Yasunori Mitsuda

Yasunori Mitsuda (光田 康典, Mitsuda Yasunori, born January 21, 1972) is a Japanese composer, musician, and sound producer. He is best known for his work in video games, primarily for the Chrono, Xeno, Shadow Hearts, and Inazuma Eleven franchises, among various others. Mitsuda began composing music for his own games in high school, later attending a music college in Tokyo. While still a student, he was granted an intern position at the game development studio Wolf Team. Upon graduation in 1992, he joined Square after seeing a magazine advertisement in an office he was visiting with his professor. Despite his job title as a composer, Mitsuda worked as a sound effects designer for two years. In 1994, after threatening to quit to Square's vice president, Hironobu Sakaguchi, he was assigned to write the soundtrack to Chrono Trigger. After the game's success, he went on to compose several others for Square, including Xenogears and Chrono Cross. Mitsuda left Square in 1998 to work as a freelance composer and founded his own music production studio and record company, respectively Procyon Studio and Sleigh Bells, in 2001. While Mitsuda continues to compose for video games, he began to write music for other media in the 2010s, including for anime series, films, television specials, and independent albums.