20 Facts About Hirokazu Tanaka

Hirokazu Tanaka is best known as one of Nintendo's in-house composers during the 8- and 16-bit era of video games.

Hirokazu Tanaka was the president of Creatures between 2001 and 2023.

Hirokazu Tanaka has held a longstanding obsession with reggae music.

In 1980, after graduating from university with a degree in electronic engineering, Hirokazu Tanaka successfully applied for a job at Nintendo as a sound designer.

Usually, the same sound effect was repeated across many different actions, but Hirokazu Tanaka's approach differed where he invented subtle variations.

Hirokazu Tanaka noted that he learned "a lot" from series creator Shigeru Miyamoto due to his perfectionism and "level of commitment".

Donkey Kong 3 was the first game where Hirokazu Tanaka acted both as composer and sound effects designer.

Hirokazu Tanaka did not personally see a difference between the music he composed for video games and the music he composed in his off time.

For Metroid, Hirokazu Tanaka acknowledged that games were becoming more complex, and his scores were becoming more like a film's, desiring in Metroid not to "repeat the same game-melody cliches," although he recalls that the game's soundtrack was not well-received within Nintendo because of its dark atmosphere.

Hirokazu Tanaka was inspired by the film Birdy to create a game score that was dark until the very end, where the player would finally receive music with a strong melody.

Hirokazu Tanaka remembers Nintendo's strict, repeated criticisms over the amount of "fun" a game would have, but that there was no financial pressure in creating games, nor were there sales quotas to meet.

At the time of Dr Mario, Hirokazu Tanaka began observing an increasing number of "serious" game composers who had graduated from music schools.

Dr Mario was thus the first time Hirokazu Tanaka had asserted his musical personality in a game.

Hirokazu Tanaka was one of "about five or six" Nintendo-based developers who designed the Game Boy, researching and creating its audio hardware.

At the advice of EarthBound co-worker Tsunekazu Ishihara, Hirokazu Tanaka would join Creatures as a guest composer, where he would end up composing dozens of songs for the first Japanese Pokemon anime and various Pokemon promotional releases.

Hirokazu Tanaka was eventually forbidden by Nintendo to continue to write more songs for the anime due to their policy of not allowing employees to work for other companies, so he resigned at Nintendo and joined Creatures full-time in 1999.

Hirokazu Tanaka succeeded Ishihara to become the president of Creatures in 2001, while Ishihara continued as CEO.

The moniker was suggested by a foreign acquaintance, as Hirokazu Tanaka thought "Hip Hirokazu Tanaka" was too attached to his time at Nintendo.

Hirokazu Tanaka has said that his tastes in his youth were typical of the time, listening to artists such as the Beatles and the Carpenters.

The "hip" in "Hip Hirokazu Tanaka" came from hip hop, with his favorite artist of the genre being A Tribe Called Quest.