Shinji Hosoe

Shinji Hosoe (細江 慎治, Hosoe Shinji, born February 28, 1967), also known as Megaten and Sampling Masters MEGA,[1] is a Japanese video game composer and musician most famous for scoring Ridge Racer, Street Fighter EX and many Namco arcade games between 1987 and 1996.[2] He also runs the music production and publishing company SuperSweep, alongside long time collaborator Ayako Saso.

Shinji Hosoe
細江 慎治
Also known asMegaten
Sampling Masters MEGA
Born (1967-02-28) February 28, 1967
Gero, Gifu Prefecture, Japan
Genres
Occupation(s)
  • Composer
  • musician
  • producer
Instrument(s)
  • Piano
  • synthesizer
Years active1987–present
LabelsTroubadour Records
SuperSweep

Biography

Early life

Hosoe was born on February 28, 1967, in Gero, Gifu Prefecture, Japan. His family moved to Chōfu while he was in first grade of elementary school. At the age of 8, he bought Isao Tomita's album The Planets. He also listened to electronic music by artists such as Jean-Michel Jarre, Kraftwerk and Yellow Magic Orchestra. During his teenage years, he played bass in a Yellow Magic Orchestra tribute band. At the time, he did not have a serious interest in music and received low grades in music classes. After graduating high school, he studied computer graphics at Japan Electronics College.[3]

Namco (1985–1996)

Hosoe joined Namco in 1985 as a part-time game tester and CG artist. During this time, he merely created music as a hobby in his spare time. After showing his music to fellow co-workers, he was reassigned the position of a composer in 1986.[4] This led to him composing for Dragon Spirit, as well as various other arcade games such as Final Lap, Ordyne and Dirt Fox. He started off tracks by programming a rhythm into the sequencer, then playing melodies with a keyboard on-top, and later adding new parts or re-writing existing parts.[5] In 1990, he composed for Galaxian3: Project Dragoon, working with Ayako Saso and Takayuki Aihara for the first time; he found himself busy with lots of other work, hence other tracks were composed by the other two composers.[6]

In 1992, Hosoe composed for Fighter & Attacker alongside Aihara, his first game project to utilize dance music. The following year, he composed for Ridge Racer alongside Saso and Nobuyoshi Sano. While racing games at this point often featured jazz fusion music, the majority of tracks in the game are dance music.[6] The success of Ridge Racer has since led to him receiving many offers from companies to compose similar music. He also composed for Cyber Sled earlier that year, which he considers to be his greatest work,[2] although it received a mixed reception from critics, who criticized it for being repetitive.[7][8]

Arika and SuperSweep (1996–present)

Hosoe left Namco to join Arika in 1996, feeling that his salary would not increase any further.[9] Saso and Aihara also joined Arika desiring to continue working with him, although Sano remained at Namco. This led to the trio composing for Street Fighter EX along with its sequels. The console versions were their first game projects to feature live instrumentation. Ex-Taito composer Yasuhisa Watanabe later joined the sound team. The trio were also given freedom to work on the music of Square games Bushido Blade and Driving Emotion Type-S. The latter game was poorly received by game critics and fans, although the soundtrack has received praise for its blend of fusion, rock and techno music.[10][11][12] However, the music also received criticism, with one critic describing it as sounding like "a flock of seagulls being maimed and tortured".[13]

Upon joining Arika, he expressed a desire to eventually found his own game music company, which eventually led to him leaving in 2000 and founding SuperSweep alongside Saso and Watanabe.[2][14] Yousuke Yasui, who had already tried to apply to join Arika, also joined the company as a composer. In addition to composing for games, the company also publishes various soundtracks.

One of SuperSweep's first works was the soundtrack of Arika's Technictix in 2001, which Hosoe considers to be one of his most significant contributions to game music.[2] The team also worked on the music of the game's sequel Technic Beat. The game's producer, Ichiro Mihara, decided that the game's soundtrack would include remixes of music from earlier Namco and Arika games. Mihara chose which tracks would be included in the game, while the composers decided on which tracks they wanted to remix, at times fighting with other composers over who would remix a track.[15]

In 2004, Hosoe and Saso[16] worked on the gameplay soundtrack of Xenosaga Episode II: Jenseits von Gut und Böse, with Yuki Kajiura composing the cutscene music. Kajiura worked entirely separate from Hosoe and Saso, and did not collaborate on any tracks nor even meet during the game's production.[17] For the gameplay tracks, Hosoe composed those with the sound hardware of the PlayStation 2, and opted to use an electronic sound over orchestral due to the limited memory available to work with, in an attempt to make the difference in sound quality between the gameplay and cutscene soundtracks smaller.[2] His music for the game was poorly received by critics and fans at the time, and were considered unfitting;[18] as a result, he had no interest in releasing a soundtrack CD at the time and did not return to compose for Xenosaga Episode III: Also Sprach Zarathustra, although his work eventually received a more positive reception from fans.[19]

Along with Saso, Kenji Kawai and other composers, he scored Folklore in 2007. The game features a serious, dark cinematic score; while Hosoe most frequently works on upbeat electronic music, he found the music easy to compose due to not having to focus on sound design. In 2009, he served as the sole composer of Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors, which also features dark, intense music. He found the music straightforward to compose. As he had to compose the music using the Nintendo DS sound hardware, Yasui assisted him in ensuring that the music sounded close to the quality of recorded music. He would go on to compose for later titles in the Zero Escape series, including Zero Escape: Virtue's Last Reward in 2012 and Zero Time Dilemma in 2016.[20]

In 2016, game company Breaking Bytes announced that if its shoot 'em up game Xydonia is successfully funded, then Hosoe and Keishi Yonao will contribute additional tracks to the game. Saso and Yasui are also planned to be additional composers for the game if the stretch goal of €32,000 is reached.[21] However, as of 2022 the game has yet to be released.

Side projects

In addition to his career as a composer for games and other media, Hosoe has also participated in a number of side projects. He founded the record label Troubadour Record in 1991. The label released a number of game soundtrack-inspired concept albums, featuring other prolific video game composers such as Hitoshi Sakimoto and Hayato Matsuo,[9] as well as vocal and cover albums. He was also part of the group Oriental Magnetic Yellow (O.M.Y.), parodying Yellow Magic Orchestra, alongside fellow Namco composers Sano, Aihara, and Hiroto Sasaki.[4] The group released several albums and also performed concerts.[22] He has also released albums under the Sampling Masters name with Saso, including the Over Drive Hell series of albums. He has also participated in the Nanosweep album series, which features original tracks by composers from both SuperSweep and Hiroshi Okubo's circle nanosounds.

Works

As lead composer

Year Title Notes
1987 Dragon Spirit
Final Lap
Quester
1988 Assault with Kazuo Noguchi
Ordyne
1989 Dirt Fox
1990 Final Lap 2
Pistol Daimyo no Bōken with Seiichi Sakurai and Yoshie Takayanagi
Dragon Saber
Galaxian3: Project Dragoon with Ayako Saso and Takayuki Aihara
1991 Starblade
Little Master: Legend of Likebahn
1992 Little Master 2: Knight of Lightning
Eye of the Beholder PC-98 version; with Yuzo Koshiro
Fighter & Attacker with Takayuki Aihara
Galaxian3: Project Dragoon Theater 6 with Ayako Saso and Takayuki Aihara
1993 Cyber Sled
Ridge Racer with Ayako Saso and Nobuyoshi Sano
1994 Ridge Racer 2 with Ayako Saso, Nobuyoshi Sano and Takayuki Aihara
Attack of the Zolgear with Ayako Saso
Cyber Commando with Akihiko Ishikawa and Hiroto Sasaki
1995 Tekken PlayStation version; arrangements with various others[lower-alpha 1]
Little Master: Jewels of the Rainbow
Rave Racer with Ayako Saso, Nobuyoshi Sano and Takayuki Aihara
Dirt Dash with various others[lower-alpha 2]
Speed Racer
1996 Xevious 3D/G with Ayako Saso, Nobuyoshi Sano and Hiroto Sasaki
Tekken 2 PlayStation version; arrangements with various others[lower-alpha 3]
Street Fighter EX with Ayako Saso and Takayuki Aihara
1997 Bushido Blade with Ayako Saso and Takayuki Aihara
Street Fighter EX Plus α with Ayako Saso and Takayuki Aihara
1998 Street Fighter EX2 with Ayako Saso and Takayuki Aihara
Tetris: The Grand Master with Ayako Saso
1999 iS: internal section with Ayako Saso
Street Fighter EX2 Plus arcade version; with Ayako Saso and Takayuki Aihara
Custom Robo with Ayako Saso and Yasuhisa Watanabe
Street Fighter EX2 Plus PlayStation version; with Ayako Saso, Takayuki Aihara and Yasuhisa Watanabe
2000 Street Fighter EX3 with Ayako Saso, Takayuki Aihara and Yasuhisa Watanabe
Driving Emotion Type-S with Ayako Saso and Takayuki Aihara
Tetris the Absolute 2: The Grand Master with Ayako Saso
Custom Robo V2 with Ayako Saso, Yasuhisa Watanabe and Yousuke Yasui
2001 Technictix with various others[lower-alpha 4]
Taikyoku Mahjong Net-De-Ron! with Ayako Saso, Yasuhisa Watanabe and Yousuke Yasui
2002 Technic Beat with various others[lower-alpha 5]
Custom Robo GX with Ayako Saso
Everblue 2 with Ayako Saso, Yousuke Yasui and Kaori Ohkoshi
Perfect Prince with Hitoshi Sakimoto and Ayako Saso
Cosmic Batter Defense
2003 Mega Man Network Transmission with Ayako Saso and Yousuke Yasui
Naruto: Clash of Ninja with Ayako Saso and Yousuke Yasui
Sister Contrast! with Yousuke Yasui
Naruto: Clash of Ninja 2 with Ayako Saso, Yousuke Yasui and Masashi Yano
2004 Xenosaga Freaks with Ayako Saso, Masashi Yano and Keiichi Okabe
Xenosaga Episode II: Jenseits von Gut und Böse with Yuki Kajiura and Ayako Saso
Yakimochi Twin Bell
Hunks Workshop! with Ayako Saso
Exploding Goro
The Spear Force
Target Batting 2004
2005 Tetris: The Grand Master 3 - Terror Instinct with Ayako Saso
Spikeout: Battle Street with Ayako Saso
Ibara
Under Defeat
Tetris: The Grand Master Ace with Ayako Saso
2007 Natsumelo
Sweet Home: H na Onee-san wa Suki Desu ka?
2008 Pure My Imouto Milk Purun
Impetuth with Shoichiro Sakamoto
2009 Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors
2010 Metal Torrent
Prismatic Solid with Ayako Saso
Fate/Extra with Keita Haga and Daisuke Nagata
Carnage Heart EXA with Ayako Saso and Shuhei Seki
2012 Zero Escape: Virtue's Last Reward
2013 Lord of Vermilion III
2015 Lord of Vermilion Re:3
2016 Zero Time Dilemma
2017 Giga Wrecker with Takahiro Eguchi and Teruo Taniguchi
2018 Pokémon Quest with Teruo Taniguchi, Takahiro Eguchi, and Fumihisa Tanaka
2021 Pac-Man 99 with Ayako Saso
2022 Alice Gear Aegis: Op. Halzion
2023 404 Game Re:set with various others
Batsugun Saturn Tribute Boosted with Yousuke Yasui, Hagane, Daisuke Matsumoto, and Wasi303[23]

As a contributor

Year Title Notes
1988 Metal Hawk with Kazuo Noguchi
1995 Mach Breakers: Numan Athletics 2 "Attract"
Cyber Cycles "Wind Ride Kids"
1998 Battle Garegga Saturn version; arrangements; "Subversive Awareness" and "Erupter"
2000 Prodigy Racing "Try It" and "Trapp'n Musix"
Victorious Boxers: Ippo's Road to Glory with Takayuki Aihara and Naoki Tsuchiya
2001 Keyboardmania 3rdMix arrangements; "EE-AL-K" and "Sensation from Salamander2"
Beatmania IIDX 5th Style "Outer Wall" and "Tablets"
Beatmania IIDX 6th Style "Route 80s" and "Rottel-Da-Sun"
2002 Jorou Gumo: Makotogatari opening theme
2003 DoDonPachi DaiOuJou PlayStation 2 version; arrangements; "Stage Clear" and "Game Over"
Beatmania IIDX 9th Style "Rottel-the-Mercury"
Salem no Majo-tachi opening theme "Dum Spiro,Spero."
2004 Beatmania IIDX 10th Style "1st Samurai"
Espgaluda PlayStation 2 version; arrangement ("Name Entry")
Konohana 4: Yami wo Harau Inori ending theme "Promised Place"
Ridge Racers with various others[lower-alpha 6]
2005 Zatch Bell! Mamodo Battles with various others[lower-alpha 7]
Pop'n Music 13 Carnival "Violently Car"
Dancing Crazies opening theme "Death Rate of Love"
Ridge Racer 6 "Valley of the Mind" and "Highway Fusion"
Super Dragon Ball Z with various others[lower-alpha 8]
2006 Monster Kingdom: Jewel Summoner with various others[lower-alpha 9]
Ridge Racers 2 "Rotten7 Remix" and "Heat Floor Remix"
Ridge Racer 7 "Combustion" and "Listen Up!"
2007 Memories Off #5: Encore (Soundtrack Dōkon Han) arrangement ("Romancing Story" (trance version))
Folklore with various others[lower-alpha 10]
Naruto: Clash of Ninja Revolution & supervision; with various others[lower-alpha 11]
Arkanoid DS arrangement ("Captain Neo -Confusion Mix-")
Umisho with various others[lower-alpha 12]
2008 DJMax Technika "Son of Sun"
Sumeragi Ryouko no Bitch na 1 nichi insert songs
Tekken 6: Bloodline Rebellion "Fist Festival" (also used in the console version of Tekken 6)
Otomedius Gorgeous DLC-only; arrangements; with various others
Let's Tap with various others
Taiko no Tatsujin Wii "Dance Storm"
Beatmania IIDX 15: DJ Troopers CS "Vox Up"[lower-alpha 13]
2009 11eyes CrossOver "The Long Afternoon of the Mages" and "Hollow Boundary"
2010 Walk It Out! "Happy in Comet"
Pop'n Music Portable "Chat! Chat! Chat!"
DJMax Technika 2 with various others
B's LOG Party opening theme "Iridescent address"
DJMax Portable 3 "Xlasher"
2011 Music GunGun 2 "Crowded Space"
Otomedius Excellent DLC-only; with various others
Ridge Racer 3D with various others[lower-alpha 14]
Makki, Shoujobyou - Lyrical pop World's end "Incoherent Disease"
Taiko no Tatsujin Wii: Kettei-Ban "Rotter Tarmination" and "Dodon ga Do~n"
Ridge Racer (2011) "The Time is Now"
2012 Under Defeat HD with Yousuke Yasui
Dopamix "Rocket Valley -Dopa Edit-"
Ridge Racer Unbounded "Mushrooms" and "Wrong Way"
Tekken Tag Tournament 2 console version; with various others[lower-alpha 15]
Groove Coaster Zero "Wacky Dance Ethnic"
maimai PLUS arrangement ("Like the Wind [Reborn]") and MOON OF NOON
2013 Ginga Force "Dubious Dealer"
Tekken Revolution "Fear to Agonize"
2014 Onigiri "The Rainbow Wind Blows" and "One and All, Forever"
Raiden IV: OverKill arrangement ("Lightning Strikes")
Protect Me Knight 2 "Bon! Voyage"
2015 Chunithm "The Wheel to the Right"
2016 The Metronomicon: Slay the Dance Floor "Zombie Chase"
2017 Angels With Scaly Wings "Intro/Launch Trailer"
DJMax Respect "Mulch"
Neo Heiankyo Alien "Alien Spirit"
Chunithm Star "Kattobi Keikyu Rider"
Fighting EX Layer with various others[lower-alpha 16]
Beatmania IIDX 25: Cannon Ballers "Vox Rush"[lower-alpha 17]
Moeyo! Kung-Fu Lady Dragon "Art High Chance (Skill)"
2018 Ongeki "Dazzle Hop"
2019 Tetris 99 with various others
Giga Breaker Alt. with Takahiro Eguchi and Teruo Taniguchi
Konosuba: God's Blessing on this Wonderful World! Labyrinth of Hope and the Gathering Adventurers "Toaru Hakase no Kenkyūjo Ato"
Arcaea version 2.4.7; "Avant Raze"
Beatmania IIDX 27: Heroic Verse "Rave Lithosphere"
ESP Ra.De. Psi arrangements; with various others
2020 Caravan Boomer "Restless Caravan"
2021 Cotton Reboot! arrangements; with various others[lower-alpha 18]
Houkago Education! theme song "Supplementary Lessons"
TBA Xydonia with various others[lower-alpha 19]

Non-music roles

Year Title Notes
1998 Fighting Layer sound effects
1999 Deep Freeze sound effects; with Ayako Saso and Takayuki Aihara
2001 Everblue sound producer
2002 Gungrave sound director
2004 The Nightmare of Druaga: Fushigi no Dungeon sound producer
Dragon Quest & Final Fantasy in Itadaki Street Special sound effect producer
2006 Dragon Quest & Final Fantasy in Itadaki Street Portable sound effect producer
2007 Endless Ocean sound producer
2009 Endless Ocean: Blue World sound producer
2019 Little Town Hero recording engineer
2021 Sol Cresta sound effects

Anime

Year Title Notes
2007 Higurashi no Naku Koro ni Character CD VOL.1 insert song "Keiichi Oishi no Uwasa no Jikenbo ABC"
2009 Yans! Gans! Meat or Die
2012 The Pet Girl of Sakurasou with various others
2014 Sgt. Frog with Ayako Saso, Takahiro Eguchi and Yousuke Yasui
No Game No Life with Ayako Saso, Takahiro Eguchi and Fumihasa Tanaka
2015 Taboo Tattoo with Ayako Saso and Takahiro Eguchi

Footnotes

Notes

  1. Yoshie Arakawa, Yoshie Takayanagi, Nobuyoshi Sano, Hiroto Sasaki, and Takayuki Aihara
  2. Nobuyoshi Sano, Hiroto Sasaki, Yuri Misumi, Ayako Saso, Takayuki Aihara
  3. Yoshie Arakawa, Nobuyoshi Sano, Hiroto Sasaki, Ayako Saso, Takayuki Aihara, and Keiichi Okabe
  4. Ayako Saso, Takayuki Aihara, Yasuhisa Watanabe, Yousuke Yasui, and Hiroto Saitoh
  5. Ayako Saso, Yousuke Yasui, Takayuki Aihara, Norihiro Furukawa, and Hiroto Saitoh
  6. Hiroshi Okubo, Keiki Kobayashi, Ayako Saso, Yuu Miyake, Nobuyoshi Sano, Kohta Takahashi, Asuka Sakai, Takayuki Aihara, Tetsukazu Nakanishi, Koji Nakagawa, and Junichi Nakatsuru
  7. Ayako Saso, Yousuke Yasui, Masashi Yano, Norihiro Furukawa, and Takayuki Aihara
  8. Ayako Saso, Yousuke Yasui, Masashi Yano, Yasuhisa Watanabe, Hiroto Saitoh, Takayuki Aihara, and Wataru Ishibashi
  9. Hitoshi Sakimoto, Yasunori Mitsuda, Kenji Ito, Yoko Shimomura, Ayako Saso, Yasuyuki Suzuki, Kyouji Iwata, Tsukasa Masuko, and Takahiro Ogata
  10. Kenji Kawai, Ayako Saso, Hiroto Saitoh, and Yuriko Mukoujima
  11. Ayako Saso, Yousuke Yasui, Masashi Yano, and Kazuhiro Kobayashi
  12. Masashi Yano, Yasuhisa Watanabe, Ayako Saso, Shoichiro Sakamoto, and Norihiro Furukawa
  13. with Ryutaro Nakahara
  14. Hiroshi Okubo, Taku Inoue, Rio Hamamoto, Ryo Watanabe, Ayako Saso, Keiichi Okabe, and Akihiko Ishikawa
  15. Akitaka Tohyama, Nobuyoshi Sano, Shinji Hosoe, Ayako Saso, Keiichi Okabe, Keigo Hoashi, Taku Inoue, Yoshihito Yano, Yuu Miyake, Rio Hamamoto, Go Shiina, and Ryo Watanabe
  16. Ayako Saso, Takayuki Aihara, Takahiro Eguchi, Fumihisa Tanaka, and Kazuhiro Kobayashi
  17. with Ryutaro Nakahara and Ayako Saso
  18. Kenichi Arakawa, Hisayoshi Ogura, Hiroyuki Kawada, Isamu Kondo, Tetsuro Sato, Koichi Namiki, Kimitaka Matsumae, and Daisuke Matsumoto
  19. Luca Della Regina, Keishi Yonao, Ayako Saso, and Yousuki Yasui

References

  1. "Ridge Racer, 15 años a toda velocidad". Meristation. February 5, 2007. Retrieved June 11, 2011.
  2. Greening, Chris (January 2010). "Interview with Shinji Hosoe". Square Enix Music Online. Retrieved June 11, 2011.
  3. "ゲームミュージック&アニメ専門店". ga-core. January 7, 2009. Archived from the original on June 29, 2009.
  4. "RocketBaby's interview with Shinji Hosoe". RocketBaby. 2003. Archived from the original on June 4, 2003.
  5. Namco Game Sound Express VOL.4 Dragon Saber (CD). March 21, 1991.
  6. "ゲームミュージック&アニメ専門店". January 14, 2009. Archived from the original on June 29, 2009.
  7. "Cyber Sled - PlayStation". Nerd Bacon Reviews. April 18, 2016.
  8. Kotowski, Don (November 18, 2015). "Cyber Commando -Shinji Hosoe Works Vol. 5-".
  9. "ゲームミュージック&アニメ専門店". ga-core. January 21, 2009. Archived from the original on June 29, 2009.
  10. Hall, Alexandra (November 6, 2020). "Square's Awful PS2 Racer Had Good-Ass Music, At Least". Kotaku.
  11. Ismail, Adam (May 14, 2021). "How One Of The Worst Racing Games Ever Taught Me To Enjoy Bad Things". Kotaku.
  12. "Driving Emotion Type-S / Bushido Blade Original Soundtrack". Chudah's Corner. Archived from the original on December 16, 2008. {{cite web}}: |first= missing |last= (help)
  13. Liu, Johnny (February 1, 2001). "Driving Emotion Type-S review for the PS2". Game Revolution. Archived from the original on December 2, 2008. Retrieved May 21, 2008.
  14. "ゲームミュージック&アニメ専門店". January 28, 2009. Archived from the original on June 29, 2009.
  15. "『TECHNIC BEAT』 Interview : Part 1". Arika. 2002.
  16. Saso, Ayako (August 22, 2021). ""The part of Xenosaga Ep2 that I was in charge of was not even made into a soundtrack, so there are no song titles for any of the songs."". Peing.
  17. Kotowski, Don (May 26, 2009). "Anime Boston 2009: Interview with Kalafina and Yuki Kajiura". Original Sound Version. Archived from the original on September 20, 2010. Retrieved January 28, 2010.
  18. Dunham, Jeremy (February 9, 2005). "Xenosaga Episode II: Jenseits von Gut und Bose". IGN. Archived from the original on February 5, 2012. Retrieved January 29, 2010.
  19. Hosoe, Shinji (February 22, 2022). ""I don't know if you guys know this, but I got a lot of critical feedback on this title, and I wasn't in the mood to release a soundtrack."". Peing.
  20. Kotowski, Don (July 30, 2016). "Shinji Hosoe and Kotaro Uchikoshi Interview: Zero Times". Video Game Music Online.
  21. Greening, Chris (June 28, 2016). "Hosoe and Yonao tipped to contribute to new retro shmup soundtrack". Video Game Music Online.
  22. "OMY". Troubadour Record. Archived from the original on December 19, 2000.
  23. Romano, Sal (February 5, 2023). "BATSUGUN Saturn Tribute Boosted announced for PS4, Xbox One, Switch, and PC". Gematsu. Retrieved February 6, 2023.
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