Who did the soundtrack for Budokai Tenkaichi 2/Sparking Neo?

[Black_Anime_Fan]

God, I absolutely love the soundtrack in this game, one of my favorites in any video game even, and I have no idea who composes them, haha. Does anyone have the name of the guy? And I'd also like to know if he's still involved in any recent projects. Many thanks in advance

[DarkPrince_92]

God, I absolutely love the soundtrack in this game, one of my favorites in any video game even, and I have no idea who composes them, haha. Does anyone have the name of the guy? And I'd also like to know if he's still involved in any recent projects. Many thanks in advance

Kenji Yamamoto composed BT2 OST. Also this should be in the "Music" section.

[Black_Anime_Fan]

God, I absolutely love the soundtrack in this game, one of my favorites in any video game even, and I have no idea who composes them, haha. Does anyone have the name of the guy? And I'd also like to know if he's still involved in any recent projects. Many thanks in advance

Kenji Yamamoto composed BT2 OST. Also this should be in the "Music" section.

My bad haha. Thanks for answering though, and you pretty much answered my second question. Wow it was Kenji Yamamoto? I had no idea. So wait, they replaced the original Budokai trilogy/Raging Blast 2's score with his other work? Well, that's kinda weird.

[CashmanX]

God, I absolutely love the soundtrack in this game, one of my favorites in any video game even, and I have no idea who composes them, haha. Does anyone have the name of the guy? And I'd also like to know if he's still involved in any recent projects. Many thanks in advance

Kenji Yamamoto composed BT2 OST. Also this should be in the "Music" section.

Uhhh, correct me if I I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure I heard it was a unknown freelance composer, not Yamamoto.

[Black_Anime_Fan]

God, I absolutely love the soundtrack in this game, one of my favorites in any video game even, and I have no idea who composes them, haha. Does anyone have the name of the guy? And I'd also like to know if he's still involved in any recent projects. Many thanks in advance

Kenji Yamamoto composed BT2 OST. Also this should be in the "Music" section.

Uhhh, correct me if I I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure I heard it was a unknown freelance composer, not Yamamoto.

That would make more sense. The OST in the game sounds nothing like Yamamoto's work, and it really wouldn't make sense seeing as how replacing old soundtrack with his other work anyway would be a little silly.

[goku the krump dancer]

Capture The Dragon is my favorite track from Tenka'ichi 2. I don't even think I have a favorite song from Tenkaichi 3 and on wards though... Let's hope XenoVerse has a strong if not atleast solid soundtrack.

[DarkPrince_92]

Uhhh, correct me if I I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure I heard it was a unknown freelance composer, not Yamamoto.

See, I thought it couldn't be Yamamoto as well, but I keep searching online, and he's credited for it on a lot of sites.

But it's also weird for Raging Blast 2 to replace new Yamamoto music with more Yamamoto music.

[Naruto6583]

Uhhh, correct me if I I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure I heard it was a unknown freelance composer, not Yamamoto.

See, I thought it couldn't be Yamamoto as well, but I keep searching online, and he's credited for it on a lot of sites.

But it's also weird for Raging Blast 2 to replace new Yamamoto music with more Yamamoto music.

I maybe wrong but I think he did at least do those shunsuke kikuchi variation for the Tenkaichi series in japan

[Super Saiyan Swagger]

I believe it was Takanori Arima. I could be wrong though.

[DarkPrince_92]

I believe it was Takanori Arima. I could be wrong though.

He did the next game, which isn't as good imo.

[Super Saiyan Swagger]

I believe it was Takanori Arima. I could be wrong though.

He did the next game, which isn't as good imo.

Yeah, no where near as good. Only memorable track was Edge of Spirit, but I can name so many Tenkaichi 2 tracks because of how great some of them are.

[Naruto6583]

i thought toshiyuki kishi did tenkaichi 3?

[Captain-Sora]

Toshiyuki Kishi did BT3 and RB1.

Some unknown composer(s) did BT2. If I recall correctly, didn't the end credits list a series of people doing different sections of the score?

[VegettoEX]

OK, so here's the deal: it's an easy question to answer if you actually look at the credits ^_~.

Of course, it's doubly-complicated because there are two entirely separate credits for the games! Remember that the Sparking! games came with new arrangements of Kikuchi music (and more stuff like insert songs and the DBGT opening), while the international Budokai Tenkaichi games had all-new compositions. So let's compare!

(Translations of the Japanese credits by our our Julian/SaiyaJedi, and I just straight up transcribed the English language credits from the American versions, weird phrasings and all, though I corrected some of the punctuation and spacing. I'm leaving out opening theme credits, 'cuz they are what they are.)

Sparking! NEO

Music Director: Takanori Arima

Arrangements:
Jōji Nakajima (or Nakashima)
(Bow Company International, Inc.)

Synthesizer Programming:
Atsushi Umehara (Tightrope)

Mixing Engineer:
Keiko (or Yoshiko, or several other possible pronunciations) Ishige (Tightrope)

Guitar Performance:
Naganori Sakakibara

Management:
BEC Co., Ltd.

Budokai Tenkaichi 2

Music Produced by Takanori Arima

F Section
Composed by Hiromi Mizutani, Kenji Fujizawa
Guitar Played by Kenji Fujizawa
Mixed by Kunihiko Aoto (Free Market)
Assistant Engineered Jun Shoji (Free Market)
Mixed at Studio A-tone
Musician Coordinated by Minako Hashimoto (Free Market)

W Section
Composed by Hideyuki Fukasawa
ERHU Played by JIA PENGFANG
DIZI Played by WANG MINGJUN
Mixed by Hideyuki Fukasawa
Recorded by Hideyuki Fukuawa, Hisae Yahagi (STUDIO Z'd)
Assistant Engineered Masahiro Nishida (WEST SIDE STUDIO)
Mixed at WEST SIDE STUDIO
Production Coordinated by Sei Sato (OfficeWithout)
Musician Coordinated by Noriko Sekiya (FACE MUSIC)

B Section
Composed by Tak Arima, Tadayoshi Makino
Mixed by Tak Arima, Tadayoshi Makino
Mixed at BECERS STUDIO ASAKUSA
Musician Coordinated by BEC SOUND TEAM

Mastered by Takanori Arima

ANALYSIS:

It seems that Takanori Arima is probably the one to ultimately credit for both the original Japanese as well as the international music. There are a bunch of other hired studio musicians on both soundtracks, and the three sections (I'm not even sure what that refers to; different areas of the soundtrack entirely?) actually have different composers attributed to them... but I think I'd still paint Arima as "the guy" for both of them if you want to pin credit (blame? heh) on one guy.

Sparking! METEOR

Sound Production & Sound Director:
Takanori Arima (BEC Co., Ltd)

Synthesizer Programming:
Atsushi Umehara (Tightrope)

Mixing Engineer:
Keiko/(etc.) Ishige (Tightrope)

Score Arrangement:
Jōji Nakajima/Nakashima (Bow Company International, Inc.)

Guitar:
Naganori Sakakibara

Violin:
Kuniko Okada

Mastering:
Takanori Arima (BEC Co., Ltd)

Budokai Tenkaichi 3

Sound Producer: Toshiyuki Kishi

Compose & Arrange: Toshiyuki Kishi

Record & Mix4 1: Masatake Ohsato / Toshiyuki Kishi

Synthesizer & Computer Programming & Guitar: Toshiyuki Kishi

Guitarist: SUNAO

Trumpet Players: Koji Nishimura, Sho Okumura

Trombone Players: Yochi Murata (by the courtesy of Victory Entertainment, Inc.)

Recorded at On Air Okubo Studio / milk+ Studio
Mixed at SATO STUDIO
Artist Management by Office Intenzio, Inc. (for Toshiyuki Kishi)
Musician Coordination by Face Music, Inc.

Sound Director: Takanori Arima (BEC Co, Ltd.)

ANALYSIS:

Here's where it splits a bit, even with Arima being involved on both sides again. On the Japanese side, it's pretty much exactly the same as before, which makes sense considering the three Sparking! games basically just kept adding more and more music to themselves as-is (with the occasional song getting dropped). So yeah, all Arima. On the international side, it seems like Arima was just the ultimate authority overlooking things, but here is where the actual nitty-gritty work starts shifting over to Toshiyuki Kishi, who will continue on from here to the next generation of games when Yamamoto is not involved.

[LordOfTheDarkHado]

F Section
Composed by Hiromi Mizutani, Kenji Fujizawa
Guitar Played by Kenji Fujizawa
Mixed by Kunihiko Aoto (Free Market)
Assistant Engineered Jun Shoji (Free Market)
Mixed at Studio A-tone
Musician Coordinated by Minako Hashimoto (Free Market)

W Section
Composed by Hideyuki Fukasawa
ERHU Played by JIA PENGFANG
DIZI Played by WANG MINGJUN
Mixed by Hideyuki Fukasawa
Recorded by Hideyuki Fukuawa, Hisae Yahagi (STUDIO Z'd)
Assistant Engineered Masahiro Nishida (WEST SIDE STUDIO)
Mixed at WEST SIDE STUDIO
Production Coordinated by Sei Sato (OfficeWithout)
Musician Coordinated by Noriko Sekiya (FACE MUSIC)

B Section
Composed by Tak Arima, Tadayoshi Makino
Mixed by Tak Arima, Tadayoshi Makino
Mixed at BECERS STUDIO ASAKUSA
Musician Coordinated by BEC SOUND TEAM

three sections (I'm not even sure what that refers to; different areas of the soundtrack entirely?)

My guess is that those "sections" most likely refer to the companies that coordinated the musician (or the production, in the case of the "W" Section)

"F" Section = Free Market
"W" Section = OfficeWithout
"B" Section = BEC SOUND TEAM

Another question entirely would be who of those composers did what tracks specifically.

I do hear the style of Hideyuki Fukasawa in most of the tracks. Luckily, the credits include two entries that initially seem odd:
"ERHU Played by JIA PENGFANG
DIZI Played by WANG MINGJUN".
But they make it easy to guess which tracks may have been composed by Hideyuki Fukasawa since there's so much focus on those instruments. And that can be extended to other Chinese instruments too if we consider his work for Street Fighter IV, for example, where he also used a few of them.

They will mostly remain complete guesses for now, but I believe he may have composed those tracks:
- Open Wings (Erhu early on in the track)
- Ancient Mystery (A Yangqin? being used in the intro section)
- Dance to the Tower (Erhu early on in the track)
- Capture the Dragon (Erhu in the beginning)
- Awake (Erhu early on in the track)
- Let the Power Reigns (Erhu fairly late in the track)
- Lonesome Wild (Similar energy to a track from SFIV)
- Gatebreaker (Similar energy to a track from SFIV)
- Jungle (Dizi flute early in the track)
- King's Uneasiness
- Electric Gravity (Erhu a bit into the track)
- The Maze of Mind (Erhu a bit into the track)
- Morning Dew
- Mind Space
- Granulated Oblivion (Erhu early on in the track)
- Stand After Confusion (Dizi flute a bit into the track)
- Lost Courage (Yangqin? early into the track)