Keiichi Okabe is a Japanese composer and arranger, best known for composing music for Nier and its sequel , along with the Tekken series. He started his career as a video game composer where he worked at Namco between 1994 and 2001, primarily composing for arcade games. Outside of video games he has composed for anime series such as Working!! and Yuki Yuna Is a Hero, along with tracks for J-pop artists such as Ryuichi Kawamura. He established the music production studio Monaca in 2004, which composes for various types of media.
Biography
Okabe started taking electric organ lessons as a child, covering contemporary pop and film music. Although he did not learn from teachers, he would develop his musical skills through joining a band and recording music. He has cited Henry Mancini, Ennio Morricone, and Ryuichi Sakamoto as being some of his musical influences. After graduating from Kobe Design University, he joined Namco in 1994, with his first work being a handful of tracks for medal gameSpiral Fall. He would also work on titles such as Air Combat 22, along with some arrangements for the PS1 version of Tekken 2. This would lead to him scoring Tekken 3 along with fellow Namco composer Nobuyoshi Sano. Both composers chose to make big beat music for the game as it both fitted the atmosphere of the game and had not been done in video games before. Him and Sano would also work on Tekken Tag Tournament with other composers in 1999. He left Namco in 2001 to become a freelancer, as he wanted more freedom to work on non-game projects. Three years later, he founded music production studio Monaca. Although it originally consisted of just Okabe, he would later be joined by ex-Namco composers such as Satoru Kōsaki, who also wanted to work on non-game projects. To this day, the studio frequently compose for both video games and anime, as well as other types of media such as live action films. In 2010, he served as the lead composer for Nier, being assisted by fellow Monaca composers Kakeru Ishihama and Keigo Hoashi, along with Cavia composer Takafumi Nishimura. To fit with the game's story, he composed a soundtrack that he describes as "mysterious, delicate, and ephemeral". The team were given creative freedom, while working under Yoko Taro's direction, who attended the same university as Okabe and was a 3D graphics designer at Namco. The composers worked with English-Japanese singer Emi Evans, who wrote and sung the lyrics present in the game's songs. Okabe, Ishihama and Hoashi would go on to compose for its 2017 sequel , while being joined by Kuniyuki Takahashi. Its music was acclaimed; it won the award for "Best Score/Music" at The Game Awards 2017, and was a runner-up for "Best Original Music" at IGN's Best of 2017 Awards. In 2019, he composed for battle royale gameCyber Hunter with fellow Monaca composer Ryuichi Takada, both working with violinist Yu Manabe.
