Creative Leadership and Music

A deck by Faye Patel · 2 cards

The influential developers and composers who shaped the franchise's identity.

Hikaru Utada

Hikaru Utada (宇多田ヒカル, Utada Hikaru; born January 19, 1983), also known mononymously as Utada, is a Japanese-American singer, songwriter, and record producer. They are considered to be one of the most influential and best-selling musical artists in Japan. They are perhaps best known by international audiences for writing and performing four theme-songs to Square Enix and Disney's Kingdom Hearts video game series: "Simple and Clean", "Sanctuary", "Don't Think Twice", and "Face My Fears" (with Skrillex). Utada was born in New York City to Japanese parents, record producer Teruzane Utada and enka singer Keiko Fuji.

Tetsuya Nomura

Tetsuya Nomura is a Japanese video game artist, designer, producer, and director working for Square Enix. He was hired by Square initially as a monster designer for Final Fantasy V (1992), before being shifted towards secondary character designer alongside Yoshitaka Amano for Final Fantasy VI (1994). Final Fantasy VII (1997) had him working in the original story alongside Hironobu Sakaguchi, and marked his debut as the lead character designer, a capacity he would retain for several future installments of the series, as well as other Square Enix titles such as The Bouncer and The World Ends with You. He also created the characters Cactuar, Gilgamesh, and Tonberry.