Naoshi Mizuta :: Biography

Note: This biography was written exclusively for Square Enix Music Online by Chris. The act of using it without advance written permission is regarded as a copyright infringement. It was last updated on May 16, 2009.

Born on January 24, 1972 in Kochi, Naoshi Mizuta is a Square Enix composer and ex-Capcom musician best known for his contributions to the Final Fantasy XI franchise and Parasite Eve II. Mizuta enjoyed the music of Ryuichi Sakamoto from an early age and played the bass guitar reasonably well, but was never particularly passionate about music. He therefore chose to study Law and Economics at Chiba University instead of being formally educated in music. Shortly before graduating, he began to enjoy listening to music much more and even started to compose a little, desiring to create music similar to his favourite artists. He continued to pursue music after graduating and eventually decided to change his career in favour of becoming a composer. Employed as a trainee composer at Capcom in 1995, his first role was to compose for Street Fighter II's prequel Street Fighter Alpha (aka Street Fighter Zero). He contributed some of the game's mellow ending themes and jazzy bass-driven interpretation of "Ken Stage" while his veteran co-composers scored the rest. Though he didn't initially return to the sequel, he was responsible for the additional compositions on its revision Street Fighter Zero 2 Alpha in 1996. Even as a trainee, Mizuta had made modest contributions to two successful scores.

Mizuta's final project at Capcom was scoring 1998's classic Mega Man retro spinoff Rockman & Forte with Akari Kaida. He distinguished the music from other Super Nintendo scores for the series with his ostinato-based approaches and use of light-hearted jazz music. On Resident Evil 2, he was also given special thanks for his sound assistance, though he didn't contribute any music. When Mizuta applied for a composer position advertised at Square, this credit especially impressed the company as they intended to integrate survival horror into Parasite Eve II with the help of some ex-Capcom employees. Mizuta subsequently worked on Parasite Eve II's score for 18 months. He repeatedly watched visual sequences from a wide variety of movies to gain musical inspiration and fit music for scenes. By integrating ostinati-based and noise-based atmospheric and battle music, Mizuta took the series' music in a new direction. He nevertheless integrated some arrangements from Yoko Shimomura's Parasite Eve score to her approval. He found the project highly demanding, but persevered with the help of others to produce a large ambient soundtrack. Despite a mixed reception among soundtrack listeners, the music was praised for the way it enhanced the scenarios in the game.

Naoshi Mizuta received his big break when he was assigned to lead the score for the MMORPG Final Fantasy XI. Apparently taking Yasunori Mitsuda's original place on the project, Mizuta created the majority of the themes, while Nobuo Uematsu and Kumi Tanioka contributed a handful of the remaining themes. His setting themes used rich organic palettes, subdued melodies and harmonies, and slow steady development to characterise the scenery of Vana'diel without being dramatic or penetrating. His orchestral battle themes combined influences from Nobuo Uematsu's classics with his own edgy rhythms and brassy focus. He also created marches to portray the militaristic intent of the kingdoms and male characters. The official soundtrack received a mixed reception among listeners mainly as a result of Mizuta's contributions. Indeed, the album was sometimes criticised for its bland melodies or simplistic harmonies in comparison to previous Final Fantasy soundtracks. However, Mizuta also won praise for his colourful instrument use and comprehensive development of compositions. Many who played the game were endeared by the music and felt it represented the scenery, emotions, and history of Vana'diel very well. As a result, Mizuta became popular with the Final Fantasy XI online fanbase.

Due to his success defining the sounds of Vana'diel, Mizuta was chosen to continue Final Fantasy XI development with Hiromichi Tanaka's development team at Square Enix. While Noriko Matsueda provided the background music for the PlayOnline Viewer, Mizuta was responsible for four themes used in the Final Fantasy XI menus and 15 themes used on the online version of Tetris Master. He was subsequently asked to compose and implement about 20 pieces of new music for each of the new extensions to Final Fantasy XI released from 2003 to 2007. Mizuta elaborated on the acoustic style of the series to portray the rich jungles and deserts of Rise of the Zilart, insidious emptiness of Chains of Promathia, and the Eastern adventures of Treasures of Aht Urhgan. Furthermore, he offered some new music for miscellaneous updates for Final Fantasy XI and often crafted the final battle and ending themes for the franchise after each extension soundtrack release. Though his core musicality remained similar, he introduced something new to each extension, whether dark and hollow ambient pieces, worldly influences from the tropics and the East, quirky themes for the mini-games and festivals, and even experiments with jazz and techno.

To celebrate Final Fantasy XI's music, Mizuta formed The Star Onions in 2004. This performance group is led by Mizuta on bass guitar and also features guitarist Tsuyoshi Sekito, pianist Kumi Tanioka, and several semi-regular contributors. They initially performed six folk-influenced acoustic arrangements of the franchise's classics for FFXI Chains of Promathia Special Night, one of which was featured as a bonus track on the game's eventual soundtrack release. The following summer, Mizuta reformed the band to produce the arranged album Final Fantasy XI - The Other Side of Vana'diel. Mizuta's five arrangements had an upbeat jazz and synthpop emphasis and were coloured by performances by guest saxophonists; they were supported by Tanioka's two piano arrangements and the three diverse contributions from Mizuta's Capcom friend Masato Kouda. The eventual album split opinions, but certainly offered different takes on the traditionally acoustic music for the series. The Star Onions have since made live appearances performing stylistically diverse new and old material at Japan's FFXI Summer Carnival, California's FFXI Fan Festival, and the Tokyo Game Show 2007. In all performances, the band were well-received by the audience, demonstrating how much Mizuta's music has endeared to the Vana'diel community.

In 2007, Mizuta's music from Vana'diel was commemorated with a seven disc box set. It provided an essentially complete collection of Final Fantasy XI music at that time by combining the four prior soundtrack releases for the franchise with a disc of unreleased tracks. A particularly popular exclusive was the operatic ending theme "Distant Worlds" composed by Uematsu and arranged by Mizuta. The box also exclusively featured a ten piece piano collection, a sheet music book, and a bonus performance by The Star Onions. Despite this release, Mizuta returned for the franchise's final expansion Wings of the Goddess; he created a range of nostalgic and militaristic music to accompany the journey back to the era of the Crystal War. He has also created some new compositions for the three new expansion chapters for the series, including a particularly beautiful version of the "Final Fantasy" main theme. Continuing to develop the Final Fantasy XI sound series, Mizuta reunited the team behind the Premium Box Piano Collections for an all-new stand-alone album in 2008. More recently, he joined Takahito Eguchi and Masato Kouda to arrange The Star Onions' second album, Sanctuary. The album offered a greater acoustic focus than its predecessor and faithfully enhanced the original material with rich instrumental performances.

Mizuta has made minor contributions to several other Square Enix projects. He was one of several guest composers and arrangers for 2005's Hanjuku Hero 4 ~The 7 Heroes~; among his four offerings were a minimalist Final Fantasy III arrangement and a rock-styled action theme. Two years later, he created a handful of tunes for the Internet Explorer game The Shochu Bar, demonstrating his personal preference for jazz music once more. He later offered the similarly styled upbeat jazz track "3 Minutes Fusion" for the Square Enix Music Official Bootleg Vol. 3. Now that no further Final Fantasy XI extensions will be produced, Mizuta is able to dedicate more time to other projects. He was recently confirmed as the composer of the DS RPG Blood of Bahamut to some surprise. Early samples indicate he will explore his skills as an orchestral composer to create an epic militaristic score. Having dedicated nearly a decade to Final Fantasy XI, Mizuta has left a unique musical legacy for the MMORPG. His music continues to offer a colourful accompaniment to the journeys of the 200,000 daily users while proving marketable for new album releases and concert performances. He may soon enough become committed to another MMORPG once again, given Square Enix are currently developing the next-gen title codenamed Rapture.