Shinji Hosoe was born on February 28, 1967, in Gero Hot Springs, Japan. His interest in music started at high school, where he learnt to play the synthesizer and joined a band. Shortly after leaving school, he joined Namco in 1987, as a part-time CG artist. He had managed to infiltrate himself into the position, but for some reason or other, he wasn't quite pleased doing CG art, so he started composing music secretly. Namco wasn't aware he was behind the fun, catchy score that eventually appeared in the game. Dragon Spirit, a rather rough, old-school shooter that was fairly popular in the Arcades back then. It was successful enough that Namco ported it to the Nintendo. Of course, the sound took a hit in quality, but the music still shined. Afterwards, Hosoe worked on several early racing soundtracks, including the Final Lap series, Dirtfox, and Ridge Racer's earlier installments.

1991 marked one of Hosoe's most beloved projects, Dragon Saber, which was was the spiritual successor to Dragon Spirit. It featured more musical variety and better quality, and its tracks were catchier for the most part. In 1992, Hosoe was selected to compose the score of one of the biggest revolutionary titles in gaming history: Galaxian^3: Project Dragoon along with fellow composers Ayako Saso and Takayuki Aihara. The trio opted to take a Star Wars-esque orchestral approach for the music, which was fitting for the Sci-Fi theme the game adopted. Around 1995, Hosoe made quite a few high-profile works. These included Cyber Sled, Cyber Cycles, Rave Racer, Ridge Racer 2, and Dirt Dash. As well, in 1996, Hosoe collaborated with Yasuhisa Watanabe for the first time, creating an arrangement from Fighter's Impact. Soon after, Hosoe and Co. quit Namco during 1997 to join the company Arika. Over there, they made even more interesting works, which included Custom Robo for the Nintendo 64, the Street Fighter EX soundtracks, and IS: Internal Section, which was published by Square. In addition, Hosoe composed for Technic Beat, which is regarded as his biggest contribution to video game music.

In 2000, Hosoe made his move to form his own company, Super Sweep. One of the first projects for Super Sweep was the unfortunate flop at Square, Driving Emotion Type-S. Even if the music was undoubtedly the best part of the game, everything else couldn't save it from mediocrity. Another noteworthy project by Super Sweep was Border Down, one of the more recent shooters to be released, which was composed by Yasuhisa Watanabe, whom Hosoe met back at Arika. Some other big titles involving Super Sweep include Final Fantasy Tactics Advance, featuring Ayako Saso and Kaori Ohkoshi, and Xenosaga Episode II: Jenseits von Gut und Böse, where Shinji Hosoe was responsible for composing the in-game music. Hosoe's most recent soundtracks are a series of various Hentai games for PC and some small contributions to Basiscape's latest shooters. Indeed, as owner of one of the important companies in game music and having built up an enormous list of albums, the future is certainly bright, and it looks like there is no chance of him slowing down any time soon.

Takayuki Aihara was born on September 2, 1968 in Tokyo. He began his career at Namco in the early 1990's, where he was responsible for composing the scores for various games. In 1992, Aihara was selected along with fellow composers Ayako Saso and Shinji Hosoe to compose the score of one of the biggest revolutionary titles in gaming history: Galaxian^3: Project Dragoon. In addition, Aihara composed the scores of Rave Racer and Ridge Racer 2 with Hosoe, Saso, and Nobuyoshi Sano. He was also responsible for composing the score for Knuckle Heads, where he went solo for one of the only times in his career.

Aihara bonded with Hosoe and Saso extremely well during these early collaborations, so it is not surprising that he chose to follow them when they quit Namco and joined Arika in 1997. At Arika, Aihara co-composed Bushido Blade, Street Fighter EX, and Street Fighter EX2 with Hosoe and Saso. Zuntata's Yasuhisa Watanabe became a fourth member to this team for Street Fighter EX2 Plus and Street Fighter EX3.

In 2001, Aihara became a freelance artist and created his own studio, Carnaval. After this, he collaborated once more with Saso and Hosoe on Driving Emotion Type-S. He also composed the bulk of Hajime No Ippo: The Fighting Victorious Boxers (which happens to be one of his best albums ever released), assisted by Shinji Hosoe and Naoki Tsuchiya. 2003 marks another collaboration with Nobuyoshi Sano on Drakengard, which was developed by Cavia, but produced and published by Square Enix. The Original Soundtrack, released in two volumes (Volume 1 and Volume 2), was fairly experimental. It consisted of bits and phrases of symphonic compositions, performed by the Tokyo New City Orchestra, mixed and looped to create the feel of chaos and madness in the game's war-torn battlefields.

In 2004, Aihara participated in the production of two arranged albums. The first was Famicom 20th Anniversary Arranged Soundtracks in which he arranged "New Demon Island - Part One-" in an orchestral/jazz fashion. His second contribution was "Silent Palace" from the Phantasy Star Online Episode I & II Premium Arrange. Later in 2004, Aihara collaborated with a plethora of current/former Namco composers for the score of Ridge Racers on PSP. His most recent project was on Drakengard II (aka Drag-on Dragoon 2 love red, ambivalence black), where he worked with Masashi Yano for the cinematic themes. With a good 6-7 years at Namco, a few at Arika, and now being freelance, Takayuki Aihara has gained more and more ground as a gifted jazz, rock, electronica, and symphonic composer.

Born in Japan during 1981, Kaori Ohkoshi was 21 when she first got involved in video game music, having participated in Enterbrain's 5th Video Games Contest in 2002. She won 10,000 yen for submitting 'fine work' for the music section of the contest, although she was not one of the three main winners.

Ohkoshi joined Super Sweep in the same year and worked with Yosuke Yasui and Ayako Saso to produce the score of Akira's scuba diving RPG Everblue 2. Soon after, in early 2003, she collaborated with Saso once more in order to produce the score of Square Enix's Game Boy Advance game Final Fantasy Tactics Advance. She also worked with Nobuo Uematsu and Hitoshi Sakimoto on this score and had one of her tracks arranged for White Melodies of Final Fantasy Tactics.

Few 24-year-olds can say that they've helped to compose two popular scores, have collaborated with four of the most prolific composers in video game music, and have worked on the immensely popular Final Fantasy series. Kaori Ohkoshi can and her career has only just started! With some luck, 2005 will see more work come her way and even more collaborations with other Super Sweep composers, though this is looking increasingly unlikely, as her last work for Super Sweep was in 2003, meaning she may have left the company.

Nobuyoshi Sano was born on January 19th, 1969. He worked at Namco from 1992 until late 2001. There, he helped to compose the music for a number of Arcade games, including the puzzle game Dancing Eyes, the driving game Dirt Dash, and the basketball game Dunk Mania. Here, he also contributed to creating sound effects. In addition, he had a prominent role composing for the Ridge Racer and Tekken popular series. It is these scores that he is most well-known for and there are a number of albums still available that feature his work.

In late 2001, Sano left Namco to join Cavia. He collaborated with Takayuki Aihara in 2002 on Drakengard, which was developed by Cavia, but produced and published by Square Enix. The Original Soundtrack, released in two volumes (Volume 1 and Volume 2), was fairly experimental. It consisted of bits and phrases of symphonic compositions, performed by the Tokyo New City Orchestra, mixed and looped to create the feel of chaos and madness in the game's war-torn battlefields.

Sano recently arranged "Jungle" from the Phantasy Star Online Episode I & II Premium Arrange. His most recent project was as the sound director for the score of Drakengard II (aka Drag-on Dragoon 2 love red, ambivalence black) and his vocal theme from the first album, "Exhausted," received two fine orchestral arrangements. Sano is a respected composer, capable of a variety of styles and having links to many of the most important people in the game music industry. Indeed, there will be always something out there that will reflect his sheer talent and creativity.

Ayako Saso was born on March 5, 1967, in Miyazaki, Japan. She had a reasonably extensive early musical education, having taken piano lessons from the age of seven before giving up in favour of joining a brass band at high school. She never did seem naturally inclined to become a composer; while at music school, she disliked composing music the most, and her main ambition was to become a professional Electone organ player. She even won the Silver Prize for a Yamaha Electone Festival contest in 1987 after leaving music school. Still, the foundations of her interest in video game music remained, since she played video games from a very young age and used to arrange game and anime music in her spare time.

Saso joined the Namco sound team in 1989 and first worked on Stealth Bomber for the Arcade. In 1991, Rolling Thunder 2 became her first project to get released on CD. The soundtrack was a mix of jazz, funk, and electronica, in which she showed great versatility with modern genres. In 1992, Saso was selected along with fellow composers Takayuki Aihara and Shinji Hosoe to compose the score of one of the biggest revolutionary titles in gaming history: Galaxian^3: Project Dragoon. This was a shooter, which was done in a huge compartment where up to six players would co-operate to save the earth from the bad guys. It was the first 3D theatre-sized shooter of its kind. Perhaps Saso's undying love for Star Wars and John Williams' music had something to do with the symphonic approach to the music. In 1994, she handled the arrangement for Galaxian^3: Attack of the Zolgear and composed several themes on Ridge Racer 2. 1995 saw her working on Cyber Cycles and Rave Racer, as well as Tekken 2.

In 1997, Saso left Namco to work at Arika. Here, her most significant work was composing the score of Street Fighter EX, along with colleagues Aihara and Hosoe. As well as this, Saso and Hosoe worked together again to produce two important Square scores for the games Bushido Blade, where Aihara also created two tracks, and IS: Internal Section. Also during her time at Akira, she contributed to the score of Technic Beat and produced her first solo album, DANCE.

When Shinji Hosoe created Super Sweep in 2000, Saso joined along. During her time there, she has helped to produce two important Square scores. The first was for Driving Emotion Type-S in 2001 alongside Saso and Aihara. However, the game was a flop itself and the music was the only positive aspect of it. Fortunately, her second Square project at Super Sweep, composing tracks for Final Fantasy Tactics Advance in 2002, was mostly successful. Most of the score was composed by Hitoshi Sakimoto, though she also worked alongside Super Sweep newcomer Kaori Ohkoshi after the moderate success of their score for Everblue 2 a year earlier. Recently, she has made some small contributions to Basiscape's latest shooters. Indeed, since joining Super Sweep, Ayako Saso has been gaining more and more experience with electronica, jazz, rock, and fusion. Her list of albums is almost as extensive and significant as Hosoe's. Who knows where 2005 will take her?

Masashi Yano was born on April 8, 1976, in Sapporo, Japan, and his hobbies include watching Star Trek, reading American comics, and listening to the band Seikima II. 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.

It is in 2003 that Yano officially became a member of Super Sweep, and started doing some projects here and there, getting 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. 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.

Nonetheless, despite being active for only 6 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. His latest effort proved to be intense and dramatic, almost certain to win the hearts of Drakengard II's gamers, while his other works succeeded in developing his diverse styles. Indeed, Yano will continue to grow in popularity as a composer and his next work is likely to be just round the corner.

Though Aoi Yoshiki is known to have worked on the anime Gundam Seed, composing a theme song, it is not currently known why the composer worked on Square Enix's Drakengard II (aka Drag-on Dragoon 2 love red, ambivalence black). The score took a symphonic approach, retaining the intensity of the first, while also proving to be more melodic and easily accessible. Yoshiki was responsible for all of the in-game music, whereas Super Sweep's Masashi Yano and Takayuki Aihara handled all the cinematic themes.

Perhaps Yoshiki joined Super Sweep sometime after Gundam Seed, as this would be one of the few explanations that would explain why the composer worked alongside so many of Super Sweep's finest. Nonetheless, whether a Super Sweep composer or merely a Super Sweep collaborator, Yoshiki is worthy of a place here.