-------------------------------Biographie de yasunori Mitsuda------------------------------------

In January 21, 1972, Yasunori Mitsuda was born in the city of Tokuyama, within the Yamaguchi prefecture. A short while before entering elementary school, he moved to Kumake-city in the Kumake-district, and continued to spend his childhood years there until his high school graduation, after which he moved to the city of Tokyo. Growing up, he was an extremely active playful boy (always playing in the mountain side) and never had much exposure to music. But during the 6 years in his elementary school period, he learned to play the piano, thanks to the influence of his big sister. Unfortunately though, he despised practice, and failed to improve. Even he, himself says, "I don't know if you could really call that practicing" (his practices were often just playing around on the piano whenever he went to visit his piano teacher's home.) But on the other hand, Mitsuda was athletically gifted, and during his years in elementary school, he was a member of the swim team. He was also also a very fast sprinter, and in his junior-high years, he was forced into competing in the prefecture's Track and Field Competition (in the hurdles and short-distance relay). But here again, he failed to bear any significant results because of his dislike for practices.

Mitsuda first showed his desire of going into the music business during his senior year in high school. During his junior-high years, although he dreamed of becoming a professional golf player and continued to practice his swings everyday in his backyard, he was told by his father that "in order to become a pro, you have to have the proper training and education from a very young age, like Tiger Woods." After hearing this, Yasunori decided to take his father's advice and put down his clubs. But his dreams didn't stop there. In high school, he was captivated by the music in films such as "Poppo-ya" (the black and white, non-Hirosue version), "Blade Runner" and also the works of Henry Mancini. He was greatly inspired by these works, and soon after, his new dream emerged; he dreamed that one day, "he too could compose film music as magnificent as theirs". But also, besides this, there was also another important event that would greatly change the course of his (and our) life. This was...

Although Mitsuda was an outdoorsman all throughout his childhood, during his 4th or 5th grade year, he got his hands on his first personal computer, a rare item to see in any households at that time. (The story behind this: Mitsuda's uncle somehow convinced Papa-Mitsuda by telling him something like... "Japan's future lies within computers! You're going to be quickly left behind if you don't know how to work a computer!" Papa-Mitsuda, apparently motivated by Uncle-Mitsuda's little speech, quickly went out and came back with a 9,800 yen computer. Man, talk about fast footwork!) Pretty soon, Mitsuda became totally engrossed in computers and as a result, this experience that he gained from playing around on his computer, established the foundation to his success today. Also, thanks to the valuable knowledge that he gained from his high school (which specialized in electrical engineering) and from composing music and programming little games on his computer, Mitsuda never had any problems coping with all the fast-paced technological advancements that went on around him.

By the time of his graduation, Mitsuda had developed a strong desire to live on his own and become independent. Much of this was due to his relations with his other family members, and during the same year as his sister's marriage, he finally made up his mind to move to Tokyo (papa-Mitsuda and mama-Mitsuda must have been very saddened and lonesome, having to watch two of their precious little kids leave their homes at once). In the beginning, he was rather conservative. He thought of remaining in the Kansai-area and going out to Osaka, but with his father's strong encouraging words, he set his mind to move out to Tokyo to study music. There, he went on to enroll in a junior college of music, specializing his studies on composing and arranging.

His years that he spent in music school were truly, years of constant work and learning. Having to cover for what little musical knowledge that he had (This was also the reason why he chose to go to a junior college instead of a normal college of music. He COULDN'T choose it, because his skills were too low), the strenuous physical labor that he experienced while working as a roadie, was what provided him with the greatest lessons (although it says "work" here, there was never any pay for these "jobs"). The teachers that he had in his music school were on the most part, part-time instructors who also had their careers in the music business. Therefore, he would often follow these teachers around wherever they went, and while he helped to carry their instruments and heavy equipments, at the same time, he learned many valuable things by paying very close attention to his teacher's works. But also during these experiences, he would often suffer derisive remarks from these teachers. He was frequently looked down upon and told, "you low-level musician... you're not even a student of a TRUE music school... you're just a student of a MERE junior-college." There was even a time when he was told, "a person like you can NEVER win the gold medal in music." This mortifying experience, though, acted as a powerful source of energy that would later become vital in molding and shaping him into the man that he is today. During those two short years, he studied harder than he had ever done before. In order to be able to make a living off of music, he studied like there was no tomorrow. Only a very small percentage... merely a handful out of the multitude of students who came to these music schools, would ever succeed. The odds were heavily against him. But he wanted... no, he HAD to succeed. He was more determined than ever before, and it was this strong will to succeed that really supported him during these times. And soon after, the season for job hunting came around.

In his second year in junior-college, between autumn and winter, Mitsuda was working under a certain teacher in the sound department of a big-name game software company. Suddenly, one day in January, he was asked by his teacher, what his plans were for job hunting. He was only able to give a very vague response, and in seeing this, the teacher simply handed him a nearby game magazine, pointed to a page and said, "Why don't you give THIS a try?" This was his destined meeting with SQUARE. There, in front of his eyes, was a wanted ad for a game music composer. At first, Mitsuda had no intentions on writing game music and hesitated slightly. But seeing that he had no other jobs to shoot for at the present, he decided to give it a try and sent in his resume and 3 demo songs at the beginning of February (with a special letter of recommendation from his teacher). Two weeks passed by quickly and still no response came. Becoming a bit worried, he decided to try telephoning SQUARE. But oddly enough, the response that he got was that, "according to Uematsu, it seems that 3 songs aren't enough to make a decision, and so he would like for you to send him a few more songs"...???? A bit confused by their hiring process, he hurriedly wrote 3 more songs and sent them in at the beginning of March. This time, the response came in only two days, asking him to come in for an interview at their office in Akasaka (boy, that was FAST!). Still a bit confused, he went in for his interview, and there, he sat face to face with Mr. Nobuo Uematsu himself, and not to mention sound programmer, Mr. Minoru Akao (The sound team at the time, consisted of four people: Mr. Kenji Itoh, Mr. Hiroki Kikuta, and these two men). But during the course of the interview, he apparently gave a series of impolite answers. "Have you ever played Final Fantasy before?" "No, sir." "What? You haven't? Then which of our games HAVE you played?" "I've played some of your old PC games...umm... like *****" "YIKES! you don't mean you..." Wrong answer, apparently... "Do you plan on working with us until you retire?" "No, sir. I only see this as a one-step process." "......" After the interview, he deeply regretted saying some of the things that he had said. Even though he wasn't accustomed to interviews, this one was REALLY bad, he thought. But lo-and-behold, come April, he was made officially a member of SQUARE. It was the spring of 1992. Well, life is filled with many unexpected turns. And with this, Mitsuda happily began his long journey down the road of the game music composer.

Well... not quite. In reality, things didn't quite go the way that he wanted them to (reality bites). Although he entered the company as a composer, he was never given the opportunity to write songs. At the time, SQUARE did not have anybody working in the sound engineer department, and before he knew it, he was thrown into that position (although his title was still a "composer"). But his very first work was with the one and only, Mr. Koichi Sugiyama. For the game, "Han-juku Hero", Mr. Sugiyama was hired as the special guest composer, and Mitsuda worked mainly on the sound design (in other words, to arrange and manipulate the songs written by Mr. Sugiyama to fit the soundboard of the consoles) as an assistant to Mr. Sugiyama. He truly enjoyed this work. Imagine! Getting a chance to work with THE Koichi Sugiyama on your first assignment!.. but after this, he soon realized that he was doomed to his work as a sound designer. At times, it seemed as if he was going to be given some chance to write a few songs, but his work as an engineer and sound designer kept piling on and on. It was never-ending... And he would often be forced to watch his opportunity fly away. This kept on repeating time after time, and then finally, one day, his string snapped. He made a direct complaint. And this complaint wasn't to just some average Joe, but to the Vice-President of SQUARE himself, Mr. Hironobu Sakaguchi. "I can't STAND working in such a place anymore. If you're not going to let me write any songs here, I'm quitting." This heated debate was carried on for a few days, and when the results finally came, a new day dawned on Mitsuda... "If you want to write songs so much, why don't you prove yourself by composing on the next big title." This "big title" happened to be "Chrono Trigger" (March '95). No doubt, this was the critical work that would make his name known to the entire world, and (as stated in the "Chrono Trigger OSV" CD booklet) the enormous pressures that came along with it were simply overwhelming. But this ordeal, with all the happiness and all the hardships that it gave unto him, was an extremely vital experience that would go on to shape him into the man that he is today.

Most of you know the rest from here. The collaboration with Mr. Nobuo Uematsu on the title, "Gun Hazard" (Feb.'96). And then "Radical Dreamers" (Feb. '96), Mr. Masato Kato's first ever work as a director. In this work, Mitsuda not only composed the songs, but also took the title as the music director, supervising and working on everything that was related to the music. Next, he went on to "Tobal No.1" (Aug.'96) where he acted as the total music producer, bringing together the works of many different composers and compiling them all into one universal theme. This was also SQUARE's first ever game on the Playstation platform. Afterwards, there was a short break period where he remained silent (he was preparing himself for something really BIG!) And then, in February of 1998, his long-awaited solo work, "Xenogears" was presented. His newly improved sound, along with the help of a truly magnificent game, astonished game fans all over, and his songs still remain strong in their memories. And through all of this, Mitsuda began to think about a lot of different things. About his future. About his next dreams. SQUARE had provided him with a wealth of opportunities and experiences, but he still wanted to experience many more styles of music. He wanted to try out other fields besides game music. And so, this marked the beginning of a new journey, and he prepared himself for another long struggle. In July of 1998, Mitsuda became a free-lance composer. And although it has only been a few years since then, even in these few short years, he has been able to venture on to many new things. We'll leave the specific details out for now, but keep your eyes peeled and look very carefully! Because somewhere, close to you... You're bound to see the name, "Yasunori Mitsuda".