Pinch-Punch (#5337)

[CHz]

Didn't intend to be researching these guys at all, but I found their old website out of the blue and welp that always leads to hours wasted and more questions than when you started.

Heads up about their website: they occasionally did some cutesy censorship of game and company names: Taito is always "T△ito," Cameltry is "Carameltry" (キャラメルトライ), etc.


Pinch-Punch was a group of three audio guys, YO (captain/隊長, that specific word taichou will be important in a sec), KN, and CI, and an artist: http://replay.waybackmachine.org/200.../pp/pp_003.htm.

YO
His name appears as "Y. Ohashi" in the credits of Dino Rex: http://www.geocities.jp/bgrtype/gsl/...x/dinorex.html (typo here: "V. Ohashi"). This fansite of the band Ita-Roh claims that the guitarist Yoshinori Ohashi (大橋 義典) was the captain (隊長 again) of Pinch-Punch: http://www.k3.dion.ne.jp/~ishigaki/member.htm. I don't know how much credence to give some random fansite of a band I've never heard of before, but the Japanese Wikipedia article for Ita-Roh links to this as Ohashi's website for the band: http://www.ne.jp/asahi/hassy/cat/has...itaroh_001.htm. The old Pinch-Punch website, http://www.ne.jp/asahi/hassy/cat/hassylab/pp/pp_001.htm, was also stored in the same webspace (http://www.ne.jp/asahi/hassy/cat/hassylab/ is the base URL for those two sites). Seems compelling, but I'm not sold yet; fansites and common web hosting are a bit dangerous to rely on.

KN
This page says that KN (KNISHI) composed the track "サクラサク" on Nanase Aikawa's album Purana: http://replay.waybackmachine.org/200.../pp/pp_013.htm. The Japanese Wikipedia article for that album says it was composed by 西賢二, which is in all probability read Kenji Nishi (I couldn't confirm it, but GMCL seems to think so). He's credited for sound in Mahjong Hyper Reaction and sound design in All Japan Pro-Wrestling Featuring Virtua. Both of these games appear in KN's works list: http://replay.waybackmachine.org/200.../pp/pp_003.htm (bottom). KN is 西賢二.

CI
I don't have a single lead on this guy!


Among other things on their site which may or may not be interesting, they have pages for three Taito albums on which they were presumably featured: http://replay.waybackmachine.org/200...d/ppcd_001.htm. Each album page also has an additional subpage with more info (このＣＤについてＡＲＥＡが解説します). These albums are:

Taito DJ Station -G.S.M. Taito 5-
The subpage indicates that the only game they're responsible for on this album is Master of Weapon. The game very explicitly credits music to Hisayoshi Ogura and Yasuhisa Watanabe: http://bgr44.speedgamer.net/gsl/ac/m.../moweapon.html. Their page, on the other hand, says music was composed by KN and CI, while YO did the sound effects.

Cameltry / Cadash
Cameltry credits sound to OGR (Hisayoshi Ogura) and Yack (Yasuhisa Watanabe), and Cadash credits music and sound effects to Pinch Punch. They seem to indicate they composed the full album! Cameltry by KN and YO, and Cadash by all three (mostly CI)?

All Sounds of Mahjong Quest
Sound is credited to Pinch-Punch in the credits: http://bgr44.speedgamer.net/gsl/ac/mahjanq/mahjanq.html. The subpage indicates that music was done by Pinch-Punch and some guy named KOA, who's listed as a helper on their profile page.