What are your favorite Japanese composers

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Chocobodude3

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#1  Edited By Chocobodude3

Susumu Hirasawa

Yoko Shimomura

Naoki Sato

Nobuo Uematsu

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Oscar__Explosion

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The only ones who have really jumped out at me are Nobuo Uematsu and Shoji Meguro.

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artelinarose

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#3  Edited By artelinarose

Susumu Hirasawa, Shoji Meguro, Taku Iwasaki, Yuki Kajiura, Michiru Yamane, Yoko Kanno, Ko Otani.

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ESREVER

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Yuki Kajiura

I saw her perform live with FictionJunction at AX2012, so amazing. Her music is pretty much the soundtrack of my childhood thanks to .hack://SIGN

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dungbootle

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SuperWristBands

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#6  Edited By SuperWristBands

Keiichi Okabe (Nier)

Shoji Meguro (Persona)

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TheHT

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Susumu Hirasawa and Yoko Kanno.

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AuthenticM

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*who

Shimumora and Uematsu.

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Tireyo

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Kenta Nagata, Koji Kondo, Jun Maeda, Shinji Futatsu, Chiisana Tenohira, Kuniaki Haishima.

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Video_Game_King

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I'm gonna have to browse through a lot of this to remember some names, aren't I? Fine.

  • Nobuo Uematsu (well, at least until recently)
  • Yoko Shimomura
  • Koichi Sugiyama
  • Shoji Meguro, from time to time
  • Kenji Ito
  • Akihiko Mori
  • Whoever handled Fragile Dreams, because apparently, I can't find their name
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SuperWristBands

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#11  Edited By SuperWristBands
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SlashDance

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#12  Edited By SlashDance
  • Hitoshi Sakimoto (of FF Tactics and XII fame)
  • Motoi Sakuraba (Star Ocean, Baten Kaitos)
  • Keiichi Okabe (dat Nier soundtrack, son)
  • Kow Otani (Shadow of the Colossus, Haibane Renmei)
  • Keiki Kobayashi (Ace Combat)

These are the ones that come to mind, there's probably a dozen more I can't think of right now.

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csl316

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Uematsu's a legend, but I've always held Hitoshi Sakimoto in pretty high regard, too.

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Video_Game_King

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#14  Edited By Video_Game_King

@superwristbands:

For whatever reason, I thought that person just sang the intro and ending songs, even though her name is completely different.

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StarvingGamer

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#15  Edited By StarvingGamer

Hitoshi Sakimoto

Miki Higashino

Nobuo Uematsu

Yoko Kanno

-Those are the only Japanese composers I have felt compelled to pursue the music of.

EDIT: Oh, just reread the title. Humans, of course.

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madpierrot

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#16  Edited By madpierrot

Susumu Hirasawa

Even though he work has been a bit limited it's amazing and his music is quite distinct. With credits like Berserk, Millienium Actress and Paranoia Agent the guy has also just worked on some of my favorite shows.

Also Yuki Kajiura (again has a pretty distinct style, the way the music was used in .Hack/Sign was stunning) and of course Yoko Kanno.

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ichthy

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#17  Edited By ichthy

If we're not limiting this to solely video game composers, then I'd say Joe Hisaishi.

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Justin258

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#18  Edited By Justin258

Only 4 mentions of Yoko Kanno? I'm disappointed. She did Tank and the Kids on the Slope soundtrack.

In addition to that, Yasunori Mitsuda, the guy who did most of Chrono Trigger's soundtrack. I guess I might as well go ahead and say Nobuo Uematsu, but nothing of his really jumps out at me and I don't like his Chrono Trigger tracks as much as I like Mitsuda's. EDIT: That's not to say that I don't like Uematsu's tunes. I do. I just don't like them as much.

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Video_Game_King

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I guess I might as well go ahead and say Nobuo Uematsu, but nothing of his really jumps out at me

Half of Final Fantasy. Done. (And I think the main theme for 3D WorldRunner.)

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Justin258

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@believer258 said:

I guess I might as well go ahead and say Nobuo Uematsu, but nothing of his really jumps out at me

Half of Final Fantasy. Done. (And I think the main theme for 3D WorldRunner.)

More like three quarters of Final Fantasy, but again nothing really jumps out at me. Keep in mind that I've played about four hours of FFVI, four of FFVII, and about eight of FF12. And the latter wasn't composed by him, if I'm not mistaken. Maybe I didn't get to the parts with good music, but Chrono Trigger had memorable music pretty much from the word go. Twenty minutes in and you're already listening to the 600 AD theme, but even before that you can run out and listen to the first town's theme or the one that plays while outside of towns in 1000 AD.

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Video_Game_King

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#21  Edited By Video_Game_King
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Justin258

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@video_game_king

I'm going to fix that! I forgot to mention that I've also played about two and a half of FFX. But right now I'm doing my best to stick with Persona 3, and then I want to finish Nocturne. And then SMTIV comes out in the middle of summer, so there's that. How long is VI?

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Video_Game_King

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#23  Edited By Video_Game_King

About 20 hours, if I remember correctly. Maybe longer with a couple more end-game sidequests on top (I remember not doing a few). I don't remember how long FF10 is, but I don't think either game can possibly be as long as an average SMT game.

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MikkaQ

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#24  Edited By MikkaQ
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Daveyo520

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Koji Kondo, Akira Yamaoka and I guess Takashi Tateishi.

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myke_tuna

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#26  Edited By myke_tuna
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Ravenlight

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Miku Hatsune

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newhaap

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@ichthy said:

If we're not limiting this to solely video game composers, then I'd say Joe Hisaishi.

Actually he composed for Ni No Kuni as well. And yeah he's my favorite too ever since Spirited Away.

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pr1mus

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#29  Edited By pr1mus

Yoko Shimomura

Hitoshi Sakimoto

Nobuo Uematsu

Kow Otani

And i didn't know the names until today but Kenji Yamamoto and Minako Hamano for all their Metroid music. Super Metroid is way up there as one of my favorite soundtracks.

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MarekkPie

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Seriously...only two mentions of Yasunori Mitsuda? Seriously...

Loading Video...

If anyone wants to hear some rad talk about video game music from a semi-academic perspective, check out the old archives of Into the Score.

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ErgoProxy77

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#31  Edited By ErgoProxy77

Yuki Kajiura

Yoko Kanno

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TobbRobb

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I'm not one to pay attention to composers names a lot of the time. But obvious Uematsu and Jun Maeda are the big ones off the top of my head. I'm very likely to rip off half this thread if I actually look into names though. :P

Whoever did Nier is on here too. XD

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Raven10

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#33  Edited By Raven10

Well I'm not going to look up names so I'll just name some games

The Composers Of:

Final Fantasy Series (All of them including Matsuno's dude)

The Tri-Ace/Tri-Crescendo dude

Shadow of the Colossus

Nier

Silent Hill Series

Streets of Rage/Sonic/The guy who did most of the good Genesis soundtracks

Super Mario Brothers/Legend of Zelda Guy

Super Metroid

And From Anime:

Joe Hishashi

TENMON <-- Overall favorite

The guy who did The Girl Who Leapt Through Time

The guy who did the first Ghost In The Shell

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obcdexter

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Nobuo Uematsu, obviously. The entirety of the FFVII soundtrack sticks out to me, as well as huge chunks of FFVI and FFVIII - after that I kinda stopped caring about his FF-related work. My current "oddball" favorite piece of his music would be this particular battle music from FFVII. I really like how certain elements that were quite unusual for the rest of the OST by the time you get closer to the end would carry into the overall tone of VIII's soundtrack.

Shoji Meguro for his wonderful work on the Persona series. A very distinct style that always seems to fit the equally original visuals. The Almighty stands out to me the most - even though definitely on the more "urgent" side of his tracks.

Next up would be Ko Otani, most famously known for his fantastic work on SotC. I can really recommend pretty much every single song he composed for that game. Most of which are boss battle themes, obviously. You shouldn't overlook his other works, though. Haibane Renmei had some great tracks, too. And it is always a neat experience if you discover some stronger similarities on two different works that kinda close the loop from creative process to another of an artist. I definitely experienced that with Otani.

Keiichi Okabe also really hit a home run with Nier. Orchestral and pompous at times, he never loses this magical, original feeling. His contribution to that game sure helped its overall case - being visually rather unpleasant and all.

Tenpei Sato for his amazing, often times hilarious work on the Disgaea series.

But my absolute favorites, hands down, would be glorious, glorious Joe Hisaishi and "rejuvenated" Shiro Sagisu (yes, his Rebuild of EVA work can be brutally pompous at times, but also so god damn cool.) Akira Yamaoka may not be a "composer" in the most tradtional sense, but his output never ceases to amaze me and the man rightfully takes his place in my personal top 3.

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OfficeGamer

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too many funny names in one place