Tone Glow 156: Yuu Miyake
An interview with Yuu Miyake, the former Bandai Namco sound designer who worked on 'Katamari Damacy' and the 'Tekken' series
Yuu Miyake
The Katamari Damacy soundtrack would not drip with the sweet, summer catharsis of slurping a freezing iced coffee if it weren’t for Yuu Miyake, the former Bandai Namco sound designer. Miyake—now a freelance composer, DJ, and lecturer at Tokyo Polytechnic University—has elevated decades of video games like Tekken 3 into ecstasy with his uniquely exuberant electronic music. Similarly, puzzle-action game Katamari Damacy has a cheerful approach to destruction (playing it means taking on the mindset of a washing machine that eats all your underwear). The PlayStation 2 game pairs perfectly with Miyake’s taste for bright, crunchy sounds, so it makes sense that it popularized Miyake’s work back in 2004. For Katamari’s 20th anniversary, Ashley Bardhan interviewed Miyake over email from May through June, 2024. Their translated conversation covers everything from Miyake’s appreciation for waterfalls to his unexpectedly large role in Katamari Damacy’s production.
Ashley Bardhan: First of all, hello Yuu Miyake! How are you today? What has been on your mind recently?
Yuu Miyake: I’m doing well! Since becoming a freelancer, I’ve become unusually knowledgeable about taxes.
I want to ask you about your childhood. I read that you were often sick as a child. Are there any memories that stand out to you from that time in your life? Do you think being in the hospital was good for your relationship to music?
My time in the hospital had many hard moments, but there were also a few happy events. Long-term hospital patients all had a radio cassette player with a cassette deck by their bedside, and they would pass the time listening to their favorite music. I also begged my parents to buy me a radio cassette player, but I got a mono cassette player with only one speaker. As a child, I was very shocked, haha. This is what I wanted.
Anyway, I had plenty of time, so I spent my days listening to music while reading books and drawing pictures. I often listened to anime theme songs like Mazinger Z, and disco remixes of Space Invaders game music. Among my cassettes, my absolute favorite was the album Solid State Survivor (1979) by Yellow Magic Orchestra. I used to play it very quietly before going to sleep, and by the time Side A or B finished, I would be asleep. Now, I come to think of that experience as a form of highly advanced education.
What were your teen years like? Can you tell me about your punk band? I read in an old translated interview that you were in one.
Unfortunately, I didn’t form a punk band. When I was a college student, I was in a noisy rockabilly band and a mixture rock band, haha. I started playing guitar at 18 years old and, since I was 19, I started forming various bands. Of course, I enjoyed creating band sounds to a certain extent, but my real purpose was not that. I was trying to utilize the experience of playing various instrument parts to benefit my future song production—this was a secret from my bandmates at the time.
When I was a teenager, I also interpreted game music as techno music and listened to it. I also enjoyed copying and arranging music that seemed suitable for the built-in sound source of my PC8801-FA. I did this all alone! To do it completely alone like that might be a bit punk.
Do you think there is anything “punk” about video games?
I think video games have a punk, or rather, alternative spirit. As I mentioned earlier, I used to find mainstream music boring, so I interpreted old electronic game music as techno music and listened to it. As for the punk aspect, I think electronic sounds themselves fit well with the punk spirit.
I say this again but games themselves have a somewhat alternative spirit. Though, nowadays, they have grown so large as to encompass the feelings of various types of people. (Maybe “grown so large” isn’t quite the right way to put it. Perhaps it’s something to be celebrated instead).
Were you nervous when you first joined Bandai Namco?
Namco was indeed a company I admired. I was most nervous during the job interview. Because I was so nervous, I didn’t do well in the interview with the executives. As a result, I wasn’t hired after the executive interview. I’ve read somewhere that [Keita] Takahashi, who created Katamari Damacy, also failed the interview. I later found out that I was hired because an executive named Mr. S pushed for me. So, I’m still grateful to Mr. S even now.
Once I was hired, I was first surprised by how small and quaint the closest train station 矢口の渡し (Yaguchi-no-Watashi) was compared to what I had imagined. I assumed Namco would be in a more luxurious location (“渡し” Watashi refers to a ferry used in the past for transporting people when there were no bridges due to security reasons). I remember feeling relieved when I saw a sign like “This Way to Namco” along the way to the headquarters.
The conversation is going off track, but in one interview, Editor-in-Chief [Kazuhiko] Torishima, who created the golden age of [major manga publisher] Shueisha, said that he hired people in two directions: those who were highly capable, and those who were interesting in some way. I think Namco at the time [of my hiring] was able to do that. I think that was a really important point.
Tell me about your work on Tekken. How much creative freedom did you have at first, and how much do you have now?
The development of the PlayStation version of Tekken 3 became my first assigned task when I joined Namco. I had quite a bit of creative freedom, but time was limited. I remember trying very hard to catch up with what [Nobuyoshi] Sano-senpai and [Keiichi] Okabe-senpai were creating. Initially, I was only scheduled to participate in the ending movie, but Sano-senpai liked my work and I ended up composing music for the in-game scenes as well. At that time, there were major trends like “digital rock” and “big beat.” I created music for the stages following those directions. There were subtle hints about which character’s stage it was for. I remember working on it by utilizing my ability to play the guitar. This approach has hardly changed in the most recent work [2024’s Tekken 8].
Do you still like playing the Tekken games?
I don’t play fighting games much these days, but I do play various other types of games like side-scrolling shooting games, simulation games, Metroidvania-style action games, and so on.
I still love playing Tekken at arcades, and I know you worked on some sound effects for the 1999 arcade game Tekken Tag Tournament. I am curious, how different is creating sound effects from composing music? Do the sound effects need to complement the music?
I just remembered something I’ve forgotten. I created the in-game voice (roars, etc.) for a character named Gon, who is a dinosaur. Back then [in the ’90s], at Namco, it was traditionally expected that newcomers would start by creating sound effects. I remember creating sound effects for the cinema scenes, in addition to Gon’s voice. Because creating sound effects is part of the sound design, it is fundamentally different in terms of the initial concept and process. However, it can be a selling point for audio artists to be capable of sound design because they have a spirit of continuously incorporating unprecedented ideas. Personally, I prioritize sound effects over music in games, so I believe music needs to complement sound effects.
Looking back on your involvement with Katamari Damacy (the game was released 20 years ago! Can you believe it?), what are you most proud of?
What I am most proud of is that Katamari Damacy is part of a permanent collection at MoMA. If my memory is correct, it was displayed alongside Pac-Man and Donkey Kong. That’s surprising.
How much did you know about the mechanics of Katamari Damacy before composing the soundtrack?
I knew almost everything. Back then, I had a lot in common with the director. We both enjoyed creating as a hobby. As an extension of that, there was this project proposal, and when I saw it, I was convinced that this would be something interesting—a new game system like never before. (For reference, here is a drawing of a clump on top of Mount Fuji).
Because of that, Director Takahashi trusted me and allowed me the freedom to work on it. I’ve recently come to realize that having a deep understanding of the content of a project means you don’t have to worry about it too much, and that this is very important.
What do you do before sitting down to compose something? What are your favorite plugins? How about drum machines?
I’m not skilled at it, but I often strike a key, playing this and that. By doing that, I become the most knowledgeable person in the world about which music fits which scene. Once you reach that point, it becomes easier from then on… I might be exaggerating, lol.
I also love drum machines. I can’t go into too much detail because it’s confidential, but I’ve been exploring and creating my work based on a certain input method that I find promising. Currently, I’m using a custom-made drum machine called euDrum and a trigger machine for the remix I’m working on. I used the same [euDrum] drum machine in a remix for [1982 shoot ’em up game] Xevious.
Is there anything you dislike about composing for video games?
I dislike how setting up a PC can be so complicated. I feel foolish that I’ve been spending time setting up PCs for the past few years. I’m working on accomplishing what I want to do, but, especially with Mac, the specifications change too much. It might be time for me to change something.
Do you still lecture at Tokyo Polytechnic University? As a professor, what is your teaching philosophy?
It’s been about 10 years now. I don’t mean to make classes comical, but I make sure to keep them as fun as possible. It’s a basic principle, but I update my classes every year to make the content meaningful and beneficial for the students and myself.
As a DJ, what is your musical philosophy?
I usually play long mixes. I aim to create DJ sets that feel like new songs every time, and with a bit of mashup style. It’s like DJing with the feeling of composing music. Otherwise, I get bored. It still takes a lot of time for me to prepare. I want to reduce this preparation time to zero in the future. Once I get the tracks, I want to be able to handle the rest on-site.
What do you listen to most frequently?
For my pleasure, I listen to the stuff that I find interesting and unlike anything I’ve heard before. I enjoy rhythm-based music, dance music, drone music. The sound of waterfalls and rain. The sound of someone talking, and piano pieces from the early modern era, about 120 years ago.
How do you hope video games will change in the next 20 years, and in what ways would you like them to stay the same?
I hope video games will become more normalized than they are now. When it comes to game music, for example, I’d like to see a booth dedicated to game music at a major festival like Ultra Music Festival, where people from various backgrounds can enjoy it.
What do you think more people should know about you?
OK. With Katamari Damacy, I was involved in the creation of the game itself. In other words, I’ve recently started to think that it’s okay to say that I was a planner.
Thank you for reading the 156th issue of Tone Glow. We broke it. Yes, We were naughty. Completely naughty. So, so very sorry. But just between you and us, it felt quite good.
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