For all of you Otaku’s such as myself, how do you rate whether an Anime series, OAV, or movie is a superb form of entertainment that should be recognized, or another waste of money and time the creators/producers could have used better? Do you just pop in a random anime tape you happened to rent at Blockbuster Video, watch it, and generally decide if it was good or not? Well, allow me to tell a very short story. A friend of mine, not an Otaku or big anime fan, has seen very few anime movies. A few months ago, he saw Princess Mononoke (Hime Monoke) in theaters and just as many other people thought, he told me it was a great experience and was probably one of the best (of very few) anime movies he had ever seen. I asked him, just out of curiosity, why exactly he had liked it. Not being the best critic, he explained little, basically saying he enjoyed the fighting, etc. Now, what’s the point of me mentioning this? Many people don’t realize exactly what it was that makes them enjoy an anime movie particularly, but judge it on an overall basis. Well, I myself, am not one of those people. When I judge a movie, I judge it on three general factors that I carefully examine: Animation/effects, overall storyline, and…can you guess what the third is? Music. So this essay will explain about Anime’s music, and especially, DBZ’s music.

I don’t necessarily believe that music is the most important factor to an anime, but one of three. But some may ask, what the hell does music matter? Ok, I can explain that, but first you must understand one other thing in order to know why music is important to have in an anime. When you read a poem of lets say…Edgar Allen Poe, what do you as the reader feel as you’re reading on? Well, it was his intent that the reader should feel some kind of fear or horror. Another example. Remember in the movie "Saving Private Ryan", seeing people die in such horrible war, what did you feel? Sympathy? Sadness? Allow me to clarify what I’m trying to say. My English teacher once taught me that an important part of a book or literary piece of art is atmosphere. The definition of atmosphere is "A dominant intellectual or emotional tone or attitude, especially one related to a specific environment or state of affairs". What does this mean? To many others, and me music is a rather repeatedly used form of atmosphere in movies, series, and especially, anime. If music, particularly BGMs, were left out, the emotional atmosphere would be dull and it would be nothing but meaningless words and sounds.

Now I can’t just end this essay about how important music is in anime without mentioning some examples. As a True fan of DBZ, meaning I’m very informed on almost all aspects of DBZ, it was fate that I had to mention it in this editorial. So here it goes. The first example is Gohan’s transformation into SSJ2 in the Cell Saga. This is probably one of the most emotional events ever to occur in DBZ because of the overall atmosphere and the preceding events that happened. If you have a faint memory of it, or have never seen it, allow me to recap it. Basically, Android #16 had been badly damaged by fighting Cell, and spoke a few last words to Gohan about saving the Earth and the Nature he loved so much, and was eventually killed with the foot of Cell coming down, crushing what was left of him, his head. Gohan, finally not being able to contain all of his anger, went through an emotional event in his mind and screamed as he transformed into SSJ2. I myself haven’t seen the whole episode, but mostly that scene. Anyway, the main thing that made that event so emotional and incredible was the music they played. Truly, "Unmei no Hi~Tamashii tai Tamashii~" captured every element of that episode into one amazing musical score. If you haven’t heard it, go to a site like www.dragonball-gt.com and download it, it’s definitely worth it.

Another example I must bring up is Freezer’s final death on Earth. Personally, I see that scene as one of the most exciting and best scenes ever to be done on DBZ. Allow me summarize what happens. To make this short, Freezer thinks he killed Trunks by exploding his own gigantic ki ball on top of him, yet Trunks stands on a rock high above them, yells "Freezer!!!!" and uses Burning attack. Freezer dodges this and yet looks up only to see Trunks flying down on him and he ends up being sliced in half by his sword. Now, the music "Battle Power Infinity" was what was played during this extraordinary scene. And although the scene itself with the music was rather short, about 45 seconds to minute, many people enjoyed this scene. When I heard the Trunks episodes were to be released very soon on video by Funimation (Whom I personally despise), I wasn’t expecting a lot, but I was mostly curious about how they would handle this scene. When I downloaded a realplayer file, which contained these parts of the new American DBZ, I found myself disgusted. The music they had played sounded like the entrance theme music WWF or WCW wrestlers use and the voices again sucked (Except for Trunks, who I believe sounded like a sixteen-year-old to me and was just fine). I found myself going through day of disbelief as I watched that scene again and again only to be even more disappointed.

Now in this paragraph, allow me to explain some of what pisses me off about DBZ fans and the new American episodes’ music. So many fans now have gotten rather angry at those who keep complaining about the American music played or more of Funi’s flaws being pointed out over and over. And in some ways, I empathize them. It is rather monotonous to hear fans bickering on the same topic. BUT, the key word is "but", I am disgusted at those fans that say DBZ American music is better than the original Japanese score. The new music played on DBZ is monotonous itself, and does very little good. Some of the music is good for the action, but not much else to really excite the viewer or inform them of what is going on. As I was speaking of before, I despised the music that was played as Trunks was slicing Freezer. Let me quote a fan that wrote an editorial somewhat close to this:

"Anyway, to the music. For some
reason, there is this song that was supposed to be played when Trunks went
Super Saiyan, but they changed it in the American version. I do not know
the name of the song, nor do I care, for I have heard it and it sucks. The
same people that complained of music being made on synthezisers say that
this song is one of the best of all time. The original music sounds like
some techno-pop crap that couldn’t make the cut on a Wang Chung album.
That, my friends, is a little piece of Webster’s Dictionary that is called
"hypocrisy". When you insult a song made on a synethesizer, yet praise
another song created on yet another synthesiser. That is why the DBZ Cult
is evil."

I believe people have a right to their own opinion, but only if their intelligence is actually put into it. And I disagree with what was said here. First of all, the song is called "Battle Power Infinity"(and he calls himself a DBZ fan). Although he did not like it, how can he call that awesome score (as well as so many others) "techno-pop crap" when the American music is more along the lines of Techno-crap. Personally, I don’t like Techno music a lot, but the kind they play on the dub is disgusting. So many fans call the original Japanese music crappy when they’ve barely heard 30 seconds of a single score. Though, I don’t accuse this fan of doing that. But to those people, before you judge the Japanese music, LISTEN to them. I suggest listening to several of them at a site such as Daizenshuu Ex and then making a decision.

So, here’s my point (or points to be exact). One, music in Anime is VERY important in order for the viewer to truly understand the scene itself, the plot, the emotions, and whatever else makes up an excellent story. Two, to those DBZ fans that say the Japanese music score sucks or the American dub of DBZ is superior to the Japanese original (Yes, I have met ignorant and idiotic people like that), think about it a bit more and at least bring up some intelligent support to your main statement.

Well, If you felt this essay was unorganized, I apologize, as I was in a hurry to finish it. And if you have anything else to say to me, check the info at the bottom to contact me.

Until the next topic,

MajinZero

E-mail: majinzero@home.com

AOL Instant Messenger: UltimateMajinZ

ICQ: 77671256