Manabu Namiki

Manabu Namiki (並木 学, Namiki Manabu, born September 13, 1971) is a Japanese video game composer who is primarily known for his work in shoot 'em up games. He has worked at game companies such as Allumer, NMK, Raizing and M2. In October 2002, Namiki, Hitoshi Sakimoto, and Masaharu Iwata founded the music production company Basiscape, whom he worked with until 2011.

Namiki became interested in arcade games during his childhood. He never received any musical education, nor learned to play any instruments. He became enthusiastic about music from video games, as well as hard rock and heavy metal bands such as Whitesnake and Metallica. After buying an MSX2, he learnt how to program music in BASIC and attempted to imitate the riffs of the bands he enjoyed. He also joined a video game music cover band in 1989.^[1]

In 1990, he joined Allumer as a part-time graphic designer while at college, despite having very little design experience. He assisted with graphics for its 1991 shoot 'em up game Rezon. His enthusiasm for the job decreased, and was fired as a result of not finishing sound programming work his boss had assigned to him. The following year, he left college and joined NMK as a full-time sound creator. He worked on several titles such as Thunder Dragon 2 and Bomb Jack Twin, as well as Zed Blade, which features hardcore techno music as a response to the trend of techno music in video games. His final work at the company was Desert War; by the time the game was released in 1995, he left NMK to join Raizing.^[1]

One of the first games he composed for at Raizing was Battle Garegga, often considered to be his breakthrough work. The soundtrack takes heavy inspiration from Detroit techno music, the soundtrack of Recca, and the music of Hitoshi Sakimoto and Shinji Hosoe. As the system featured outdated sound hardware, he aspired to make the most of its abilities. The Sega Saturn version of Battle Garegga features an arranged soundtrack, with arrangements from himself, Sakimoto, Hosoe, and other friends. He also contributed music to the original arcade versions of the fighting game Bloody Roar and its sequel.^[1]

In early 2000, Namiki left Raizing and became freelance while searching for a new job. He struggled to find a job, while some game projects he had taken on were cancelled. His first major projects as a freelancer were Cave's shoot 'em up games DoDonPachi DaiOuJou and Ketsui: Kizuna Jigoku Tachi, released in 2002 and 2003 respectively. He found the projects challenging; the music in both games had to be composed in the MOD format using 8 channels. In October 2002, he co-founded the music production company Basiscape with Sakimoto and Masaharu Iwata, both of whom he had previously worked with on projects at Raizing, although continued to work in a freelance capacity and not as a full-time employee.^[1]

One of his first major projects at Basiscape was Mushihimesama, which features lighter music than previous shoot 'em up games he had composed for, taking influences from a wide range of genres; Iwata also contributed several tracks to the game, which he feels widened the variety of music in the game. Although he was initially asked to compose the music for Espgaluda, he could not fit the job into his schedule, although he composed for its sequel, Espgaluda II, which similarly features trance music. During his time working with Basiscape, he also contributed music to several games related to anime franchises, such as Fullmetal Alchemist: Dream Carnival, the Bleach: Heat the Soul series, and Battle Stadium D.O.N, as well as role-playing games such as Fantasy Earth Zero and Opoona.^[1]

Namiki's work with Cave continued throughout his time at Basiscape. He composed for Deathsmiles in 2007, which features gothic rock music; it features guitar performance by Noriyuki Kamikura, a composer who worked at Basiscape at the time. He also composed for DoDonPachi Resurrection with then-new Basiscape members Azusa Chiba and Yoshimi Kudo, as well as its Black Label version in 2010 alongside Chiba, Kudo and Kamikura. He found it difficult to communicate with his juniors due to the large generational gap and having different musical influences. He also served as the sole composer of the action role-playing game Black Rock Shooter: The Game in 2011.^[1]

In 2012, he joined M2 as a sound director, whom he had already closely worked with for a decade. One of his first projects at the company was composing the soundtrack for G.rev's shoot 'em up game Kokuga; its sound has been described as more melodic and less atmospheric than his previous shoot 'em up scores.^[2] While employed at M2, Namiki also worked on several titles in the Sega 3D Reprint Archives series; 3D OutRun features two new tracks composed by him and M2 colleague Jane-Evelyn Nisperos respectively.^[3] Namiki left M2 in 2017, but continues to maintain a close relationship with the company. He designed and composed music for the Game Gear shoot 'em up GG Aleste 3, which released in 2020 as part of Aleste Collection.^[4]

• Official website