Interest
Dragon Ball Z Dub Composer Nathan Johnson Claims Texas Senate Seat
posted on by Lynzee Loveridge
Americans tuned in last night for the results of hotly contested seats in the midterm elections. One of race that drew national attention was between Texas senator incumbent Ted Cruz and challenger Beto O'Rourke. Republican Cruz pulled ahead by a 2.6% margin but another state incumbent, District 16's Senator Don Huffines lost his re-election bid to lawyer and composer Nathan Johnson.
Johnson's name may be familiar to anime fans, particular those who tuned in to Dragon Ball Z during the Toonami era. Outside of his pro-bono legal work for the Human Rights Initiative of North Texas, Johnson composed several of Funimation's dub music tracks for the hit anime series.
According to an interview with The Dao of Dragon Ball's Derek Padula, Texas' new senator came about his career as an anime composer almost purely by accident. While hunting for legal office space to rent, he ended up in a phone call with Funimation co-founder Robert Cocanaugher. Johnson told Cocanaugher on the phone that he would use the space for his law office and "might throw an electric keyboard in there and make some musical noise." The comment was enough to get Cocanaugher interested in Johnson's past musical composition work and after browsing Johnson's "awful website," he went to former Funimation producer Barry Watson and recommending Johnson.
Johnson had never seen Dragon Ball Z before in his life before signing on for the job but that didn't stop him from creating a cinema-worthy score.
Johnson worked for Funimation in house prior to the company's purchase by Navarre in 2005. Navarre later sold Funimation to Gen Fukunaga in 2011 before declaring bankruptcy last year. During Johnson's time at Funimation, he composed music for five Dragon Ball Z film dubs and episodes 1-67 as part of Funimation's Ultimate Uncut Special Edition redub.
Source: Fox News 4, NBC DFW, The New York Times, Nathan Johnson's campaign site
