# Greetings from Japan



## Chris Porter (Sep 16, 2015)

Hello! I'm Chris Porter and I'm a video game music composer based in Japan (originally from the U.S.). I've been composing music as a hobby since high school but have started officially writing for games recently. So far I've written the soundtracks for two games that have been released (Bird Hunter and ikenie), and I have three more game soundtracks that I'm working on currently. One of those games is called "Why is the Princess in a Magic Forest?!", and I'm thrilled to say that we will be showcasing it at this year's Tokyo Game Show on September 19th and 20th. 

Very nice to meet you all! I look forward to connecting with all of you talented composers on here.


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## tokatila (Sep 16, 2015)

はじめまして!

Nice man, Japan is a lovely country, spent there a five week holiday couple years ago also have studied the language a couple of years. Definitely gonna come again when my kids grow up to be more manageable.

Btw, I visited your page and one of my favorite genres of music is also "old" videogame music, think Zelda & Final Fantasy & Chrono Trigger & Megaman etc... I remember as a kid listening to Megaman 2 intro music over and over again. So I can really understand the influence.


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## Chris Porter (Sep 16, 2015)

tokatila said:


> はじめまして!
> 
> Nice man, Japan is a lovely country, spent there a five week holiday couple years ago also have studied the language a couple of years. Definitely gonna come again when my kids grow up to be more manageable.
> 
> Btw, I visited your page and one of my favorite genres of music is also "old" videogame music, think Zelda & Final Fantasy & Chrono Trigger & Megaman etc... I remember as a kid listening to Megaman 2 intro music over and over again. So I can really understand the influence.



はじめまして！

That's really cool that you were able to come visit Japan. I hope you are able to make it back again some day. I've been here for five years now, so everything has become kind of normal for me, but I try to remind myself from time to time that it really is pretty cool that I get to live here. 

SNES and Playstation era game music definitely had a huge impact on me. I remember when I was in middle school I had been saving up my money for a trip to Florida to see my aunt and uncle, but I ended up spending the money on a Playstation (PSX). Haha! I felt bad that I didn't see my family, but, when I look back now, that one decision I made probably changed my life. Had I never bought a Playstation, I would have never been exposed to all of the RPG music that I heard while playing it, and I probably wouldn't have been inspired to start composing my own game music. Funny how something that seems so small at the time actually was quite pivotal in the grand scheme of things. 

Anyway, thanks for saying hello!

よろしくお願いします！


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## naosato (Sep 17, 2015)

How awesome! I am originally from Japan and I really hope that you enjoy working in my home country  You must have already gotten used to those earthquakes that happens every week and "guerrilla rain" during the summer... :D And congratulations on your games! I cannot wait to hear the soundtrack. I live in Los Angeles now but would have loved to go to TGS if I were in Japan. After five years not going back there, I have to say I miss the country a lot...


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## Chris Porter (Sep 17, 2015)

naosato said:


> How awesome! I am originally from Japan and I really hope that you enjoy working in my home country  You must have already gotten used to those earthquakes that happens every week and "guerrilla rain" during the summer... :D And congratulations on your games! I cannot wait to hear the soundtrack. I live in Los Angeles now but would have loved to go to TGS if I were in Japan. After five years not going back there, I have to say I miss the country a lot...



Hi Naosato! I live in Okayama, which luckily is very safe from natural disasters like earthquakes and tsunamis. We'll occasionally feel the ground shake a bit from an earthquake in neighboring prefectures, but we haven't had anything scary in all the time I've been here. We definitely get plenty of rain here though. Especially during 梅雨!

Where in Japan are you from originally? I've also spent 10 months living in Fukuoka when I was studying at Kyushu University (in 2009-1010).

Thanks for the congrats on the games. We're really excited to have the opportunity to show our game at Tokyo Game Show. It would have been a dream come true just to go to TGS, but being able to showcase a game there is really something special. I'll be sure to leave a link to the soundtrack once it's released. Believe it or not, I actually wrote the soundtrack over two years ago! But the game has been in development for so long that we're only now getting ready to release it. Luckily, during that time I was able to keep refining the music, updating it with better quality samples as I acquired them. I had originally written almost the whole thing using Garritan Personal Orchestra, since that was the best I had at the time. Now almost all of the instruments have been replaced with 8Dio strings and woodwinds, and Cinesamples brass and percussion.

Thanks for taking the time to say hello!


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## naosato (Sep 17, 2015)

Chris Porter said:


> Hi Naosato! I live in Okayama, which luckily is very safe from natural disasters like earthquakes and tsunamis. We'll occasionally feel the ground shake a bit from an earthquake in neighboring prefectures, but we haven't had anything scary in all the time I've been here. We definitely get plenty of rain here though. Especially during 梅雨!
> 
> Where in Japan are you from originally? I've also spent 10 months living in Fukuoka when I was studying at Kyushu University (in 2009-1010).
> 
> ...


I'm originally from Saitama, which is near Tokyo (which you'd probably know where it is by now...  )! I've never been to Okayama myself, but it must be a beautiful place to be. The first thing that comes up to mind is Momotaro (very popular Japanese old tale), the story that was born in that location! Anyways, as much as I enjoy working in LA, I'm excited that you are writing music for video games in Japan! You must like Japanese video game and its music then? Nobuo Uematsu was one of my biggest influence and his music inspired me to start composing. I'm planning to travel back to Japan in a couple of month for a few weeks. I'll check out the game once it's released!


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## dcoscina (Sep 17, 2015)

Hajimemashite!


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