Takeharu Ishimoto
| Takeharu Ishimoto | |
|---|---|
| Born |
May 19, 1970 Nichinan, Miyazaki Prefecture, Japan |
| Instruments | |
| Years active | 1998–present |
| Labels | Square Enix Music |
Takeharu Ishimoto (石元 丈晴 Ishimoto Takeharu?) is a Japanese video game composer and musician employed by Square Enix. He joined them in 1999 as a synthesizer programmer on Legend of Mana, and worked for them on several games. In 2002, he was promoted to the role of composer, beginning with World Fantastista. He has since composed for several large-budget games, such as The World Ends with You, Dissidia: Final Fantasy, and Final Fantasy Type-0. In addition to his work for Square Enix, he is a composer and guitar player for the bands The Death March (formed in 2012) and SAWA (formed in 2008 and disbanded in 2011).
Ishimoto first got into music as, according to him, he lived in the country and there was nothing else to do. He first worked as a synthesizer programmer before becoming a composer; he began working as such in 1999 with Legend of Mana. Several games later, he began to also work as a composer with the PlayStation 2 soccer game World Fantasista. In 2004 he began to compose for games in the Final Fantasy series, which he had previously worked with as a synthesizer programmer on Final Fantasy X. His last work as a synthesizer programmer was for Kingdom Hearts II in 2005; since then he has worked exclusively for Square Enix as a composer.
Ishimoto was also a member of the Japanese musical group SAWA, with which he performed under the name HIZMI. He formed the band along with Sawa Kato in October 2008. Kato sang some of the songs and wrote the lyrics on Ishimoto's soundtrack for The World Ends with You. The band released an album, 333, in 2008. After SAWA disabanded, he formed The Death March in 2012, a band that plays and re-arrange music from soundtracks composed by Ishimoto.
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