Yasunori Mitsuda

Yasunori Mitsuda (光田 康典) is a Japanese composer and musician.

He is best known for his work in video games, primarily for the Chrono, Xeno, Shadow Hearts, and Inazuma Eleven franchises, among various others.

Mitsuda began composing music for his own games in high school, later attending a music college in Tokyo.

While still a student, he was granted an intern position at the game development studio Wolf Team.

Mitsuda was born in Tokuyama, Japan, on January 21, 1972, and was raised in the Kumage District of Yamaguchi Prefecture.

He took piano lessons beginning at the age of five, but was more interested in sports at the time and did not take music seriously, quitting by the age of six.

For a while, he wanted to become a professional golfer.

By high school, Mitsuda wanted to become a music composer, inspired by Vangelis' Blade Runner and Henry Mancini's The Pink Panther film scores.

He became interested in PCs after his father bought him one, which was a rare item at the time.

He started to program computer games and compose music for them, as well as take more technically oriented classes.

After high school, Mitsuda decided to leave town and become independent.

With encouragement from his father and sister, he moved to Tokyo and enrolled in the Junior College of Music.

Despite the school's low prestige, Mitsuda received solid instruction from his professors, most of them practicing musicians who would take Mitsuda to gigs with them to help carry and set up equipment.

At the cost of being used for free physical labor, Mitsuda got a first-hand view of the Japanese music world and valuable training both in and out of the classroom.

As part of his college course, he was granted an intern position at the game development studio Wolf Team studying under composer Motoi Sakuraba.

With his school term ending, Mitsuda saw an advertisement for sound production at Square in a copy of Famitsu.

Mitsuda joined Square upon graduation in 1992 and worked there as a sound effects designer for two years before telling Square's vice president Hironobu Sakaguchi he would quit unless he could write music for their games.

With no plans as to what he wanted to do after school, he applied for the position and joined the company in April 1992.

Although his official job title was as a composer, Mitsuda found himself working more as a sound engineer.

Over the next two years, he created sound effects for Hanjuku Hero, Final Fantasy V, Secret of Mana, and Romancing SaGa 2.

In 1994, realizing that he would never get a chance to move up to a real composition duty without some drastic action and feeling concerned about his low pay, he gave Square's vice president, Hironobu Sakaguchi, an ultimatum: let him compose, or he would quit.

Sakaguchi assigned the young musician to the team working on Chrono Trigger, telling him that "after you finish it, maybe your salary will go up".

Mitsuda was assigned as the sole composer for the game, in the end creating 54 tracks for the final release.

Mitsuda drove himself to work hard on the score, frequently working until he passed out, and would awake with ideas for songs such as the ending theme for the game.

He worked himself so hard that he developed stomach ulcers and had to be hospitalized, which led Uematsu to finish the remaining tracks for him.

Chrono Trigger proved a great success, and the soundtrack proved popular with fans.

Mitsuda claims that it is his "landmark" title, which "matured" him.

He attributes its success to folk and jazz music, rather than the "semi-orchestral" style popular in game music at the time.

Following Chrono Trigger, Mitsuda composed the soundtrack for Front Mission: Gun Hazard, again with Uematsu.

According to Uematsu, Mitsuda again worked so much that he eventually defecated blood out of stress and physical problems.

Shortly after, Sakaguchi assigned him to work on the soundtrack for Chrono Trigger (1995), whose music has since been cited as among the best in video games.

Mitsuda worked on three more titles for Square: Tobal No. 1 and Radical Dreamers: Nusumenai Hōseki both in 1996, and Xenogears in 1998, which featured the first ballad in a Square game, the Celtic ending theme "Small Two of Pieces" sung by Joanne Hogg.

Mitsuda also during this period produced albums of arranged music of his original scores, creating acid jazz remixes in Chrono Trigger Arranged Version: The Brink of Time and a Celtic arrangement album of Xenogears music, Creid.

Mitsuda went on to compose for several other games at Square, including Xenogears (1998) and Chrono Cross (1999).

He left the company and became independent in 1998.

In July 1998, following up on what he had said in his original interview with the company, Mitsuda left Square to work as a freelance composer, the first of several of Square's composers to do so.

Following his leaving, Mitsuda has only worked on one more original game with Square, composing for 1999's Chrono Cross, the sequel to Chrono Trigger.

He has worked on over a dozen games since then, including the spiritual sequel to Xenogears, Xenosaga Episode I: Der Wille zur Macht, and major games such as Shadow Hearts and Luminous Arc.

In 2001, he respectively founded his own music production studio and record company, Procyon Studio and Sleigh Bells.

Mitsuda has also worked on anime series, films, and television programs.