Some of you may have noticed a lot of similarities with the music from DragonBall Z Kai. If you thought that, then your instincts were correct as TOEI Animation did in fact rip off several movie themes to create the score for DBZ Kai. Not only that, but TOEI has admitted this and has stated that they will replace all the music from Kai. Does this mean all copies of DBZ Kai will be taken off the shelves for the time being until they redo the score? Only time will tell on what exactly they have planned. This could also be the reason behind them not continuing towards the Buu arcs as stated recently.
Here’s a rough translation from the official TOEI website where they admit the music was ripped off.
The existence of multiple suspicious musical pieces which may infringe on the rights of third parties has been confirmed within the musical compositions recorded for “Dragon Ball Kai”, an animated television work produced by this firm. The relevant musical pieces are used as background music in “Dragon Ball Kai”, and measures are promptly being taken to replace the relevant musical pieces from the background music of “Dragon Ball Kai”.
Also, we are proceeding with a swift investigation of the facts, and discussion of countermeasures with concerned parties in the near future.
Update: TOEI Animation now lists the composer Shunsuke Kikuchi as staff under DB Kai music. This is the guy that scored the original track for DragonBall Z. So I suppose it is possible FUNimation will use the original score as well or maybe revert back to Bruce Faulconer’s work.
