Naoshi Mizuta

• 1. Introduction

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  Naoshi Mizuta grew up in Kochi, Japan, and by the time he was in second or third grade, something had already taken hold. Not law. Not economics. Music. Yet when it came time for university, he enrolled at Chiba University to study exactly those subjects: law and economics. He composed his first song in his final year there, as if the music had been waiting patiently all along. The question is how a trained lawyer ended up spending more than a decade as the primary voice of one of the most beloved online worlds in video game history. The answer runs through Capcom, through a chance job advertisement, and through a game called Final Fantasy XI that Mizuta considers his life's work.

• 2. Capcom Years

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  After graduating from Chiba University, Mizuta joined Capcom in 1994 as a composer. His first credit arrived in 1995, when he contributed to the score of Street Fighter Alpha alongside a team of composers. Later that same year he returned to the project for a second pass, this time arranging the music for the PlayStation version with Akari Kaida and Naoaki Iwami. It was work that required fitting into an ensemble rather than leading one, a skill he would carry forward.

  The acid jazz scene shaped what Mizuta was reaching for during those years. He has named Jamiroquai, Incognito, and The Brand New Heavies as inspirations for the music he created at Capcom, a set of influences that speaks to a composer hunting for groove and texture rather than pure orchestral sweep.

  In 1998, he composed for Mega Man and Bass alongside Toshihiko Horiyama and Akari Kaida. That same year, he saw an advertisement from Square and applied. He was hired while still technically employed at Capcom, and his career shifted direction entirely.

• 3. Parasite Eve II

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  Mizuta's first assignment at Square was to score Parasite Eve II, and he was given the job as the sole composer. He spent a year and a half working on it. That kind of sustained solitary responsibility was new territory after the collaborative credits at Capcom.

  The original Parasite Eve had been scored by Yoko Shimomura, and Mizuta chose to weave some of Shimomura's musical themes from the first game into his score for the sequel. Carrying the sonic memory of one composer's work into another composer's hands is a delicate act. Mizuta threaded that continuity deliberately, honoring what had come before while building something of his own on top of it.

  Parasite Eve II was released in 1999, and it stands as the only game for which Mizuta served as sole composer before he moved on to a project that would occupy him for most of the following decade.

• 4. Final Fantasy XI and The Star Onions

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  Final Fantasy XI arrived in 2002, and Mizuta was its main composer, working alongside Nobuo Uematsu and Kumi Tanioka on the base game. What followed was not a single project but an ongoing commitment. He remained with Final Fantasy XI for over ten years, composing all the music for the game's subsequent expansion packs on his own. The list runs from Rise of the Zilart in 2003 through Chains of Promathia, Treasures of Aht Urhgan, Wings of the Goddess, and several smaller add-on scenarios before Seekers of Adoulin in 2013 and The Voracious Resurgence in 2020.

  Mizuta calls this body of work his life's work. That is a specific and weighty phrase for a composer to apply to a single project.

  During those years inside the Final Fantasy XI universe, Mizuta also became a member of The Star Onions. The band is made up of Square Enix composers and performs arrangements of songs from Final Fantasy XI. Mizuta plays bass guitar. Other members include Tanioka, Hidenori Iwasaki, and Tsuyoshi Sekito. The band has released two albums: Music from the Other Side of Vana'diel and Sanctuary.

  Uematsu, who co-composed the base game of Final Fantasy XI with Mizuta, was also his superior at Square. Mizuta cites Uematsu directly as one of his major influences, which gives the collaboration an unusual quality: a composer working alongside and being shaped by someone he already looked up to.

• 5. Musical Philosophy

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  Ryuichi Sakamoto is the other major figure Mizuta names when describing his influences. Alongside Uematsu, Sakamoto represents a very different current: experimental, electronic, deeply attentive to timbre. Mizuta also draws from film scores and, notably, from fan remixes of his own work on YouTube. The idea that a composer revisits his work through the filter of his audience's reinterpretations is not a common thing to hear.

  For game scoring specifically, Mizuta's approach is functional in the strictest sense. He focuses on creating music that fits the title and the specific scene in front of him, setting aside any thought of how a piece might land when heard on its own. His logic traces back to the hardware constraints of older consoles, which forced composers to work within a limited number of channels. That discipline demanded strong, memorable melodies that could stand without the cushion of atmospheric or accompanying lines. Mizuta believes those constraints produced something worth keeping even now that modern hardware has removed them.

  When the context shifts to live performance or piano arrangement, his instinct changes entirely. Outside the frame of a game, he feels free to treat the music however he likes. The same composer operates by different rules depending on whether he is serving a screen or standing in front of an audience.

• 6. Broader Square Enix Work

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  Final Fantasy XI occupied most of Mizuta's career at Square Enix, but the credits list alongside it is longer than it might first appear. He contributed to Final Fantasy XIII-2 in 2011 and Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII in 2013, both times working with Masashi Hamauzu and Mitsuto Suzuki. He also scored Final Fantasy XIV's original release in 2010, then returned for A Realm Reborn in 2013 alongside Masayoshi Soken, Tsuyoshi Sekito, and Ryo Yamazaki.

  Outside the Final Fantasy series, he scored Blood of Bahamut in 2009 and Guardian Cross in 2012. His work on the main theme for Demons' Score in 2012 is listed as a standalone credit, separate from full-game composition.

  His 2017 credit includes Final Fantasy XV: Episode Prompto, a stand-alone piece of the larger Final Fantasy XV world. In 2022 he composed for Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin alongside Hidenori Iwasaki and Ryo Yamazaki. Iwasaki is a familiar name: he is also a member of The Star Onions, the band Mizuta plays bass with, which means the collaboration between them has run across both formal Square Enix releases and band recordings over the span of many years.