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Japanese Composers


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Joe Hisaishi (his anime scores, Spirited Away, Castle in the Sky, and Totoro Orchestra stories) are absolutely wonderful.

Nobuo Uematsu (the music man of Final Fantasy)

Koji Kondo (Zelda and Mario)

Yoko Shimomura (composer of Super Mario RPG, and Kingdom Hearts, PS2 game)

Yoko Kanno (Cowboy Bebop- HIGHLY RECOMMENDED, great jazzy stuff, super popular)

Look for songs: Tank!, and Real Folk Blues, and What planet is this?

Taro Iwashiro (Once in a Blue Moon-Link to Fate, beautiful)

Koshiro, Watanabe, and Ryuji Iuchi, and company (Shenmue)

Utada Hikaru (Song: Simple and Clean for Orchestra, or English version)

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Most of the best Japanese composers are game composers. There is one really good film composer Hisaishi.

The best composers IMO are as follows:

1) Joe Hisaishi: This guy has done all the music for Hiyao Miyazaki's films and all of those scores are simply magnificent. His other works are almost all very good too. Probably the best Japanese composer.

2) Yasunori Mitsuda: This guy is a masterful game composer. He has done work for some lesser known games and some major ones. His works include Chrono Trigger, Chrono Cross, Xenosaha and Xenogears among others. He is probably the best composer working in the Japanese game industry right now.

3) Nobuo Uematsu: Mr. "Final Fantasy" himself. While this guy perhaps has a better overall career than Mitsuda he has been slipping in recent years.

4) Koji Kondo: This guy scores games for Nintendo. His most famous work is of course for the Zelda series.

5) Motoi Sakauraba: This guy has composed various game works including Star Ocean and many others. He is not as good as the others above but he kicks ass.

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The one with world fame is Toru Takemitsu who nearly made a hundred filmscores and numerous other orchestral works. The work Tree Line can be found on John Williams' The Five Sacred Trees.

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Alex Cremers

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Definatly Hisaishi. The man's work is brilliant.

I've payed over $300 to date for Uematsu's Final Fantasty scores. They are fantastic. Trivia note- he is actualy known as the John Williams of Video Game scoring.

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Akira Ifukube is Japan's version of John Williams having scored something like 80 films (probably more, I'm just familiar with his Daei Kaiju music).

I'm still looking for his score to Majin, Monster of Terror (it's a pretty decent movie too, mostly a period samurai film until the last 20 minutes where this 50 foot stone idol comes to life and stomps on a bunch of nasty villains).

Toru Takemitsu was already mentioned but I love his score to RAN.

Hmmm, what's that composer's name who scored Seven Samurai???

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Akira Ifukube is Japan's version of John Williams having scored something like 80 films (probably more, I'm just familiar with his Daei Kaiju music).

I'm still looking for his score to Majin, Monster of Terror (it's a pretty decent movie too, mostly a period samurai film until the last 20 minutes where this 50 foot stone idol comes to life and stomps on a bunch of nasty villains).

Toru Takemitsu was already mentioned but I love his score to RAN.  

Hmmm, what's that composer's name who scored Seven Samurai???

Fumio Hayakawa is composer of Seven Samurai.....

Hmm..is there a cd for Majin that exists? do you know? or is it out of print?

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Yes you must add Akira Ifukube to the list. He is in my top 4 of all time favorite composers.

There are 2 Majin cds that I know of. Both are more than likely out print. One is a 2 disc version of all three scores and then there is the version I have which is called the Maijin Memorial boxed set. It has 3 discs, each one representing one film. It also includes dialogue as well as the music but most of the cues are dialogue free.

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I also forgot the late Masaru Sato and a female composer, Michiru Oshima, who has scored the last 2 Godzilla films and is assigned to the next one as well. She has worked mostly in anime but she did a great job with Godzilla. GNP Crescendo released a copy of her first Godzilla film; Godzilla v.s. Megaguiris and it is still available in stores and much cheaper than the import version.

I'll also throw in a recommendation for Joe Hisaishi as well.

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Fumio Hayakawa is composer of Seven Samurai.....

actually, it is Fumio Hayasaka.

Masaru Satô was his pupil, by the way. Satô replaced him as Kurosawa's composer when Hayasaka died (too early).

I also like Ikuma Dan, apart from the above mentioned composers.

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  • 17 years later...

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