Short answers, pulled from the story.
Rika Muranaka is known for songs including "The Best Is Yet to Come" for Metal Gear Solid, "Can't Say Goodbye to Yesterday" for Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty, "Don't Be Afraid" for Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater, "I Am the Wind" for Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, and "Esperándote" for the original Silent Hill.
Rika Muranaka's early Konami work on Castlevania: Symphony of the Night and Silent Hill led to an almost twenty-year working relationship with Hideo Kojima on the Metal Gear Solid series. The original development team at Konami numbered only about twenty people, and none of them expected the game to become so successful.
As a teenager, Rika Muranaka left Tokyo to study jazz piano with jazz pianist and author Alan Swain in Chicago. She graduated from Maine East High School in Park Ridge in 1979 and then attended Chicago's Northeastern Illinois University.
Hideo Kojima did not want to hear any Metal Gear Solid song written in English or in any other language he personally understood. When Rika Muranaka suggested writing a song in Gaelic instead, Kojima replied, "What the hell is Gaelic?"
Rika Muranaka brought British film composer Harry Gregson-Williams into the video game industry while working on Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty. She believes this helped set a trend of film composers moving into game music.
After ending her working relationship with Konami, Rika Muranaka moved into her own projects, including the reality show Hollywood Dream and her business RnD Entertainment. Both were built with Grammy and American Music Award winning producer Damien "E-Love" Matthias, alongside her continuing work composing music for films.