Yasuhiro Kawakami (#351)

[VRC-7]

Judging by this tweet (unless I'm misreading it), Kawakami (same guy, right?) worked on stuff for Sega: Shinobi, Crack Down, Tetris, ESWAT, Scramble Spirits.

[CHz]

Additional verification: "Y.K" commented on Crack Down in the combined OST with Gain Ground, and Okunari also mentioned 川上泰広 in conjunction with the original arcade Shinobi and Crack Down in the liner notes of the Shinobi collection. The timelines line up too: those Sega games are all late '80s, and Kawakami joined Square in 1991. Unless Sega coincidentally had a composer with the exact same name, it seems legit to me.

Quite a find there.

[Jormungand]

Bizarre. I'm not really familiar with those--was he apart of a team of composers?

Also, re: Tetris, are we certain it's the original? Sega produced some versions for the Saturn. Kawakami left Square in, what, 1999?

[CHz]

Originally Posted by Jormungand

Bizarre. I'm not really familiar with those--was he apart of a team of composers?

I don't think Okunari said Kawakami was the only composer of any of those games, just that he composed for them. So any or all of them could potentially be collaborative.

The only one of those games that has specific sound credits is Scramble Spirits, which credits "sound design" (more specifically "music and sound effects" in the Japanese version) to Professor Tohru (とおるせんせい, probably Tohru Nakabayashi) and Yatchan (やっちゃん, Kawakami): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HnZgjjuELr0#t=7m36s (Japanese) and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IWfo_-7BkBE#t=18m03s (English). "Y.K." is the only one who comments on Scramble Spirits in G.S.M. SEGA 2, but that doesn't necessarily mean anything.

Originally Posted by Jormungand

Also, re: Tetris, are we certain it's the original? Sega produced some versions for the Saturn. Kawakami left Square in, what, 1999?

I figured it was, since all the other games had arcade releases around the same time, but all Okunari said was "Tetris."

[Xenofan 29A]

Isn't his given name 泰広, not 康広?

[CHz]

It absolutely is. Printed as 泰広 on TIM-SFC09, the FFMQ OST, and the Chocobo's Dungeon 2 OST. That was a longstanding error.

EDIT: 康広 came from GMCL, that's why. Lots of name mistakes in the old lists.

[Jormungand]

Former member kyubihanyou posted this on youtube:

Anyway, Sega's Yosuke Okunari confirmed that the composer of this and the Arcade versions of Crack Down, Tetris, E-SWAT and Scramble Spirits are the same person: Yasuhiro Kawakami, aka Yatchan, aka Y.K - the same Yasuhiro Kawakami who worked at Square and did Final Fantasy: Mystic Quest.

Source: twitter . com / okunari / status / 140094655055413248

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fCfeX...1D874A9C38E2B9

...implying that Kawakami is the sole composer of these titles. There's also this.

[CHz]

The tweet he linked as a source is the same one VRC-7 found, so I'm not sure he has any new information beyond what's already been posted here.

[djsquarewave]

Does anyone know if he worked for Irem and/or Kemco between leaving Sega and joining Square? There's a couple year gap in there. I'm trying to clean up his MobyGames profile, but I'm dubious on the accuracy.

[Doommaster1994]

Charlie is Yasuhiro Kawakami as well.
What I'm wondering is if Yasuhiro composed North & South (NES)? In the credits it says the music is by "Y. Kawakami". I could ask Hiroyuki Masuno but it's not often I get a reply from him.

[Jormungand]

Originally Posted by Doommaster1994

Charlie is Yasuhiro Kawakami as well.
What I'm wondering is if Yasuhiro composed North & South (NES)? In the credits it says the music is by "Y. Kawakami". I could ask Hiroyuki Masuno but it's not often I get a reply from him.

It seems that the NES version was ported by Kemco. That was asked about above. It may very well be him.

In any event, Kawakami would have just arranged the music for NES. The original Amiga version was composed by Charles Callet & Stéphane Baudet.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DpcZR2nvlXk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rkb6xMRSYis

Of course it's not much of a soundtrack as it's mostly based on American civil war era folksong (and folksong stolen from England...)

[CHz]

Where'd the info that Charlie YK = Yasuhiro Kawakami come from? Seen the association before but wasn't sure why.