan, Julian Dobos, and Mike SMith, but they got no credit.

 

[ryderldb]

The music is fine in the US version. It’s the dub that’s fukking trash, but I don’t think I’ve seen an anime or movie dub that was good.

 

[Kenny West]

Dub beats the original in every way.

Epic soundtrack that doesnt sound bland and ancient like the original. Original sounds like the soundtrack to a ww2 propaganda film

Much more thorough voice acting. Vegeta actually sounds dignified and princely. goat level voice acting performance

Goku actually sounds like a grown ass man not a 12 year old trying to sound like an adult.

Krillin's voice captures his goofy cowardliness while still sounding like a grown man

None of that Atatatatatta shyt, its like nails on a chalkboard

 

[Tenchi Ryu]

People always try to shyt on how Falconer Productions added too much music, yet both the Kai japanese score and Dragon Ball Super played considerably more music in the background very similar to the dub score.

Clearly they got the message the reason DBZ has lasted all these years is because hype intense shyt lasts forever....not quiet ass moments of people just talking.

 

[904]

People always try to shyt on how Falconer Productions added too much music, yet both the Kai japanese score and Dragon Ball Super played considerably more music in the background very similar to the dub score.

Clearly they got the message the reason DBZ has lasted all these years is because hype intense shyt lasts forever....not quiet ass moments of people just talking.

If that's the case then why is the remastered Z dub using the Japanese soundtrack?

And neither Super or Kai feature the constant background music that the original dub had..

 

[Kenny West]

If that's the case then why is the remastered Z dub using the Japanese soundtrack?

And neither Super or Kai feature the constant background music that the original dub had..

Because times change and so does demand.

Anime dubs back in the 90s/80s were more about making the shows digestible to American audiences even if it meant editing out essential or cultural shyt. Changed the chopsticks to spoons, and the hinachan's to helens type of stuff. And because anime can be very violent and bloody it had to be edited to be on network televison. It worked for that time, anime just blended in as just rawer cartoons. As a kid the only appeal for seeing the japanese versions of anime was seeing the blood/cussing/nudity.

As the anime fandom matured and some shows were ruined by dubs people began to question whether the editing was disrespectful to Japanese culture. Over time people just wanted more faithful adaptations to the source material. You can thank One Piece for that.

And here we are. Now every dub plays the original ost. Now every dub is pretty much a spoken version of subs.

The reason why there is no bruce falconer in super is because there is no demand for bruce falconers in his industry anymore. The companies dont care either way, its probably way cheaper not having to edit and making custom soundtracks.

I know the practice of the old dubs may be some ignorant American shyt but damn if they didnt produce some gems. The pokemon theme song. Falconer music. Random accents on background characters. THE YU YU HAKUSHO ENGLISH THEME SONG



We'll never have stuff like that again.

the originals are original but some dubs are legit better experiences than the japanese versions, Funi DBZ being one of them.

 

[JSS]

If that's the case then why is the remastered Z dub using the Japanese soundtrack?

And neither Super or Kai feature the constant background music that the original dub had..

Bruce and Funimation had a falling out and I'm guessing Funimation was too cheap to get somebody else to score it so they said fukk it and stuck with the japanese soundtrack.