- Masaharu Iwata
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Masaharu Iwata Also known as REZON Born October 26, 1966
Tokyo, JapanGenres Orchestral, electronica, jazz Occupations Composer, musician Instruments Piano, electronic organ, synthesizer Years active 1987–present Labels DigiCube
Square Enix
AniplexAssociated acts Basiscape Masaharu Iwata (岩田匡治 Iwata Masaharu, born October 26, 1966) is a Japanese video game composer. After graduating from high school, where his musical projects included composing on a synthesizer and playing in a cover band, he joined Bothtec as a composer. He composed the soundtrack to several games there, beginning with 1987's Bakusou Buggy Ipatsu Yarou, and after the company was merged into Quest he left to become a freelance composer. His most well-known projects include Ogre Battle, Tactics Ogre, Final Fantasy Tactics, Final Fantasy XII, and Soul Calibur IV, though throughout his career he has composed music for over 65 games. He is one of the founding members of Basiscape, headed by fellow composer Hitoshi Sakimoto and currently the largest independent video game music production company. His compositions for strategy role-playing games such as the Ogre Battle series have been described as "among the most well-recognized in the genre".[1]
Contents
Biography
Early life
Iwata, born on October 26, 1966 in Tokyo, Japan, has been interested in music since he was a child, though he terms his first attempts at "experiments with music" while at school to be poor.[2][3] While in junior high school, he became interested in the Japanese electropop group Yellow Magic Orchestra. This inspired him to buy a synthesizer, and join a cover band with some other students.[3] Other musical influences on him during his youth were Arabesque, John Foxx, China Crisis and Bill Nelson.[4] It was during this time that video games began to be popular, leading him to become interested in them like many of his friends. Once he graduated high school, Iwata tried to find work that combined his love of music and video games, and joined Bothtec, which while he was there became part of Quest.[3]
Career
While working at Bothtec as a part-time composer, Iwata composed his first piece in 1987, the ending theme to Bakusou Buggy Ipatsu Yarou.[4] Soon afterward he scored his first full game, Relics: Ankoku Yousai.[5] While at Bothec, Iwata met Hitoshi Sakimoto, who was a freelance composer working on games for the company while still in high school.[4] The two became friends, and the next game Iwata scored was a collaboration with Sakimoto for the 1988 shooter game Revolter, published by ASCGroup for the NEC PC-8801.[3][6] Iwata remained at Bothtec for a few years more, and left around a year after the company merged into Quest in 1990. He did not join up with another company, instead becoming a freelance composer like Sakimoto.[3]
Over the next few years Iwata composed music for titles from a number of different companies, including Quest.[5] On several of these titles he was credited by the nickname REZON.[1] The nickname comes from the name of the car the hero drove in a show he watched as a child, and he picked it up as he liked the sound of it.[4] Iwata's first encounter with mainstream success in Japan came about in 1993 when he composed Ogre Battle: March of the Black Queen along with Sakimoto. The soundtrack included a wide variety of instrumentation in its orchestral score, which was new to the composers who chose some instruments from a musical instrument description book Iwata had found.[7] This collaboration led to Iwata co-composing several titles with Sakimoto over the next few years, culminating with his first brush with international success with Final Fantasy Tactics in 1997.[5] On these collaborations, the two typically divided up the work and worked on their own tracks, rather than co-compose each piece.[4] Iwata also collaborated with several other artists during this period in his career, including Toshiaki Sakoda and Masanobu Tsukamoto.[5]
In 2002, Iwata became one of the founding members of Basiscape, currently the largest independent video game music production company, along with Sakimoto, who heads the company, and Manabu Namiki.[1] Basiscape composes and produces music and sound effects for various types of interactive media, most notably video games. Sakimoto says that he left Square to found the company because he did not feel that he had enough "freedom" as an employee of a game company, though he notes that the cost of that freedom is the difficulty in remaining close to the development team.[8] The composers for the company are able to procure individual work for themselves as members of Basiscape, as well as collaborate with other staff members on projects that are hired out to Basiscape as a company rather than any one composer. This allows the composers to remain freelancers while having the steady work of a full-time job.[9] Iwata has composed much of his work since joining the company in collaboration with other Basiscape artists, both as the lead composer and as a member of a large group.[10] Since becoming part of Basiscape, Iwata has gone on to compose for over 25 other titles, including big-name works such as Final Fantasy XII, Odin Sphere, and Soul Calibur IV.[5]
Discography
Video game soundtracks
- Composer
- Bakusou Buggy Ipatsu Yarou (1987)[citation needed]
- Relics: Ankoku Yousai (1987)
- Revolter (1988) — with Hitoshi Sakimoto
- Starship Rendezvous (1990) — with Hitoshi Sakimoto
- Barbatus no Majo (1990)
- Metal Orange (1990) — with Hitoshi Sakimoto and JKL Furukawa
- Carat (1990) — with Hitoshi Sakimoto and JKL Furukawa
- Dungeon Kid (1990)
- Might and Magic (1990)
- Conquest of the Crystal Palace (1990)
- Musashi no Bouken (1990)
- Rush Up (1990)
- Battle Ping Pong (1990)
- King Breeder (1991) — with Hitoshi Sakimoto
- America Oudan Ultra Quiz: Shijou Saidai no Tatakai (1991)
- Cowboy Kid (1991)
- Over Horizon (1991)
- Shikinjou (1991)
- Robocco Wars (1991)
- Verytex (1991) — with Hitoshi Sakimoto and JKL Furukawa
- Magical Chase (1991) — with Hitoshi Sakimoto
- Gauntlet IV (1992) — with Hitoshi Sakimoto
- King Salmon: The Big Catch (1992)
- Ushio to Tora: Shinen no Daiyou (1993)
- The Gorilla Man (1993)
- Ogre Battle: The March of the Black Queen (1993) — with Hitoshi Sakimoto and Hayato Matsuo
- Kingdom Grand Prix (1994) — with Hitoshi Sakimoto
- Dragon Master Silk: Episode II (1995) — with Hitoshi Sakimoto
- Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together (1995) — with Hitoshi Sakimoto
- Treasure Hunter G (1996) — with many others
- Chip Chan Kick! (1996) — with Hitoshi Sakimoto and JKL Furukawa
- Bloody Roar (1997) — with many others
- Final Fantasy Tactics (1997) — with Hitoshi Sakimoto
- Baroque (1998)
- Bloody Roar 2 (1999) — with Manabu Namiki, Kenichi Koyano, and Jin Watanabe
- Evolution: The World of Sacred Device (1999) — with Toshiaki Sakoda and Masanobu Tsukamoto
- Evolution 2: Far Off Promise (1999) — with Toshiaki Sakoda and Masanobu Tsukamoto
- Ogre Battle 64: Person of Lordly Caliber (1999) — with Hayato Matsuo
- Tactics Ogre: The Knight of Lodis (2001) — with Hitoshi Sakimoto
- Shadow Hearts (2001) — with Yoshitaka Hirota, Yasunori Mitsuda, and Ryo Fukuda
- Gekitou Pro Baseball (2003)
- Mushihimesama (2004) — with Manabu Namiki
- Digi Communication 2 in 1 Datou! Black Gemagema Dan (2004) — with Manabu Namiki and Kenichi Koyano
- Battle B-Daman (2004) — with Kenichi Koyano, Kimihiro Abe, and Manabu Namiki
- Kuusen II (2004) — with Manabu Namiki
- Fullmetal Alchemist: Dream Carnival (2004) — with Manabu Namiki and Mitsuhiro Kaneda
- Stella Deus (2004) — with Hitoshi Sakimoto
- Jikuu Bouken Zentrix (2005) — with Manabu Namiki
- Zoids: Full Metal Crash (2005) — with many others
- Wizardry Gaiden: Prisoners of the Battles (2005) — with Mitsuhiro Kaneda and Hitoshi Sakimoto
- Final Fantasy XII (2006) — with Hitoshi Sakimoto, Hayato Matsuo, and Nobuo Uematsu
- Battle Stadium D.O.N. (2006) — with Kimihiro Abe, Kenichi Koyano, Manabu Namiki, and Mitsuhiro Kaneda
- Digimon Savers: Another Mission (2006) — with Hitoshi Sakimoto and Manabu Namiki
- BLEACH Heat the Soul 3 (2006) — with Manabu Namiki, Mitsuhiro Kaneda, and Kimihiro Abe
- Monster Kingdom: Jewel Summoner (2006) — with many others
- Fantasy Earth: Zero (2006) — with Kenichi Koyano, Hitoshi Sakimoto, and Manabu Namiki
- Children of Mana (2006) — with Kenji Ito and Takayuki Aihara
- Grim Grimoire (2007) — with Basiscape
- Odin Sphere (2007) — with Basiscape
- Deltora Quest: The Seven Jewels (2007) — with Basiscape
- A.S.H. -Archaic Sealed Heat- (2007) — with Hitoshi Sakimoto
- Opoona (2007) — with Basiscape
- Elminage: Yami no Fujo to Kamigami no Yubiwa (2008) — with Basiscape
- Coded Soul (2008) — with Basiscape
- Suikoden Tierkreis (2008) — with Norikazu Miura and Yoshino Aoki
- Soul Calibur IV (2008) — with Junichi Nakatsuru, Keiki Kobayashi, and Hiroyuki Fujita
- The Wizard of Oz: Beyond the Yellow Brick Road (2008) - with Hitoshi Sakimoto, Michiko Naruke, and Kimihiro Abe
- Muramasa: The Demon Blade (2009) - with Basiscape
- Tactics Ogre: Wheel of Fate (2011) - with Hitoshi Sakimoto
- Arranger
Other works
- 2197 (1999)
- Phantasy Star Online Episode I & II Premium Arrange (2004)
References
- ^ a b c Kermarrec, Jérémie; Jeriaska (2008-09-15). "Interview with Masaharu Iwata". RPGFan. http://www.rpgfan.com/features/iwata-interview/index.html/. Retrieved 2010-01-07.
- ^ "Basiscape Artists - 岩田 匡治 ／ Masaharu Iwata" (in Japanese). Basiscape. http://www.basiscape.com/arts_iwata.html. Retrieved 2010-01-07.
- ^ a b c d e Iwata, Masuharu. "Masaharu Iwata - Official English Website". Cocoebiz. http://iwata.cocoebiz.com/. Retrieved 2010-01-07.
- ^ a b c d e "Interview with Masaharu Iwata". RocketBaby. 2002. Archived from the original on 2006-08-13. http://web.archive.org/web/20060813094855/http://www.rocketbaby.net/interviews_masaharu_iwata.html. Retrieved 2010-01-19.
- ^ a b c d e Iwata, Masuharu. "Masaharu Iwata - Official English Website - Discography". Cocoebiz. http://iwata.cocoebiz.com/discography/index.shtml. Retrieved 2010-01-07.
- ^ "Credits". Hitoshi Sakimoto's official website. http://www.sakimoto.jp/inamerica/flash/. Retrieved 2008-12-06.
- ^ Jeriaska (2009-11-25). "Concerto Tactics - The Music of Hiroki Kikuta and Hitoshi Sakimoto". GameSetWatch. http://www.gamesetwatch.com/2009/11/sound_current_concerto_tactics.php. Retrieved 2010-01-19.
- ^ Sakimoto, Hitoshi; Winkler (Chris). "RPGFan Exclusive Interview #4: Hitoshi Sakimoto, Composer, Basiscape". RPGFan. http://www.rpgfan.com/features/interviews2005/index4.html. Retrieved 2009-10-15.
- ^ Sakimoto, Hitoshi; Napolitano, Jason (2009-04-02). "GDC 2009: Shooting The Breeze With Hitoshi Sakimoto". Original Sound Version. http://www.originalsoundversion.com/?p=2506. Retrieved 2009-10-15.
- ^ Napolitano, Jason (2009-03-05). "Suikoden Tierkreis Interview: Masaharu Iwata of Basiscape Shares His Thoughts". Original Sound Version. http://www.originalsoundversion.com/?p=1926. Retrieved 2010-01-19.
External links
Categories:- 1966 births
- Japanese composers
- Living people
- People from Tokyo
- Video game composers
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