Motoi Sakuraba - Biography

Biography

Motoi Sakuraba was born in Akita Prefecture, Japan. He is married to Yuko Sakuraba and has a daughter, Mio Sakuraba. Sakuraba broke into the music scene as composer and keyboard player of the progressive rock band Deja Vu, which released an album, "Baroque in the Future", in 1988. The band later disbanded, and Sakuraba went on to release a solo progressive rock album, "Gikyoku Onsou", in 1991. During his work as video game composer he continued to produce heavily extended arrangements of his compositions.

In late 1989, Sakuraba began work as main composer for Wolf Team, a subsidiary of Telenet Japan. While this team eventually splintered into several others, the professional friendships formed here have resulted in a great demand for Sakuraba's composing abilities, as seen in the following:

• In 1994, former Wolf Team director and composer Masaaki Uno started working at Camelot Software Planning as coordinator and sound director, developing games for Sony, Sega and Nintendo. Sakuraba was called upon as a composer for various Camelot games, including the Mario Golf, Mario Tennis, and Golden Sun series.
• In 1995, Wolf Team developed the breakthrough game Tales of Phantasia for Namco. This and other games in the Tales series primarily feature Sakuraba and fellow Wolf Team composer Shinji Tamura as composers (the exception so far has been Tales of Legendia, composed by Go Shiina). Eventually the remnants of Wolfteam morphed into the Namco Telenet joint subsidiary Namco Tales Studio in 2003.
• Also in 1995, former Wolf Team director and producer Jun Asanuma, as well as Tales of Phantasia writer and programmer Yoshiharu Gotanda, founded tri-Ace with financial backing from Enix. The Star Ocean and Valkyrie Profile games have been their keystone productions. Again, Sakuraba has been the composer for all their games, with the exception of the Noriyuki Iwadare-scored Radiata Stories (which included arrangements of a few choice Sakuraba tracks).
• In 1999, long-time Sakuraba sound designer and programmer Hiroya Hatsushiba, a former member of Wolf Team and tri-Ace, founded tri-Crescendo. While initially continuing to contribute sound work to tri-Ace games, tri-Crescendo began game development in 2001. Together with Monolith Soft, tri-Crescendo started working on Baten Kaitos; Namco provided the financial backing. Hatsushiba, as director and main programmer of the project, again called upon Sakuraba's composing services. This has extended to the sequel (Baten Kaitos Origins) and Eternal Sonata.
• In 2007, Sakuraba was selected to join a long list of video-game composers to contribute music to Super Smash Bros. Brawl. He was selected to arrange the famous "Menu Theme" from the game's predecessor, Super Smash Bros. Melee. He also arranged "Gourmet Race" from Kirby Super Star, "Jungle Level Ver.2" from Donkey Kong Country, "Mario Tennis / Mario Golf" from Mario Tennis / Mario Golf, "Victory Road" from Pokémon Ruby / Pokémon Sapphire, "Airship Theme" from Super Mario Bros. 3, the "Battlefield Theme" and "Final Destination". In addition, the track "Battle Scene / Final Boss (Golden Sun)" was based on his music from Golden Sun: The Lost Age.

In addition to all this, Sakuraba is regularly contracted for composing work in other media through his own TEAM Entertainment, a company founded in 1999 to promote and license the work of artists.