Motoi Sakuraba
Motoi Sakuraba (1965- ) has composed music for various Japanese video games, anime series, and TV dramas as well as independent progressive rock albums.
Bio
Motoi Sakuraba was born on 5th of August in 1965, is married to Yuko Sakuraba, and has a daughter, Mio Sakuraba.
Style
Motoi Sakuraba takes the pompous and melodic Japanese progressive rock of the 1980's and expand them with his own trademark complex rhythms, emotional flutes, abuse of male choir and heavy hall. The lighter side of his style in a crossover between symphonic progressive rock, cinematic orchestra and new age. Sakuraba is considered being one of the best progressive rock keyboard players with awesome performing style (as can be witnessed on the DVD release of his Star Ocean and Valkyrie Profile live concert), introducing many jazz alike improvisations to his music style. In the last couple of years he made serious efforts expanding his style even further.
Career
Sakuraba broke into the music scene as composer and keyboard player of the progressive rock band Deja Vu, which released an album, "Baroque in the Future", in 1988. The band later disbanded, and Sakuraba went on to release a solo progressive rock album, "Gikyoku Onsou", in 1990. During his work as video game composer he continued to produce heavily extended arrangements of his compositions.
Late 1989, Sakuraba began work as main composer for Wolf Team, a subsidiary of Telenet Japan. In 1994, former Wolf Team composer, director and composer Masaaki Uno, started working at Camelot Software Planning as coordinator and sound director, employing Sakuraba as composer for all Camelot games and developing games for Sony, Sega and Nintendo. In 1995, Wolf Team developed the break through game Tales of Phantasia for Namco, starting the third most successful video game series in Japan behind Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy. Wolf Team continued to develop games for Namco in the Tales series while keeping Sakuraba (and the other Wolf Team composer Shinji Tamura) as composer, until it morphed into the Namco Telenet joint subsidiary Namco Tales Studio in 2003. In 1995, former Wolf Team director and producer Jun Asanuma as well as Tales of Phantasia writer and programmer Yoshiharu Gotanda founded tri-Ace with financial backing of Enix, creating the Star Ocean series and, again, employing Sakuraba for all games. In 1999, long time Sakuraba sound designer and programmer Hiroya Hatsushiba, former member of Wolf Team and tri-Ace, founded tri-Crescendo while continuing to contribute sound work to tri-Ace games. In 2001, tri-Crescendo started working on Baten Kaitos together with Monolith and with financial backing of Namco, Hatsushiba as director and main programmer and Sakuraba, again, as composer. Sakuraba is regularly contracted for composing work in other media through his own TEAM Entertainment, a company founded in 1999 to promote and license the work of artists.
During July, 2003, Sakuraba held a live concert in Tokyo, Japan. He performed progressive rock interpretations of music from the PlayStation games Star Ocean: The Second Story and Valkyrie Profile.
Works
Albums
- @Midi's Summer (various)
- @Midi's Dance (various)
- @Midi's Battle (various)
- @Midi's Freedom (various)
- Vanny Knights Original Soundtrack
- Genso-maden Saiyuki Original Soundtrack Volume 1
- Genso-maden Saiyuki Original Soundtrack Volume 2
- Star Ocean EX Original Soundtrack Volume 1
- Star Ocean EX Original Soundtrack Volume 2
- Tales of Phantasia Original Soundtrack Complete Version
- Tales of Destiny Soundtrack
- Tales of Eternia Original Sountrack
- Tales of Eternia "The Animation" Original Sountrack
- Tales of Eternia Remaster Audio
- Tales of Symphonia Original Soundtrack
- Tales of Destiny II Original Sountrack
- King's Boards (various)
- Arcus II Silent Symphony
- Progressive Battle 1988 (Dèja Vu, live compilation)
- Baroque in the Future (Dèja Vu)
- Pazzo Fanfano di Musica (compilation)
- Sing!! Sega Game Music (compilation)
- FZ Series "AXIS"
- Maneuver Cepter "GRANADA"
- Zan Kagerou no Toki
- Gikyoku Onsou (solo work)
- Beyond the Beyond Original Game Soundtrack
- Star Ocean Perfect Sound Collection
- Shining the Holy Ark Original Soundtrack
- Star Ocean: Second Story Arrange Album
- Force of Light
- Shining Force III Original Soundtrack
- Valkyrie Profile Arrange Album
- Valkyrie Profile Voice Mix Arrange
- Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Children Game Music Arrange Tracks
- Star Ocean Perfect Sound Collection
- Star Ocean Blue Sphere Arrange & Sound Trax
- Star Ocean The Second Story Arrange Album
- Star Ocean The Second Story Fantasy Megamix
- Star Ocean Till the End of Time Arrange Album
- Star Ocean Till the End of Time Voice Mix Arrange
- Melody of Legend: Chapter of Dream (compilation)
- Melody of Legend: Chapter of Love (compilation)
- Motoi Sakuraba Live Concert "Star Ocean & Valkyrie Profile" (CD&DVD)
Games
For Wolf Team:
- Tales of Phantasia
- Tales of Destiny
- Arcus Odyssey
- Arcus Spirits
- Arcus I-II-III
- Earnest Evans
- Annette Futabi
- El Viento
- Maneuver Cepter Granada
- Goh
- Zan II Spirits
- Zan III Spirits
- Zan: Yaksa Enbukyoku
- Zan Gear
- Fhey Area (Faeria)
- Sol-Feace (Sol-Deace)
- Devastator
- Final Zone Senki: AXIS
- Hiouden
- Cybernetic Empire
- many others
For Telenet:
- Ace o Nerae!
- Tenshi no Uta: Shiroki Tsubasa no Inori
- Parlor Series
For Camelot Software Planning:
- Golden Sun ~Hirakereshi Fuin~
- Golden Sun ~Lost Ages~
- Shining the Holy Ark
- Shining Force III: Scenario 1
- Shining Force III: Scenario 2
- Shining Force III: Scenario 3
- Beyond the Beyond
- Minna no Golf (aka Hotshot Golf, Everybody's Golf)
- Mario Golf N64/GB
- Mario Tennis N64/GB
- Mario Golf Toadstool Tour
For tri-Ace:
- Star Ocean: Till the End of Time
- Star Ocean
- Star Ocean: The Second Story
- Star Ocean: Blue Sphere
- Valkyrie Profile
For tri-Crescendo:
- Baten Kaitos
Anime Soundtracks
- Genso Maden Saiyuki
- Star Ocean EX
Television Drama Scores
- TV Asahi Weekend Drama Series
- Cyber Bi-Shoujo Teromea
- Vanny Knights
Animated Movies
- Blue Remains (CG Movie)
- Atashinchi
- Waiz Kroiz Green
- Boukenyuki Plaster World