BVCH-2812: IMAGE FROM KINGCOLOSSUS -Tougi Ou no Gensou Kumikyoku-

[BahamutZ]

Thanks for referring me to this album Isdapi. It is a rare gem for sure. It is too bad he didn't do more arrangments. Apparently, it didnt sell well when it was being sold waaaaay back in the day. Heard it was one of the first VGM orchestrations.

Not one track that wasn't good.

Favorite is IN HER TEARS.

[DragoonEnRegalia]

Just reviewed it for SEMO—I need to thank Isdapi for the recommendation as well, as it's a great album. Yasuhide's an active concert band and orchestra writer, but he's definitely stayed away from game music for a long time. Not sure why he got to do this project, though!

[isdapi]

I never thought my words would have such an impact...

I'm glad you two enjoyed this album, because my only intention was to attract to people to listen to this album. I mean, this album deserves all the attention it can get. It's absurdly rare, a true hidden gem, for various reasons:

First, it was released almost twenty years ago, in a time when only big and succesfull franchises (Dragon Quest or Final Fantasy) or wealthy companies (Falcom, KOEI) could afford to produce orchestral vgm albums.

Second, Sega hired to an incredibly talented arranger to do the job of adapting a Genesis score to orchestral language. Anyone who listens to this album can attest to that Yasuhide Ito took seriously his job. In terms of orchestration is hard to top what Y.I. did with this album, it's absolutely brilliant.

Third, this album is a treasure to behold and completely unprecedented. The name of Yasuhide Ito or KNU is not found in any other vgm album, just here. And it's a pity, because these two have talent to spare.


By the way, Leon, I read your review on SEMO and I hope that many others read it and the album gets the recognition it deserves. To me, this album is perfect, but not in the sense of not having flaws, but in the sense of magical and fantasy soundscape it conjures up in my mind. It has a kind of narrative arc that leaves my mind to wander into a epic journey.

One last thing, about the mysterious KNU I was doing a little of research and this is what I have found:
Bio-Hazard Battle's credits
This is the other game in which KNU worked and my guest (maybe a wild supposition) is that KNU could be Kazumi Nasu. It's the best I could do with the information available about KNU.

[DragoonEnRegalia]

That's a good guess for his name, but the reality is that KNU hasn't been featured on any album release ever since. I wonder what happened.

The album definitely got the magical journey feel down to a microcosm, but the performance quality itself was flawed (particularly for the arena anthem piece), and it's not as good as it could have been with offering more variety for the journey itself. But I love it nonetheless.

Hopefully, this review will do the album and the game some justice. The whole story around the album and the game reminds of Manabu Saito and his fruitful career, at least before he died young.

[VRC-7]

Kazumi Nasu is the music composer on Ryu Kyu (arcade), so you could be on to something.

[isdapi]

Originally Posted by VRC-7

Kazumi Nasu is the music composer on Ryu Kyu (arcade), so you could be on to something.

Wow, I didn't know that! Apparently that game it's related somehow to Sega (look at the Title Screen pic). I would really like to hear the score (gamerip or whatever) of this game, maybe this way I can spot any similarities between this one and the KNU genesis scores (King Colossus and Bio-Hazard Battle).

I am confident that KNU is not a member of the Wave-Master's group, because I have looked at every profile's page of his members and I haven't found anything. Well, except this: Hataya's profile. He literally states "闘技王キングコロッサス アシスタント" which translated means "King Colossus: assistant", so I think the safest way to discover the real identity of KNU is to contact with Naofumi Hataya and ask him directly.

[Myrkul]

Originally Posted by isdapi

Wow, I didn't know that! Apparently that game it's related somehow to Sega (look at the Title Screen pic). I would really like to hear the score (gamerip or whatever) of this game, maybe this way I can spot any similarities between this one and the KNU genesis scores (King Colossus and Bio-Hazard Battle).

Ryu Kyu soundtrack will be released in SEGA SYSTEM 16 COMPLETE SOUNDTRACK VOL.3

[VRC-7]

Looks like "a" Kazumi Nasu (那須香津美) was with a band called Half Dozen. Not that that helps.

[VRC-7]

Seems Kazumi Nasu/K.N.U. is Shigeharu Isoda. Crying and King Colossus are listed on his old Wave Master profile.

This old 2ch post says something about his brother, but I can't read it.

[isdapi]

Originally Posted by VRC-7

Seems Kazumi Nasu/K.N.U. is Shigeharu Isoda. Crying and King Colossus are listed on his old Wave Master profile.

This old 2ch post says something about his brother, but I can't read it.

So K.N.U. is an alias of an alias. It's something like this: K.N.U.> Kazumi Nasu > Shigeharu Isoda.

Great dude, you found out the mistery! I don't why I didn't look before in the Shigeharu Isoda wavemaster profile, but I'm glad you did it. In his list of works you can see too Ryu Kyu (琉球) listed, so this is the definitive proof that S.I. is the man behind the pseudodym "Kazumi Nasu/K.N.U.". It's a pity that Shigeharu Isoda retired from composing for videogames because I think he was talented, but at least he still works in Wavemaster.

This page details the career of S.I. and, besides confirming one of his alias (Nasu), it can be seen that he worked along with his brother (Kenichiro Isoda) in some titles. In the discussion you posted, I think it mentions that Shigeharu and Kenichiro worked together in some game (I don't know exactly which one) and that Kenichiro did most of the composition work.

It's certainly a possibility that both of them worked together, a la Follin's brothers (Tim and Geoff) or Soule's brothers (Jeremy and Julian).

[CHz]

Originally Posted by VRC-7

Crying and King Colossus are listed on his old Wave Master profile.

I've noticed that the old WM profiles seem to be oriented toward what the person's main role in the company was. For example, Seirou Okamoto was apparently foremost an SFX guy, so his profile totally omitted the compositional roles he had in Sonic 3D and Magic Knight Rayearth.

Likewise, since Shigeharu Isoda was largely a sound programmer, the profile doesn't outright say he composed for Bio-Hazard Battle or King Colossus. For BHB it lists planning, programming, and sound data entry, and for KC it's just sound data entry. He definitely could have composed for them too; the profile vexingly just doesn't say that specifically.

Originally Posted by VRC-7

Kazumi Nasu

"Kazumi Nasu" is credited as a programmer and director for Bio-Hazard Battle, and the WM profile lists programming and planning for Shigeharu Isoda. Plus, Shigeharu is credited as "Shigeharu 'NASU' Isoda" on PC Engine's World of DARIUS. Could be legit.

Originally Posted by VRC-7

K.N.U.

This is only a crackpot theory, but I've been thinking that maybe K.N.U. isn't a single person, but perhaps a developer or sound company (that Shigeharu Isoda could have been a part of). The credits for K.N.U. in both BHB and KC are "sound directed by" without any specifics about BGM or SFX and so forth, so it seems to me like there might be some wiggle room for it to be a group.

At the very least, I'm not 100% convinced K.N.U. is the same person as "Kazumi Nasu," as both are credited in Bio-Hazard Battle, albeit for different things.

Originally Posted by isdapi

This page details the career of S.I. and, besides confirming one of his alias (Nasu)

I'd recommend against treating Sega Retro's composer pages as reliable; if it means anything to you, they're largely maintained by kyubihanyou (if not, he used to be a heavy contributor here before he quit because he was tired of us rejecting his speculative edits, and he hasn't stopped presenting guesses as facts at SR). The works lists are probably fine, since they seem to be mostly taken from game credits, but it's the artist-alias associations and composition & arrangement lists in particular I'd recommend you verify yourself elsewhere.

We do have scans confirming "Nasu," though, so that's alright.

Originally Posted by isdapi

it can be seen that he worked along with his brother (Kenichiro Isoda) in some titles. In the discussion you posted, I think it mentions that Shigeharu and Kenichiro worked together in some game (I don't know exactly which one) and that Kenichiro did most of the composition work.

Are Kenichiro and Shigeharu confirmed to be related? I've assumed they are for a while since they've worked together, but is there any proof besides their having the same family name?

[VRC-7]

Originally Posted by isdapi

In his list of works you can see too Ryu Kyu (琉球) listed, so this is the definitive proof that S.I. is the man behind the pseudodym "Kazumi Nasu/K.N.U."

It's the X68000 version listed, not the arcade version.

Originally Posted by isdapi

In the discussion you posted, I think it mentions that Shigeharu and Kenichiro worked together in some game (I don't know exactly which one) and that Kenichiro did most of the composition work.

That post was in reply to this one. Kenichiro did most of Crying? Something in Beep! Mega Drive magazine?

Originally Posted by CHz

At the very least, I'm not 100% convinced K.N.U. is the same person as "Kazumi Nasu," as both are credited in Bio-Hazard Battle, albeit for different things.

Wouldn't be a first.

[CHz]

Originally Posted by VRC-7

Wouldn't be a first.

Absolutely. I just think there's a lot of room for doubt because of the ambiguous wording in both the game and Shigeharu's profile in addition to the separate credits. It'd be nice if something somewhere explicitly credited someone for writing music. :|

[isdapi]

First of all, this is the page where I got all the information related to this album. I wanted to make this clear because nowhere else on the Internet will you find detailed info about this album.

And regarding the discussion about who is or are K.N.U., I have a few things to say. The more I investigate about this issue, the more it seems to me that K.N.U. is an alias that disguises a sort of collaboration between Shigeharu and Kenichiro Isoda. Keep reading and you will find out my reasons for saying this.

Before to continue, CHz wanted proofs that demonstrate that Shigeharu and Kenichiro are brothers and this is what I have been able to find: http://homepage2.nifty.com/tkdate/ys...s/Ys_nktp.html
Relevant extract:

なお、磯田健一郎氏の弟は、セガなどでゲーム音楽制作をしていた磯田重晴氏で、彼もX68000版イースの 音楽作成に携わった人物の一人

Come on, what else do you need to confirm that they're brothers. For example, in this conversation they talk about these two as if they were brothers. Furthermore, they worked together in various games: Darius+, After Burner II.

I mean, it's obvious that Shigeharu and Kenichiro are related but evidently you are not going to find a statement that says: "Hey, by the way, we're brothers". Maybe, here Kenichiro says something but I can't use an online dictionary to translate that and my knowledge of Japanese is not good enough to decipher what he says.

Anyway, what leads me to believe that Kenichiro and Shigeharu worked together under the alias K.N.U. was the post that VRC-7 found:

This old 2ch post says something about his brother, but I can't read it.

Plus another board discussion where the following messages were written:

http://vc.sega.jp/vc_crying/
こんな単調なBGMになったら嫌だｗ
まぁ、これはこれで味があるけど・・・

サンダーフォースに合わないというのならわかるが、
クライングのほうが有名HM/HRコピーのサンダーフォースよりも断然音楽性は高いぞ。
下らんこと言うな。

曲が磯田健一郎、打ち込み磯田重晴と聞いて、発売前からわくてかしたもんだー。

In the last message it says that Kenichiro wrote the music and Shigeharu ported the music (to Megadrive because they're talking about Bio-Hazard Battle).

The credits that appear on that the page profile of S.I. are too vague to attribute him as the writer of the music of King Colossus, I already know that. Furthermore, in the games in which he is credited, his name almost never is found under "Music by/Music Composed", only under general titles like "Sound directed/Sound driver/Sound designer". But there is at least one case where you can see his name (rather his alias) associated to musical composition and I'm speaking of Ryu Kyu.

That S.I. has composed music for videogames in some ocassion is a fact, but that he's mainly a tech guy is also true. He isn't a prolific composer by any means, however his brother has quite a few works under his belt. It's not hard to imagine that Kenichiro has been able to help his brother to complete certain videogame scores, above all bearing in mind the following quotes (source):

ご本人のホームページに書いてありましたわ

It says that the information was posted in the web site of this person (speaking of Shigeharu Isoda).

磯田さんが「作曲は兄」と言ってたような、違うような…

He says clearly that the composition was done by his elder brother.

書いててさらに自信なくなった。

Here, he says that the writing (music) became too difficult without self confidence.

嘘度95%になった。

In the end he says what all he has said is at 95% a lie (I take this as a joke, but who knows).

Well, all of this demonstrates he was helped by his brother in the composition process at the very least (to what extent is a mystery). By the way, he was speaking only of Bio-Hazard Battle (Crying), but it's very likely that the same applies to King Colossus because these two games were released about the same time and with the sound credited under the alias of K.N.U.

Evidently this is just a theory but not a crackpot one, there are enough indications that point to that this may be true. The Facebook of Shigeharu Isoda is the only thing that I've found to get in touch with him, so maybe someone could ask him if he wrote the music for King Colossus or if he just did the programming for the Genesis sound chip. It's the only way to get to the bottom of all this.


That was a long post...

[dissident93]

Wow! Good work.

If only this type of info existed for a few other games. hahaha

[CHz]

Just wanted to drop off that I spotted "Kazumi Nasu" credited for music in the NES game Gozonji: Yajikita Chin Douchuu: http://www25.atwiki.jp/famicomall/pages/904.html. The game is listed in Shigeharu's profile for "sound and design," neither of which seems to have its own credit in the game, although it's possible that the screenshots of the credits aren't complete.

Music
Tooru Inoue
Kazumi Nasu
Nazo-1 Ken Ken (Kenichiro Isoda)

Music Timbre (music programming?)
Hideki Kanazashi
Hiroaki Suga

[Zethe]

Notes about scans: The slight angle of the text on e.g. Insert Outer scan is like that in the original. Print quality in general isn't the best. If you wonder why descreening was quite visibly only done partially: I wanted to preserve that very apparent grainy look of the original which the print screen creates in those areas where filtering wasn't used. It's mostly the large colored text. If you wonder why the same motif on different scans sometimes looks noticably different color-wise: it's like that in the original as well. For the current set the originals were viewed under a 3000 kelvin warm tungsten halogen desk lamp while editing (sign of that are for example very noticable the saturated reds or the yellowish skin of the guys). That means the current set looks very close (provided that a calibrated monitor is used) to what you'd see lighting the original with such a lamp. When I get my D50 SoLux lamp back I'll probably make another set and you can decide which you prefer (didn't want to make you wait any longer isdapi-san).

Here's the PNG version of the Insert Outer scan (used jpg for submission for that one, size limit reached): http://dl.dropbox.com/u/7295308/colo...sert-Outer.png

Merry Christmas and a happy New Year everyone.

[isdapi]

Before anything else, kudos to Zethe, I can't thank you enough for these magnificent scans (good things are worth waiting for). Without your help, I wouldn't have been able to do what I've wanted to do for so long.

And now onto the matter. Just because I'm crazy (or because I'm very passionate about this subject), I've transcribed all the text from the Booklet Interior scan. With a lot of patience and with the help of Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software, I could do it all by myself. Here the results:

本CDには、メガドライブ用ゲーム「闘技王キング
コロッサス」に基づく幻想的な組曲がおさめられて
いる。収録曲はゲ一ムのBGMをイメージを崩さない
形で、管弦楽、室内管弦楽、室内楽の形にしたもの。
それぞれはゲ一ムの進行、ストーリ一のイメージに
基づいて編曲され、配置されている。

もともと 「キング コロッサス」のゲーム用BGMは、
通常のゲーム音楽とはやや違つた形で企画され、 作
曲されたものである。初めから「生」 のクラシカル
な楽器でも鳴らせるようなイメージで楽譜が書かれ
ている。

もつとも重要な作曲上の意図としては、各シーンそ
れぞれの音楽がその場その場の想いつきではなく、
ある程度の全体的整合性を持たせようとした、 とい
うことが挙げられる。ゲーム全体のテーマとなる旋
律を決め、すべての曲がその曲の変奏や別アレンジ、
もしくはテーマのモチーフ(旋律の断片と考えて頂
きたい) の再使用によつて別の旋律を作り上げると
いう方法によつて、ゆるやかな音楽的卜一夕リテイ
を出すことに決定したのである。

ゲーム全体の色彩を決める「全体のテーマ曲」 は本
CDのトラツク2 「AN OLD SAD DANCE」であ
る。まずこの曲が中世的、民俗的イメージの舞曲、
という意図の下に書かれた。他の曲は、 すべてこの
曲から生まれてきているといつていいのである。

トラツク1「GATE OF GREAT COLOSSUS」
は、ゲームのオープニング。ファンファーレに続い
て、全体の序曲の役割を果たしている。やはり「AN
OLD…」の旋律の変奏である。

トラツク2「AN OLD SAD DANCE」は前述の通
り、全体の基礎となる最も重要なテ一マである。ゲ
一ム開始直後に聴かれるもので、民俗的旋法によつ
て書かれた8分の6拍子の悲しくゆるやかな舞曲。

トラツク3「WALK THRU ILLUSIONS」は、草
原なビを探検して回っている場所に流れる音楽。

トラツク4 「BLUE DANCER」は変拍子(8分の
5) を伴つた変則的な8分の6拍子の舞曲。ここで
は変わつだ室内楽編成 (フルート、オーボエ、ハー
プ、チェロ) によつて、面白い音響的効果を上げて
いる。

トラツク5 「FIGHTERS’ FIELD」は、闘技場で
のシーンの音楽である。他の曲とはやや性格を異な
らせているが、やはリモチーフの断片は共有してい
るのがわかる。ここに収録されたヴアージョンはモ
一リス・ラヴエルの 「ボレロ」を思わせるようなカ
ラフルなオーケストレーションと構成を持ち、 ppか
らfffまでの幅広いダイナミック・レンジが非常に印
象的なものとなっている。 組曲中の白眉の一曲であ
る。

トラツク6「IN HER TEARS」は、物語に登場す
る女性たちの悲しみをイメージて作られた。やは
り「AN OLD…」の変奏のーつであり、かなり叙情
性が原曲より押し出されている。最もロマンテイッ
クな音楽である。

トラツク7「BLACK ENEMY」は巨大な怪物との
戦闘。不気味な音楽。だが、これもまた「AN OLD
…」 のモチーフから作曲されている。

トラツク8「SILENT FOG」はゲーム全体のエン
ディングテーマである。派手な演出を控え、登場人
物たちの悲しみを包み込むような、静かな音楽とし
た。

トラツク9 「BEGINNING IN THE END」は「AN
OLD…」のリプライズ。 物語世界全体の回想として
収録されている。

磯田健一郎

That's a good block of text and maybe there are some mistakes, but I'm sure that for the most part is fine. I've highlighted what I consider the most important parts, because in these paragraphs the person responsible of the comments (who is Kenichiro Isoda, credited at the very end) explains in details some aspects of the musical composition of King Colossus.

I'm not going to translate all that text, there are several sites that can do that for you. In essence, Kenichiro speaks about how the score was conceived as sort of classical from the start, then he speaks as the entire score is built upon the theme titled "An Old Sad Dance" and that the other tracks are only variations of this theme, and even he mentions that for the composition of this theme is employed a sort of folk mode. And he never mentions anyone that could help or assist him in the composition process.

I don't know about you, but these comments indicate that surely Kenichiro Isoda was the only composer of this title. Nobody can prove at 100% that him and only him is responsible of the music for King Colossus, but the structure of the score and the amount of detail he includes in his comments, makes you think that way. By the way, Shigeharu Isoda is not mentioned in this album except in the special thanks section as Mr. Nasu or K.N.U (I think this alias is just for crediting him but who knows...)


Happy holidays!

[isdapi]

I want to make a few changes to the album's page, but before of making any change, I want to reach a kind of consensus.

First of all, I've found an article which establishes a connection between Kenichiro Isoda and Yasuhide Ito, and it's very interesting because answer the question "What the hell is a serious music composer like Yasuhide Ito doing arranging for an obscure game like this one?" (Easy, just collaborating with an old friend). Of course, these two (伊藤康英 & 磯田健一郎) have worked on some other albums, here you can see some examples.

Anyway, what I'd like to suggest is to replace K.N.U with Kenichiro Isoda in the composition field. I'll explain why, it's a very simple reason, I don't see the point in keeping K.N.U credited for composition when:
1. we don't have a real proof of his contribution to the score (sound director is not the same as composer)
2. we don't even know if K.N.U is an alias of Shigeharu Isoda, of Kenichiro Isoda or of both of them

I mean, before we credited to K.N.U for composition because the only source we had available was the game credits, but now that we have the information from the comments from the booklet in which is Kenichiro Isoda the one credited, it's absurd to keep K.N.U credited. And don't misunderstand me, I don't claim that K.N.U didn't contribute to the score or that Kenichiro Isoda is the only composer of King Colossus, but if we stick to what we know with certainty (that is, right now) then Kenichiro Isoda is the only one with right to be listed as composer for this album.


The other purpose of this post is to give to know that the current display title of the album is wrong, in the spine it's written as title "イメージ・フロム・キングコロッサス－闘技王の幻想組曲－" or "Image from King Colossus－闘技王の幻想組曲－". So, the part "Sega Sound Orchestra" in the current title is not present in any place and we should remove it.

Well, if we're going to fix the title, we should translate "闘技王の幻想組曲" and I assure you that is not an easy task. I can offer a pair of attempts to translate that but I am not terribly happy with either one:
1. Tougi Ou Gensou Kumikyouku (I don't like romaji in my albums, but if there is no option left...)
2. Tougi Ou Fantasia Suite (I prefer this, but I can't come up with a decent term for 闘技王, so I left it as Tougi Ou, although if someone could help me...)


And that's all, I leave those questions open to discussion but if nobody replies I'll do what I see fit.

[Secret Squirrel]

I pretty much agree that the booklet details should trump over the game credits, except in the case where someone seems to have been omitted.

I agree on the title, too. This is one of those albums that was submitted back in 2006 before we had scans of the album or the capability to identify the correct titles.

[CHz]

It's been pretty obvious for a while that Kazumi Nasu = Shigeharu Isoda based on the shared work history, but I noticed that Isoda has directly admitted he's Nasu in his Twitter bio, so I'll just post this here for the record:

[Nicolaas Hamman]

Revival of the KNU debate, one of Bio-hazard Battle's more minor developers, SiFi-TZK, wrote an in-depth blog post about the game, which was edited based on Shigeharu Isoda's feedback, and it also credits Kazumi Nasu as Shigeharu Isoda.
https://tzk-gamedesign.hatenablog.jp...3/04/23/012721

Regarding Kenichiro Isoda, scenario writer Hiroshi Mikatabara is him, but he composed music too, while Shigeharu created sound effects and converted the music to data, which tracks with the previous posts, where Shigeharu wrote the sound driver and compositions were by Kenichiro. So K.N.U being a unit seems the most likely to me too.