| Name: Takayuki “J99” Aihara – 相原隆行 |  |
| Date of Birth: 02/Sep/1968, Tokyo | |
| Occupation: Composition | |
| Best known for: Tekken, Driving Emotion Type-S, Drag-on Dragoon | |
| Influences: Currently unknown | |
| Website: Studio Carnaval | |
| SD Credits: CoM (Composer) | |
J99’s journey into videogame music started in 1991 when he created te score for the arcade game Tank Force. Between then and 1996 he would work on several projects for Namco and Sega, including Galaxian 3 and Dunk Shot, leading up to Tekken 1 and 2 for the PlayStation. He would then join Arika together with Shinji Hosoe and Ayako Saso to work on Street Fighter EX, and at the same time they would all three be offered the commission to work on Square’s title Bushido Blade. He would then continue to compose tracks for Arika’s games.
In 1999 he created his own studio, Studio Carnaval, and left Arika shortly after to follow Shinji Hosoe into the group Super Sweep. Now in 2000, the three would again be contacted by Square to work on Driving Emotion Type-S.
After several contributions across several gaming areas, they would be joined by Nobuyoshi to create the score for Square’s Drag-on Dragoon, among several other projects that would lead up to 2006, when Aihara would join Ito and Iwata to create the soundtrack for Children of Mana.
If you would like to learn more about Takayuki Aihara, you can find a more in-depth and exclusive profile over on SquareEnixMusic.
