Well, here we are again. The following is a conversation a friend of mine had with an acquaintance of his from Funimation. And before you wonder if this was my sole source for the "return" of Bruce Faulconer, I'm very sorry to say that it wasn't. (as I really wish I could have some doubt that it wasn't true) While I can't elaborate on how exactly, I did independently verify that he'd be coming back long before this chat took place. There's a lot I could say about this chat, but instead I'll just let it speak for itself.


Person 1: hello
Person 2: Hello? *is puzzled*
Person 1: heh. well, I (edited for content)
Person 2: As long as it isn't about my Source
Person 2: Fire away
Person 1: hmm
Person 1: do you have any idea what'll happen to the music in the DBZ redub? do you know if it'll be like GT all over again?
Person 2: As Far As I know the Music Should be the Same as the DBZ
Person 1: Bruce Faulconer huh?
Person 2: Unfortunatly
Person 1: why are they going with him again?
Person 2: they are Sadistic.
Person 1: it doesn't make sense... Yu Yu has great ratings right?
Person 2: None of the staff like him
Person 2: Yeah
Person 1: but if they don't like Faulconer then why do they want to rehire him?
Person 2: If I heard right he was under Contract to do the music
Person 2: meaning they couldn't just get rid of him
Person 2: I mean you should hear the VA's talk shit about him. Its funny
Person 1: what do they say?
Person 2: Mostly about how Boring and untalented he is.
Person 1: heh
Person 1: so I guess that's why he got replaced for GT, but not for the redub
Person 2: yeah. But I haven't seen the dub of GT All I had to hear was the Opening theme and i was turned off
Person 2: Plus the fact that they started Halfway in
Person 1: speaking of GT,
Person 1: what do you know about Gen Fukunaga?
Person 1: I've hated that guy ever since I saw the interview on dragonballgt.com
Person 2: Don't know too much about him. I hear he can be a real pain in the ass.
Person 1: any specific bout him?
Person 1: whoa
Person 2: He tends to get into the actors lives. Example Kyle Hebert's website had some pics of Gohan and A few other Characters that he plays. they made him Strip anything Funimation off of his site.
Person 1: what an assmuncher
Person 2: yeah


They had some other interesting conversations too. Apparently, Bruce Faulconer was hired for contract before DBGT came out, either in early 2003, late 2002 or perhaps even earlier. Why? I'm not sure, but it's unsurprising since in early 2002 Mark Menza was hired a year in advance for DBGT. Having the advantage of living in Texas, a friend of mine once bragged to me in May 2002 "hey D, a friend of mine knows the guy who's doing the music for Dragon Ball GT!" Apparently Mark Menza was first approaced by Funimation and hired, almost a year before they announced what was going to happen to the music, about mid-May 2002. What this shows is a surprising amount of confidence (and heavy arrogance) on Funimation's part.


"We know what's best for our wondeful fans. HEY YOU!"
Mark Menza- "Me?"
Funimation- "Do you live in driving range of our headquarters?"
Mark Menza- "Yes."
Funimation- "Would you be willing to work for us for low wages?"
Mark Menza- "Yes."
Funimation- "How much experience have you had?"
Mark Menza- "Well, I did the music for Jimmy Neutron. I've also done several commercials and coordinated some local bands in Dallas."
Funimation- "Wow, that's some really incredible resume- YOU'RE HIRED!"


Now, when Menza's music for "tha Grand Tour" was first shown by Funimation, the fans went ballistic. 99% of ALL fans on the internet and 95% of ALL websites, for one whole week, ALL flamed the living hell out of Funimation and bombarded their mail servers and message boards with countless hate letters and posts. Truly it was a wondeful time, when the mainstream DBZ Community (which before then had "decided" it'd be "in their interests" to play nice-nice with Funimation and befriend them. This was probably best exemplified by back when Mr. E of Planet Namek would frequently receive friendly e-mails from people like Sean Schemmel, Gen Fukunaga and Chris Sabat and then brag about it while saying that "it's not like they're getting anything in return!") temporarily all sobered up and realized just what a shitty job Funimation had done and was going to do.

Unfortunately it didn't last (oh, when will you people ever learn that for DBZ Funimation are absolutely NOT your friends and you shouldn't treat them like they are? They're the ones butchering your favorite show and that makes them your enemy! Forget biting your tongues to score hits from the mass dubbie audience to rank higher on the top 50 chart! What truly matters the most in the grand scheme of things isn't being able to brag about how big your hit counter is but being a true fan who doesn't accept or condone any of the shit Funimation has put and keeps putting DB through! Planet Namek scored over 10X as many hits as Chris Psaros's Dragon Ball Z Uncensored ever did, but which of the two sites did far more good for the community and educated the fans about true DBZ more? And which of the two sites remains the most legendary today? The answer- Dragon Ball Z Uncensored of course.) but overall disgust over GT's music has.

Basically, there are many at Funimation who would like the original music to stay (at least 6 different VA's from Funimation have told me and others at the dbzoa over the past year, that they think DBZ's original music is better than Bruce Faulconer's new score- which shouldn't come as a surprise to any of you, given that chat you just read) or who would at least like for anyone but Bruce Faulconer or Mark Menza (whose music is despised much, much worse by them than Faulconer's) to stay. Unfortunately, that can't happen. Why?

Well, a contract is a contract. I know for a fact that Bruce Faulconer has convinced himself that he "saved" DBZ when he replaced Shuki Levy and did his "magic" on Season 3. (which is almost unanimously agreed upon by both fans and even Funimation themselves to have the worst music of any of DBZ's dubbed seasons) Bruce Faulconer also thinks that Funimation "owes" him DBGT and that he "deserves" it and that he was "betrayed" when they dumped him for Mark Menza. That's why he did that whole "Replace Mark Menza" campaign in which he gave out Daniel Cocanougher's, Gen Fukunaga's and Barry Watson's e-mail addresses to everybody who had ever written him an e-mail before (whether good or, yes, even bad) and then told all of his "loyal fans" to swarm their personal e-mail accounts with begging to have Faulconer come back and replace GT's music. (this incident is another reason why Bruce Faulconer is so disliked at Funimation) It seems ridiculous to me that Bruce Faulconer did this, even though he had ALREADY been hired for the redub. In fact, it actually seems very, very greedy to me.


Bruce- "Oh no, 66 more episodes of Dragon Ball Z isn't enough for me, no no no! Gimme all 64 of Dragon Ball GT too! OH LOYAL FAULCONER MUSIC FANS!"
Faulconer Fans- "YES SIR, OH MOST HIGH LORD FAULCONER?"
Bruce- "I order you to ATTACK the e-mail addresses of Funimaton's 3 head executives and to get them to rehire me for DBGT! We must not let them use any other music but mine own... for the sake of the show! For the sake ooof theeeee shoooooooow!"
Faulconer Fans- "YES SIR, LORD FAULCONER! YOUR WORD IS OUR LAW!"
Bruce- "ONWARD TO DANIEL.COCANOUGHER@FUNIMATION.COM, GEN.FUKUNAGA@FUNIMATION.COM AND BARRY.WATSON@FUNIMATION.COM MY PRETTIES! ONWARD!"
Faulconer Fans- "AHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"


Now come on. How pathetic can you get? And you know what else? When Bruce Faulconer found out that he wasn't going to be doing the music for Movie 6 that guy went absolutely apeshit! I mean sure, of the 4 movies that had been done at that time (two tv specials, DBZ movies 4 and 5) the only ones with any good music were the ones he had nothing to do with. (the two tv specials... yeah, I'll admit, if they want to replace DBZ's music they should at least hire good bands to do it) And the only ones with bad music (really bad music) were movies 4 and 5, the only ones he had anything to do with. (and if you want to count the "Cartoon Network version of DBZ Trunks Special", where they used Bruce instead to avoid paying any "costly" royalties to certain music artists, his stuff was pretty bad, especially compared to the good music HoT dub originally had)

But yet, despite all this, Bruce Faulconer got so angry that he almost sued Jon Allen (the guy who interviewed him a while back ago) over it! Why? Because Jon hadn't told Bruce that he wasn't getting the job for DBZ movie 6, and remaining loyal to those at Funimation who had given him that information and didn't want Faulconer to know just yet. That much hatred... to threaten to sue someone to have them locked away in a "don't drop the soap" prison or take a lot of their money away JUST for that?

Come on Funimation! I know you've already signed your own fate away by signing a contract with Faulconer but you can STILL go with the dual-soundtrack idea and circumnavigate past this whole potential mess. And say whatever you want about it, from talking to my friend at Toei I know that it'd be incredibly cheap for you guys to do. (Besides, your company's value as of 2004 is about $100,000,000 total, about the same as 4Kids- which is definitely a LOT of purchasing power. And even without that much, the original music still isn't all that costly and it's actually cheaper than simply paying someone to replace it from scratch.) And from what I've heard from several different sources at Funimation I know- for a FACT- that you CAN use the dual-soundtrack on DVD option and that there's absolutely nothing legally prohibiting you from doing this.

And before trying to make up another excuse about why you guys can't do it, the following is from a Dallas newspaper. You're more than welcome to look it up should you wish to try and deny it exists.



"Headline: Career advice from the pros
Ballplayer a favorite as 120 volunteers share tales at Wilson Middle
Relevance: 1
Writer: KATIE MENZER Staff Writer
Published: January 15, 2003
Page Number: 1P
Word Count: 602
Edition: SECOND



While there were plenty of moments of inspiration at Wilson Middle School's career day, there were also a few points of sharp awakening.

< About 120 volunteers spent Friday at Wilson sharing the good and the bad about their chosen careers with the school's 1,015 sixth- through eighth-graders. Speakers were organized into school subject areas, so music composers spoke to students in band, cartoonists visited art and engineers talked with math classes.

"I felt a career day would be more beneficial for our students if they heard about careers that were related to the subjects they are studying in school," said Wilson counselor Cathy Shepheard, who spearheaded the event this year. "This way they see how the math they are studying will be important for them to know in the real world."

The speakers came from a variety of careers and specialties, from traffic officers to medical examiners. Some were volunteers from the community, others were parents of students, and some were friends and relatives of Wilson staff members.


"I've had parents calling all year, saying, 'When is career day? I want to do career day,'" Ms. Shepheard said.

Baltimore Orioles pitcher Travis Driskill, who lives in Austin, was recruited for the day by his sister-in-law, a teacher at the school. He spoke to the students about the years of work and sacrifice that it took to make it to the major leagues. He spent nine years as a minor league player in the United States, Mexico and Japan before being tagged to play for the Orioles last year.

He started out making less than $3,000 a season in the minor leagues, sometimes working as a shoe salesman in the off-season. As a major leaguer, his salary has been bumped up to $300,000, which he's used to buy a house for his family and begin saving for his sons' education.

"It's a great career path, but it's a hard career path to choose," Mr. Driskill told the group of physical education students, adding that only about 750 people play in the major leagues each year.

Some were surprised at the less glamorous aspects of his life.

"I drive a used car," Mr. Driskill said, "a '97 Yukon that I bought used."

Seventh-grader Graham Powell said he was awed by the baseball player's speech.

"I expected him to be all glitzy and stuff, but he's just a normal person," said 12-year-old Graham, adding that he wanted to be an architect like his father someday and not a baseball player.

Students were also wowed by composer Bruce Faulconer, who writes the soundtrack for the television cartoon Dragon Ball Z. He played clips of the show before and after his music was added to the scenes, showing the dramatic difference his work can make.

"I will watch a scene and start to feel what the right mood is for the scene," Mr. Faulconer told the band class. "I have a story to tell musically."
"



See? Even Bruce Faulconer himself has videos of dubbed DBZ with NO music in it. Hell, I'm sure even Shuki Levy had em too (and there probably still are some out there) for when he did the music for the first dub of Seasons 1 and 2. This means that you've still got a competely blank slate for ALL of DBZ to put ANY music on top of that you might still want to! And you've already purchased/used the original music for 1. Dragon Ball, 2. Blue Gender, 3. Yu Yu Hakusho, 4. Lupin III, 5. Fruits Basket, 6. Kiddy Grade, 7. Tenchi GXP and (as you've hinted very strongly at as well and probably already have) 8. Sakura Wars and 9. Detective Conan. Not only that, but Pioneer's already used that original music for 10. 3 of DBZ's movies and there's even 11. some really shitty dubbing studio in Europe doing English dubs of the movies that people are complaining are doing an EXTREMELY poor and cheap job that's ALSO using the original music for the rest of the movies too! (for instance, DBZ Movie 4 English Europe dub has the original script, but it's been said that it's script/voicing is perhaps even worse than Funimation's was for this dub of the movie. And for anyone wondering how this is possible, check the "French Otaku" interview. AB International, a French company, purchased the DB rights for all of Europe long ago) Hell, I even know that when you 12. temporarily dubbed One Piece episode 3 to show off to Cartoon Network to convince them to purchase the dub from you to use on either Toonami or Adult Swim (prior to Toei taking the rights away from you guys- fellow readers, this one's a whole nother story for a whole nother editorial some other day) that you ALSO used IT'S original music too! Not only that, but that's ANOTHER show from Toei, the same people who also made DBZ! So we know beyond any reasonable doubt that the usage of the original soundtrack for DBZ is absolutely more than possible for you guys.

You can still save the redub from him and his cat Mr. Fluffles AND get 100% support from the hardcore fanbase (you know, the people who complain and dislike you the most. Wouldn't you like to be able to completely eliminate all of our complaints and replace it with strong respect, compliments and admiration?) as well in addition to making the total purchases (and anime review scores that magazines/sites will release that should have some effect on how strong fan purchases for the redub will be. Remember how the first 2 seasons of Sailor Moon on Japanese uncut DVD got EXTREMELY high scores from almost every review out there? Wouldn't you like the DBZ redub to have the same kinds of scores?) for the redub higher for the whole audience base, as well as eliminating all complaints about the music period. (Remember when Anime Insider called Movie 8's dub music "really poorly made elevator music"? Do you really want them to say the same thing, if not something even worse, about your redub as well?) And we already know that pretty much nobody at Funimation likes Bruce Faulconer and that even Gen Fukunaga himself once said that Faulconer's isn't even "decent." So come on FUNimation- do you really want Bruce Faulconer to have his way with the redub?

- GreatSaiyaman777