Hiroki Kikuta/菊田 裕樹

Hiroki Kikuta is a games composer and director.

### Early Life & Career

Kikuta Hiroki was born in 1962 in the Aichi Prefecture of Japan, in an area he describes as ‘rural’.

From a young age, science fiction and nonfiction became his favorite genres to read, including Alfred Elton Van Vogt, particularly *The Voyage of the Space Beagle*, and Edogawa Ranpo’s *Boys Detective Club*. He read nonfiction about NASA’s space explorations, Heinrich Schliemann’s archaeological research, and Jacques Yves Cousteau’s undersea voyages.  In junior high, he was fascinating by the works of Tsutsui Yasutaka.

He found his way into art through the *Gundam* series. The world of *Gundam*, particularly the *Space Runway Ideon,* felt like the "perfect blend of human drama and science fiction". A novelization of *Gundam* first gave him the idea that he might write stories of his own.

Kikuta grew up on games, especially arcade games and fighting series like *Virtua Fighter*. He was ‘hooked’ to Namco’s titles, he played *Xevious*, and was ‘addicted’ to the game *Bosconian*; during the hot summers he’d stay in the air conditioned arcades all day until he was asked to go home.

He attended Kansai University, majoring in religion and philosophy, and while there, he entered a manga club. It was a large group of like minded manga fans who all came together to draw, and each month would publish a collection of their works. It encouraged expression and creativity, and first inspired Kikuta to consider a career as a manga artist. His artist name would be Yuuri 69. His birth name is Yuuri, but many would mistake the name for the feminine Yuri, which led to enough frustrating misunderstandings that Kikuta eventually decided to change the name he went by to Hiroki.

He graduated in 1985; he stayed in touch with some of his friends from the manga club, particularly a Murata Atsutoshi, who not only was in the manga club but also in a band with Kikuta and liked his music. Kikuta had been interested in music for some time. He was self-taught, and had been composing since he was twelve. Murata became a programmer at a graphics lab working on CG, and taught Kikuta some of the techniques, while also encouraging him to try his hand at making music professionally. Murata had instruments, and Kikuta would visit and compose from time to time.

Kikuta was working as an assistant for another manga artist, and would eventually start writing and drawing a series of his own called *Raven*, which would remain unfinished. His friend Murata, still encouraging him to pursue music, bought Kikuta a synthesizer that cost hundreds of thousands of yen, and told his friend, “Use this to make music.”

Those first demos would lead to the start of his music career, which began in anime, making soundtracks for shows like *The Legend of Snow White*. After that success, he decided to start applying to video game companies. The first was company he applied to was Falcom, who turned him down; the second was Squaresoft, who called him in for an interview.

### Squaresoft Era

He was interviewed by Kenji Ito and Nobuo Uematsu. Uematsu asked a question about his demo tape. “So, you like progressive rock, huh? That song on your demo reel reminds me of Allan Holdsworth.” They discussed how they could reproduce a Holdsworth-esque guitar sound, and before long, Kikuta had the job. Over 100 people had applied for the position.

His early work consisted of debugging for *Final Fantasy IV*; followed by assisting Ito on *Romancing Saga*, where he would create all the sword battle sound effects. After *Romancing Saga*, Ito was meant to be the composer for the second game in the *Mana* series, but was unable to do so; the project was handed to Kikuta, and it became his first full video game soundtrack. He refers to that time as his “sleeping bag era”, as he worked long hours often late into the night, and would sleep in the office.

He would continue to work on Mana, creating the soundtrack for the third game, and on that project he met Hidenori Suzuki, a synthesizer programmer who assisted in the implementation of the music, cutting down the amount of work Kikuta had to do on his own. Because of the shared workload, he was able to compose more than three times the amount of musical tracks as he had for *Mana 2.*

Around this time, Kikuta would be offered the role of composer for an experimental game called *Soukagi*. The game would receive mixed reviews at launch. The story and music were highly venerated but gameplay elements were often disliked; Kikuta himself had mixed feelings about the experience. He felt frustrated with the lack of control he’d had on *Soukaigi*.

### Establishing Sacnoth & Koudelka

The establishing of Sacnoth likely began sometime around August 1996, according to one team members records, and it would involve more than half a dozen former Square employees, primarily musicians.

Centering his storytelling on real world events was crucial to Kikuta. He wanted the story to be “real” and fantastical, to have grounding in the real world and to feel realistic to the audience. He knew early on he wanted it to be a horror story; horror, he finds, is an easy way to introduce “persuasiveness" to the story. His goal was to make something “scary to the touch” – something that made you feel frightened enough that you were afraid to touch it, and he felt that the small details, not big gimmicky things, would be the most important.

The secret was not to bend history; it was to keep true to historical record, while weaving “lies” into the gaps of history. This blend of reality and fiction would create a very unique world and atmosphere in *Koudelka*, and the game would contain, in Kikuta’s words, “more historical facts than players think”.

[Read more on the Development of Koudelka.]

### Leaving Sacnoth

Kikuta himself says he was both ‘happy and disappointed’ with *Koudelka*. He made the choice to leave Sacnoth, going independent as a game composer.

He’s appeared at many events in the east and west, attending American conventions, giving presentations and lectures in Japan, composing and releasing his own CDs, and working on the soundtracks for many indie developers. He’s also composed for eroge games, which he, uh, says he’s not capable of recommending to others. His most recent game soundtrack was *Indivisible* in 2019.

### Sources

#### Social Media

* Twitter | Primary | Secondary
* Bandcamp
* Youtube
* Kikuta's Blog | Angels Fear
* Kikuta's Second Blog
* Hiroki Kikuta's High Tension Wire Event
* Magfest Apperance

#### Interviews

* April 1999 Weekly Famitsu Interview
* 1995 Famitsu Interview
* Rocketbaby Interview
* JapanDaman Interview
* Aniko Interview | Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3
* Sting Interview | Part 1 | Part 2
* Spelmusik Interview
* JS Lawhead Interview
* Square Haven Interview
* Concerto Tactics Interview
* Square Enix Music Interview
* VGMOnline Interview
* Reddit AMA

#### Videos

* Square Enix Music Talk | Playlist
* Hiroki Kikuta and Scarlet Moon Interview at Anime Expo 2018
* Interview with Hiroki Kikuta
* Indivisible - Message from Hiroki Kikuta
* No Don't Die Interview
* Gamedev Interview with Yoko Shimomura
* Symphonic Fantasies - Autograph sessions

#### Discussions of His Work

* Kaijinki Review