Norikazu Miura :: 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 February 21, 2009.

Norikazu Miura is an employee at Konami's Tokyo branch best known for his work on the Suikoden series. Born in the late 1960s, Miura was educated in composition and sound programming at university. After graduating, he worked as a synthesizer operator for the popular male pop artist Makihiko Araki between 1990 and 1997. He initially helped handled all the synthesizers on the major album releases Karajan, Baby You Cry, and Bacchus; his role was integral to creating the light rock and sentimental pop sounds featured on these albums. He subsequently helped to perform the theme songs featured in the anime adaption Hayou no Ken: Shikkoku no Mashou released in 1992. This role was an inspiration for his decision to start composing soundtracks and he looked for roles in the game and anime industries. As a valued member of Araki's group, he nonetheless continued to balance composing work with performing the later albums Real and Scramble. He also performed keyboards in some of Araki's live concerts that occurred up to 1997.

In 1993, Miura worked under game company Synergy Inc. to handle the sound for the PC's L-Zone. In order to represent a mysterious world full of machinery, he created a synthetic score featuring experimental use of technopop styles. He also created realistic sound effects to represent the noise of the machinery and carefully blended them with the music to atmospherically support the environments. Synergy decided that he was the ideal person to score their project, Iron Angel of the Apocalypse (aka Tetsujin). While the game was a relatively simple first person shooter, Miura exploited the capacity of the 3DO to offer a mature CD quality soundtrack. He underscored the futuristic game with industrial and electronic setting themes, tense cinematic cues, and ambient noises. He returned to its more successful sequel in order to expand and refine these ideas. Though both projects were relatively low-profile, Miura learned a lot about creating interactive music and convincing sound design on these titles. He found game scoring truly rewarding, though continued to work in the pop industry during this period as well.

Miura decided to become a full-time composer at Konami Computer Entertainment Tokyo in 1997 after Synergy went bust and Makihiko Araki took a break from composing. Given his previous game works, Konami decided to assign him to create the music for the PlayStation space shooter Gradius Gaiden. Miura combined old-school tributes with high quality pieces written in rock, jazz, ambient, electronic, and even orchestral styles. Though the score is the most diverse of the series, he ensured every piece fitted the context of a side story and brought thematic and stylistic cohesion with the conclusion of the soundtrack. He was also responsible for the high-quality synthesizer operation and the Moai voice samples. Afterwards he gained experience in the fighting genre by creating a number of engaging stage themes for Kensei: Sacred Fist. He also created a number of sentimental compositions for the popular dating simulation game Tokimeki Memorial 2 and, given his background in vocal music, was selected by the series' lead composer Mikio Saito to arrange four ending themes for two of the game's spinoffs.

After these impressive supporting works, Miura was appointed the sound director for 2001's PlayStation 2 and Xbox title Shadow of Destiny. In a change of direction from his action-packed past works, he decided to create an unobtrusive mood-setting score given the amount of voice acting featured and the unique theme of the game — a character's quest through time to prevent his own death. The acoustic background music complemented the setting of a German town, but the score also created a sense of mystery, fate, and anguish throughout. Afterwards, he was selected to convert Harumi Ueko's music for Silent Scope 2 and Silent Scope 3 from Arcade to PlayStation 2. He was able to ensure a high-quality conversion and, in the latter, even created a few jazzy pieces of his own. Miura also worked on three scores for the popular Japanese soccer series Winning Eleven, including two that were rebranded overseas — Pro Evolution 3 and Pro Evolution 4. Though these scores tended to be short and low-key, Miura paid special attention to creating exhilarating rock and techno music for the title, menu, and credits themes.

In 2004, Miura was the sound director of the firefighting simulation Firefighter F.D. 18. He organised a team to ensure the game featured realistic sound effects and voice acting while personally crafting a tense orchestral score. As an increasingly ambitious composer, he even hired Pirates of the Caribbean's Klaus Badelt to create synthetic orchestrations of his music. In the turning point of his career, he was asked to contribute to Suikoden IV's soundtrack on behalf of Michiru Yamane, having previously collaborated with her on the Pro Evolution Soccer series. As a big fan of the Suikoden series' games and soundtracks, Miura was delighted to be assigned to this project and demonstrated his special affection for the series with his contributions. He offered a number of memorable pieces such as the lush world-inspired ocean theme, several powerful orchestral boss battle tracks, and a few enchanting character depictions. Miura subsequently organised the involvement of singer-songwriter Makihiko Araki on the scores for the Rumble Roses series, though was too busy with other commitments to personally compose.

In recent years, Miura become the new lead composer the Suikoden series. Given his expertise creating action themes, he was selected to single-handedly score the tactical RPG spinoff Suikoden Tactics (aka Rhapsodia) in 2005. He carefully blended militaristic action themes with the characteristic tones and themes of the series. He went one step further as the composer of Suikoden V a year later. Given this was a main title in the series, he carefully ensured that it maintained the endearing qualities of the series; in particular, he revisited the styles and themes of Miki Higashino's scores that he had enjoyed in the past. However, he also ensured that the score was a progressive one — more technologically commanded, stylistically diverse, and cinematic than past titles in the series. He meticulously crafted a total of 148 compositions, making it one of the biggest RPG scores ever created. Miura subsequently sequenced the music and made a guest arrangement for the DS' Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin. He decided to recreate the sound design of Konami's classic games given the project tributed earlier games in the series.

In recent years, Miura has focused on composition for the DS. As an ever prolific composer, he was selected to create the scores for the console's three adaptations of the Kirarin Revolution manga. He mainly crafted catchy light-hearted music influenced by candypop music for these titles; this was appropriate given the games had a youthful tone and focused on pop idols. In 2008, Miura demonstrated his ambitious nature once again with the score for the Suikoden Tierkreis. Determined not to let the choice of console affect the scope of the music, he combined streamed and sequenced music to push the DS to the limits. Though he composed the majority of the music himself, he directed several external guest composers to score music for certain races and areas on the title while being careful to maintain a cohesive overall sound. The six disc score also featured the series' first vocal theme "Tears in the Sky" and ethnic instrument arrangements by Elements Garden. Though Miura has also demonstrated a flair for portraying scenes with diverse music, his work on the Suikoden series has propelled him to become recognised as one of the most ambitious and successful composers in the industry.