Junya Nakano

• 1. Introduction

  ›

  Junya Nakano was three years old when his parents signed him up for electronic organ lessons through the Yamaha Music Foundation. That early start set the course for a career that would stretch from Kyoto to the arcade halls of the early 1990s and eventually into some of the most beloved video game scores ever released. He would go on to co-compose Final Fantasy X and bring worldwide recognition to a smaller game called Threads of Fate, all while developing a style that stood clearly apart from the composers around him. How does a child who first encounters music on an electronic organ end up shaping the soundscape of a Japanese role-playing game that sold millions of copies? And who is the colleague Nakano credits as the person he admires most, even above the legendary Nobuo Uematsu?

• 2. From Kyoto to Konami

  ›

  Playing the 1979 arcade game Lunar Rescue sparked something in the young Nakano. That chance encounter with an arcade machine turned him toward video games and, in turn, toward chiptune music. By 1985 he was already composing MIDI music on a NEC PC-9801, teaching himself by listening to the radio and experimenting on his own. Two years later, in 1987, he enrolled at a vocational school to study composition and arrangement, with a clear goal: he wanted to work in the gaming industry.

  After graduation he joined the Kobe branch of Konami in 1991. Over the next three years he contributed music to eight arcade games alongside various collaborators. The credits from that period include X-Men, scored with Seiichi Fukami, Yuji Takenouchi, and Ayako Nishigaki, and Mystic Warriors, made with Takenouchi and a collaborator listed only as Inoue. The volume and the collaborative nature of that work were part of what eventually pushed him to leave. By the time he completed the score for Golfing Greats 2 in 1994, Nakano had decided he wanted to create more original music and receive individual recognition for it. He walked away from Konami, and Takenouchi, the senior figure he had worked alongside throughout his time there, would later become his mentor.

• 3. Early Square Years

  ›

  Nakano joined Square in 1995, and his first assignment put him in the company of composers who were already well-known in the industry. He created four pieces for Front Mission: Gun Hazard in 1996, a game that also featured Nobuo Uematsu, Yasunori Mitsuda, and Masashi Hamauzu. That same year he took on his first fully solo project: Satellaview's Treasure Conflix. Also in 1996 he contributed three compositions to the fighting game Tobal No. 1, working again alongside Hamauzu and others.

  The friendship that developed with Hamauzu during those two early projects, Front Mission: Gun Hazard and Tobal No. 1, became one of the most lasting relationships of his career. The two would collaborate on multiple titles across the years that followed. In 1997, Nakano took a different kind of credit on Front Mission: Alternative, serving as synthesizer programmer rather than primary composer. Then came Another Mind, a Japan-only adventure game that he scored under a deadline of just two months. The experience of being given tight constraints on original solo work was building toward the project that would change his profile entirely.

• 4. Threads of Fate and Recognition

  ›

  The 1999 game Threads of Fate, released in Japan under the title Dewprism, was the score that brought Nakano worldwide recognition. The music drew on a notably broad palette. Ambient textures, jazz influences, and Spanish-inflected passages all appear on the soundtrack. Critics and listeners described the tracks as both "mellow" and "upbeat", a combination that points to how deliberately Nakano mixed moods within a single project.

  By this point his approach had shifted from where he had started. In an interview conducted by the website RocketBaby.net, Nakano explained that up to 1995 his focus had been on an instrument's tone and acoustics. After joining Square, he began shifting his attention toward rhythm and timbre, and later toward harmony and melody as elements of a larger whole. The stylistic range in Threads of Fate reflected that evolution clearly. The game's score gave him a name outside Japan, and it positioned him for a far larger assignment that was just two years away.

• 5. Final Fantasy X

  ›

  In 2001, Nakano and Hamauzu were chosen to work alongside Uematsu on the score for Final Fantasy X. The selection was deliberate. According to the source, both men were picked specifically because their musical styles differed from Uematsu's, offering the game a wider tonal range. Nakano contributed 20 pieces to the project.

  His role was concentrated in the game's ambient-styled compositions, which drew heavily on percussion, timbre, and rhythm. In the liner notes of the original soundtrack, Nakano wrote that he wanted to create music with a "vibrant and dynamic feel" that reflected his accumulated years working with game music. One track from that work, "Guadosalam", was later arranged for solo piano and included on the album Piano Collections Final Fantasy X, released in 2002.

  That Nakano could describe Uematsu, when asked directly about his influence, by saying "He is a very youthful and active person, but he hasn't influenced my work" says something about his confidence in his own direction. After Final Fantasy X wrapped, Nakano composed the score for Sidewinder F, a flight simulator released by Asmik Ace Entertainment, demonstrating a willingness to move between high-profile franchise work and smaller, independent projects.

• 6. Later Square Enix Work

  ›

  Musashi: Samurai Legend in 2004 reunited Nakano with Hamauzu, this time also bringing in the duo Wavelink Zeal, consisting of Takayuki and Yuki Iwai. Two years later, in 2006, Nakano created seven tracks for the Xbox 360 game Project Sylpheed, another multi-composer effort. Later that same year he arranged four pieces from the Mana series for Dawn of Mana, known in Japan as Seiken Densetsu 4.

  Along with the Dawn of Mana arrangements, Nakano was chosen to arrange half of the Nintendo DS remake of Final Fantasy IV, a substantial task he undertook under the supervision of Uematsu. He followed that by composing the full soundtrack to the 2008 title Final Fantasy IV: The After Years. His final projects for Square Enix before departing were the soundtracks to two Fullmetal Alchemist games, Prince of the Dawn and Daughter of the Dusk.

  On the 31st of December 2009, Nakano confirmed publicly that he was leaving Square Enix. His destination was the supergroup GeOnDan, led by Yuji Takenouchi, the same senior collaborator from his Konami days whom he described as his former mentor. GeOnDan has since disbanded.