Masashi Yano

	Date of Birth:	March 5, 1967 (Miyazaki)
	General Interests:	Watching Star Trek, Reading American Comics
	Instruments:	Piano, Electone Organ
	Game Works:	BulletWitch, Tobi D+vine, Tobi Tsukeme

Biography

Note: This biography was written exclusively for Square Enix Music Online by Z-Freak and Chris and is under copyright.

Masashi Yano, current employee of Super Sweep, was born on April 8, 1976, in Sapporo, Japan. It was in 1999 that he started his composing career at AbodagoPowers. His first work for the company was the score to Shuumatsu no Sugoshi Kata, a PC game. The following year, he composed for another PC title, the hentai D+VINE[LUV]. In 2001, Yano composed for Tobi D+vine, which is one of his most well-known works, giving him recognition thanks to Super Sweep publishing the score in 2004. The second disc featured arrangements from Yano, Ayako Saso, Norihiro Furukawa, Hiroto Saitoh, Yousuke Yasui, Shinji Hosoe, Raito, Takayuki Aihara, Yasuhisa Watanabe, Keiichi Okabe, and bermei.inazawa. Soon after, in 2002, he composed for two scores while still an employee at AbogadoPowers. These were Pigeon Blood and MxS: Combat de Reines, but they didn't receive as much publicity.

In 2003, Yano officially became a member of Super Sweep, and started doing some projects here and there, including some collaborative projects like the NanoSweep series and Death Meta - Book of Music's arranged section. He received more recognition thanks to his majestic score for Arika's Nightmare of Druaga in 2004. Though accompanied by Ayako Saso and Takayuki Aihara, Yano composed the majority of the pieces on this title. He created the music in an orchestral fashion, which earned him even more respect.

As a result of his Super Sweep employment, Yano has been involved in two projects for Square Enix. In 2003, shortly after Nightmare of Druaga, Yano created sound effects for the PlayStation 2 card game Dragon Quest & Final Fantasy in Idataki Street Special. It wasn't long until he was involved in another project at Square Enix but in a composing role. This was the recent score Drakengard II (aka Drag-on Dragoon 2 love red, ambivalence black), in which Yano was accompanied by Aihara to compose the cinematic music themes, while newcomer Aoi Yoshiki handled the in-game music. Unfortunately, this role was limited in that his compositions were not featured in the Original Soundtrack, much like Gary Ashiya and Haruko Miyake's cinematic music in the original Drakengard, though his vocal theme "Growing Wings" won the hearts of many overseas fans.

Yano has recently composed the BulletWitch, produced by Drakengard II's developers Cavia, in an intense orchestral style. His other latest work is the long-awaited diverse score to the spiritual successor of Tobi D+vine, Tobi Tsukeme. As reflected by these projects, despite being active for only eight years, Masashi Yano has proven his worth by being able to master not only electronica and rock but also being capable of creating fine orchestral scores. He has recently left Super Sweep due to illness but is likely to remain involved in the games industry.

List of Game Projects for Square Enix

List of Covered Albums