Mitsuhito Tanaka

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

Mitsuhito Tanaka, often known by the psuedonym John Pee, is a composer who has contributed to several RPG and action scores, particularly for the Super Nintendo. He first come into recognition for his score to the Nintendo's Tecmo World Wrestling (aka Gekitou Pro Wrestling!! - Toukon Densetsu), which he co-composed with three people. A project where everyone adopted pseudonyms for the credits in the Japanese version, Tanaka's pseudonym, Jonpii, stuck and was modified. He single-handedly composed the score to the Super Nintendo games Flying Hero - Bugyuru no Daibouken, TKO Super Championship Boxing (aka Katsunari Onizuka Super Virtual Boxing), and Youkai Buster - Ruka no Daibouken, contributed to 1994's Melfand Stories, and was responsible for sound effects and manipulation in Taito's 1994 action game Jetsons - Invasion of the Planet Pirates, composed by Hideki Takahagi.

Tanaka's most well-known contribution to game music was the score to 1996's Treasure Hunter G. Developed by Sting and published by Square, it essentially concluded the role-playing era of the Super Nintendo, featuring a sweeping pseudo-orchestral score with lots of well-driven action pieces. The leader of the soundtrack, responsible for 40 tracks in total, several other minor contributors joined him, namely Hitoshi Sakimoto, Masaharu Iwata, Toshiaki Sakoda, Yoko Takada, Akiko Goto, and Tomoko Matsui, the latter three who appear to have done nothing since. He joined Sakoda once more to compose for his final Super Nintendo game, 1997's Solid Runner, published by the ASCII Corporation. Tanaka's last known contribution to game music was Iwata's score to Baroque, where he produced a single track, a brief dark electronica theme that appeared at the end of the soundtrack.

List of Relevant Game Projects

List of Covered Albums