Manabu Namiki

is a Japanese video game composer who is primarily known for his work in shoot 'em up games. He has worked at game companies such as Allumer, NMK, Raizing and M2. In October 2002, Namiki, Hitoshi Sakimoto, and Masaharu Iwata founded the music production company Basiscape, whom he worked with until 2011.

Early life Namiki became interested in arcade games during his childhood. He never received any musical education, nor learned to play any instruments. He became enthusiastic about music from video games, as well as hard rock and heavy metal bands such as Whitesnake and Metallica. After buying an MSX2, he learnt how to program music in BASIC and attempted to imitate the riffs of the bands he enjoyed. He also joined a video game music cover band in 1989 along with his classmate Jin Watanabe, who also went on to become a video game composer. The following year, he left college and joined NMK as a full-time sound creator. He worked on several titles such as Thunder Dragon 2 and Bomb Jack Twin, as well as Zed Blade, which features hardcore techno music as a response to the trend of techno music in video games. His final work at the company was Desert War; by the time the game was released in 1995, he had already left NMK to join Raizing.

Freelance work and Basiscape (2000–2012) Namiki was offered the opportunity to work as a planner at Raizing instead of sound; as he ultimately wanted to continue pursuing his composing career, he left the company in early 2000 and became freelance. He struggled to find employment, while some game projects he had taken on were cancelled. His first project as a freelancer was DokixDoki Sasette!, where he composed all of the music and created the sound driver. This was followed by Cave's shoot 'em up games DoDonPachi DaiOuJou and Ketsui: Kizuna Jigoku Tachi, released in 2002 and 2003 respectively. He found the projects challenging; the music in both games had to be composed in the MOD format using 8 channels. In October 2002, he co-founded the music production company Basiscape with Sakimoto and Masaharu Iwata, both of whom he had previously worked with on projects at Raizing, although he worked as a contractor in a freelance capacity and not as a full-time employee. While employed at M2, Namiki also worked on several titles in the Sega 3D Reprint Archives series; 3D OutRun notably features two new tracks composed by him and M2 colleague Jane-Evelyn Nisperos respectively.

Namiki left M2 in 2017, but continues to maintain a close relationship with the company. He designed and composed music for the Game Gear shoot 'em up GG Aleste 3, which released in 2020 as part of Aleste Collection.

Notable works Year Title

Blandia Music with Hisao Shiomi and Akira Inoue Super Spacefortress Macross Location test version; music with Kazunori Hideya and H. Mizushima