KICA-7618: Mouryou Senki Madara 2 Sound Fantasia

[isdapi]

I'm here today to discover the identities of the two un-romanized artists credited on this album.

田村正和
In this case, plain and simple, the information provided by the booklet is erroneous. I don't know if somebody has noticed that all the other musicians credited for the "Rhythm Section" are members of a band called Killing Time. Bearing in mind that, it's logical to think that if one of the members of this band is a 'tabla' player and that's precisely the instrument who plays the mysterious 田村正和 on this album, well then, these two must be surely the same artist. And here is the proof, Madara 2 Sound Fantasia (KICA-7618) appears on the Ma*To studio works list. Btw, the real name of Ma*To is Masato Fujii (藤井将登).

西岡竚虎
I can say very proudly that this artist has been one of the hardest ones to find out his real identity, and I think I have a little of experience in the field. Well, in order to make it easier for everyone, I'll put my reasoning in steps so anyone can follow it.

1. This page gives us information about the members of UBIK/NaO2 and this artist is amongst them.

2. Via Wayback Machine we can visit the defunct site of the band. In the profile section we can see the band members list and some information about them. For 西岡竚虎 we'll see two bands, of which he was also a member (ムスタングAKA & 西岡チョコレート).

3. Searching for "西岡チョコレート" you get a few interesting sites. Here, for example, we can see him credited as 西岡“チョコレート”ヒロユキ and that reveals that his given name is Hiroyuki. In this page, there are many listed performances of this band and in several instances he appears credited under his real name "西岡弘之". This is important, in this page at the very bottom there is a discussion about the whereabouts of 西岡チョコレート (apart from his band, is another alias of this artist) and they say that he is now a lawyer (you can check this with an online translator).

4. Searching for "西岡弘之" we find this interesting interview about a lawyer who was a musician before becoming a lawyer (answer to Q1). This other page gives us the name's reading (Hiroyuki Nishioka) of this lawyer that we already know that is, in fact, 西岡竚虎.

5. Now, searching for "Hiroyuki Nishioka" and trumpet we get just a few hits. Here, he's credited as guest player for a 1988's album along with Hiroki Miyakoshi (after you'll understand why I mention this artist). Again, thanks to WM we can see the credits of a very interesting album, here Nishioka performs along with other members of EXPO and Hiroki Miyakoshi is also credited in another track of this eclectic album (released in 1989). And finally, we even have an album in our database with a certain "Hiroyuki Nishioka" credited for trumpet playing; well, there is no conclusive proof that confirms that this "Hiroyuki Nishioka" is 西岡竚虎, but the album's release date (1991) coincides with the years during which he was active in the musical scene, and furthermore, another frequent partner of his (Hiroki Miyakoshi) also participated in two Koei's albums around the same time.


I'm thinking about creating an artist page for this last guy, but I don't know how to do it because, right now, in the database we only have him credited in two albums as "西岡竚虎" and that's unromanizable, so I can only credit him as Hiroyuki Nishioka...

[CHz]

Originally Posted by isdapi

3. Searching for "西岡チョコレート" you get a few interesting sites. Here, for example, we can see him credited as 西岡“チョコレート”ヒロユキ and that reveals that his given name is Hiroyuki

Originally Posted by isdapi

I'm thinking about creating an artist page for this last guy, but I don't know how to do it because, right now, in the database we only have him credited in two albums as "西岡竚虎" and that's unromanizable, so I can only credit him as Hiroyuki Nishioka...

One of the ways you can read the characters in 竚虎 is cho-ko, which is exactly how チョコレート starts, so I guess they're similar nicknames and one is based on the other (I don't know which one he used first). Since チョコレート is "chocolate," maybe Choco Nishioka?