Junichi Masuda
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Junichi Masuda (Japanese: 増田順一 Masuda Jun'ichi, born January 12, 1968) is best known as a game director and composer for the Pokémon games.
He was born in Kanagawa and serves as a Member and Director of the Board of Game Freak. He has remained with Game Freak ever since he joined the company when it was founded in 1989. The first game he worked on was Namco's Mendel Palace in 1990. Before moving onto the Pokémon series, he also worked on Nintendo's Mario and Wario in 1993 and Sega's Pulseman in 1994. 2009 marks his 20th year with Game Freak.
Junichi Masuda was the first person to compose for a Pokémon game and was the sole composer for the entirety of the Generation I music. He has composed for every handheld Pokémon game in the standard style to date. He also composed for Pokémon Stadium 2. Junichi Masuda has also composed for two e-Reader games, Machop at Work and Kingler's Day.
Due to his work on the Pokémon games, he has worked on Super Smash Bros. Melee and Super Smash Bros. Brawl. Junichi Masuda's game music has been used in the anime, rearranged by Shinji Miyazaki.
In addition to being a composer, Junichi Masuda has also worked in a variety of other capacities. He served as an adviser for Pokémon Stadium, Pokémon Stadium 2, Pokémon Puzzle Challenge, supervised Pokémon Channel and was also involved with the planning of Pokémon Box, in addition to being a director of that game. He was involved with game design that contributed to Pokémon XD: Gale of Darkness, however, he did not directly serve as a designer for that game. He designed Hoenn, and as such he has been credited with original design in the anime since the Advanced Generation series. More recently, he was the director of Pokémon FireRed and LeafGreen and Pokémon Diamond and Pearl.
Junichi Masuda was an original creator of the The Mastermind of Mirage Pokémon, Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Team Go-Getters out of the Gate!, and Pikachu's Island Adventure anime specials.
He has also been involved with many of the Pokémon movies. He composed music for Mewtwo Strikes Back and The Power of One and contributed sound for Celebi: Voice of the Forest. In Pokémon Heroes he was involved with character staging. He was an original creator of Jirachi: Wish Maker, Destiny Deoxys, Pokémon Ranger and the Temple of the Sea, The Rise of Darkrai and Giratina and the Sky Warrior.
The character Pearl's optional name Jun is a possible reference to Masuda, as is the character of Vincent (whose Japanese name is: Jun'ichi) from Johto in the anime.
His work has been featured on two CDs—Pokémon Gotta Catch the Sound, which features music based off Pokémon Snap and Pokémon Stadium and Nintendo DS Pokémon Diamond & Pearl Super Music Collection, which features music from Pokémon Diamond and Pearl.
Additionally, he runs a Director's Column (Japanese) on Game Freak's website, with many recent entries translated into English. In it, he has talked about why he has done his work in the Pokémon series the way he has and also has given out news about the games he is working on. It was through this column that the Masuda method, a method of easily obtaining Template:Shiny2 Pokémon, was first documented.
Masuda's favorite Pokémon is Pichu.
See also
On Bulbanews
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This article is part of Project Music, a Bulbapedia project that aims to write comprehensive articles on each Pokémon song, CD and musician. |
