Yasunori Mitsuda

光田康典

Yasunori Mitsuda is a Japanese composer and musician. He is best known for his work in video games, primarily for the Chrono, Shadow Hearts, and Inazuma Eleven franchises, among various others. Mitsuda began composing music for his own games in high school, later attending the Junior College of Music in Tokyo. While still a student, he was granted an intern position at the game development studio Wolf Team.

Mitsuda later joined Square Co., Ltd.(now Square Enix) upon graduation in 1992 after seeing a magazine advertisement in an office he was visiting with his professor. He worked there as a sound effects designer for two years before telling Square's vice president Hironobu Sakaguchi he would quit unless he could write music for their games. Shortly after, Sakaguchi assigned him to work on the soundtrack for Chrono Trigger, whose music has since been cited as among the best in video games.

After Chrono Trigger's success and the music's acclaim. Mitsuda went on to compose for several other games at Square, including Xenogears (1998) and Chrono Cross (1999). He left the company and became independent in 1998.

In 2001, he respectively founded his own music production studio and record company, Procyon Studio and Sleigh Bells. Mitsuda has also contributed music for anime series, films, and television programs, as well as producing albums.