Amin Abbas

DUBAI: Rika Muranaka, a Japanese composer and music producer renown for her songs for Metal Gear video games series spoke to Arab News Japan about her most popular works throughout her career and her inspiration for her work.

Some of her works include “The Best Is Yet to Come” from Metal Gear Solid, “Can’t Say Goodbye to Yesterday” from Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty and “Don’t Be Afraid” from Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater. She also composed the song “I am the Wind” for Castlevania: Symphony of the Night and the song “Esperándote” for the original Silent Hill.

Muranaka said she first started working for Japanese video game composer Hideo Kojima. “It was very exciting not knowing what to expect from Hideo Kojima and not knowing how my music will fit into the scenes,” she said.

“In the beginning, we didn’t even have a script or no drawing, nothing at all. It was almost like a miracle to guess the games & I had to read Hideo Kojima’s mind, but somehow I started to write the music to inspire gamers.”

Muranaka’s career started at the tender age of 10, when she started to compose music.

“I was really good at memorizing. So, I was memorizing how my teacher played. I never really learned to read music until later on in high school and that’s when I started to learn to play Jazz,” she explained.

Her first project, she told Arab News Japan, was a Castlevania symphony of the night. She then went on to work for for Silent Hill with Akira Yamaoka.

Muranaka is most well-known for her soundtracks for the Metal Gear video games series. She said it was a very “exciting” experience for her. “Everything was new for me at that time. They were trying to figure it out how to develop the game and I was asking myself If I have enough memory to write music for the game.”

“It was new era for video games, and I want to change the music for the video game industry,” she added.

Muranaka expressed her joy at being part of this video game process.

“People recognize me all over the world now. I must say that’s fascinating and I’m grateful for the opportunity and all the fans in the world by playing the Metal Gear video game series,” she added.

The composer is currently working on Virtual Reality therapy and gaming.