Kenji Yamamoto was too ‘inspired’ by the world’s hit songs to create the soundtrack for his games
Now that Dragon Ball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi 4 is a reality and it is in development that it looks like the IP is going through a very mild moment again. Many users expressed their undying gratitude to the entire modding community who were in charge of keeping the game active on PC by releasing content focused on Dragon Ball Super and other series derived from Akira Toriyama’s work. However this resurgence has also brought with it some not-so-positive stories that many don’t know.
Perhaps most important of all is its soundtrack, which was composed by Kenji Yamamoto. This artist was closely tied to Dragon Ball since the 90s and became very famous for creating great songs for games as well known as Super Butoden, Budokai 3 years Of course Budokai Tenkaichi. However, with the rise of YouTube, it has been discovered that much of his melodies were plagiarized from quite famous songs.
The fall of Yamamoto, an icon of Dragon Ball
- Kenji Yamamoto began his journey into the world of Dragon Ball by composing the soundtrack for Dragon Ball Super Butoden
- Later he began to stand out for the high quality of the themes he included in other works such as Dragon Ball: Final Fight, Dragon Ball Z: Budokai and Dragon Ball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi
- His success was so great that he was even the in charge of the development of the original soundtrack of the Dragon Ball Kai anime series… but it was from there that he fell out of favor
- In 2010, when YouTube started to become popular, many users started uploading videos that apparently demonstrated that many Yamamoto songs were plagiarized from songs by fairly famous bands
- This topic has reached the ears of Toei-Animation and, after investigation, they dissociated themselves from this composer and even replaced all the work he had done in Kai and games like Dragon Ball Z: Budokai Compilation HD
- Below I leave you with one of the videos in which several of the plagiarisms of this artist are collected, including bands like Deep Purple, my chemical or disturbed romance (created by user Amazing X)
What will happen to Budokai Tenkaichi 4?
As of today almost nothing is known about the development of Dragon Ball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi 4 beyond that it is in early development. We don’t even know which company is in charge of creating a title so long awaited by millions of gamers around the world, but what is clear to me is that the composer they choose will have to face a great challenge like the one -this.