Yoko Shimomura facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Yoko Shimomura
下村 陽子
Shimomura at the 2024 Game Developers Choice Awards
Born	(1967-10-19) October 19, 1967 (age 57) Hyōgo Prefecture, Japan
Alma mater	Osaka College of Music
Occupation	Composer pianist
Years active	1988–present
Employer	Capcom (1988–1993) Square (1993–2002)
Awards	BAFTA Fellowship (2025)
Musical career
Genres	Video game electronic symphonic
Instruments	Piano
Labels	Brave Wave Productions

Yoko Shimomura (Japanese: 下村 陽子, Hepburn: Shimomura Yōko, born October 19, 1967) is a Japanese composer and pianist. She is famous for making music for many video games.

Yoko Shimomura finished music school in 1988. She then started working at a video game company called Capcom. There, she wrote music for popular games like Final Fight, Street Fighter II, and The King of Dragons.

In 1993, Yoko moved to another game company, Square (now called Square Enix). Her first project there was Live A Live. She also composed music for games such as Super Mario RPG, Legend of Mana, and Parasite Eve. She became very well-known for her music in the Kingdom Hearts series. In 2002, she decided to work as a freelancer, meaning she worked for herself. She still continued to create music for Square Enix games like The 3rd Birthday and Final Fantasy XV.

Some other well-known games Yoko Shimomura has worked on include the Mario & Luigi series, Radiant Historia, and Xenoblade Chronicles. Her music has been played in many video game concerts. Her songs are also available on albums and as piano sheet music. Yoko Shimomura is part of the music label Brave Wave Productions. She received the BAFTA Fellowship award in 2025 for her amazing work.

Early Life and Music Journey

Yoko Shimomura was born on October 19, 1967, in Hyōgo Prefecture, Japan. She loved music from a very young age. She started taking piano lessons when she was about four or five years old.

She began making her own music by playing the piano freely. She would pretend to compose and eventually created her own songs. She even remembers the first song she ever made! Yoko went to the Osaka College of Music and finished her studies as a piano major in 1988.

After graduating, Yoko planned to become a piano teacher. She even got a job offer from a music store. However, she had always loved playing video games. So, she sent some of her music to different video game companies that were looking for new talent. Capcom invited her for an audition and offered her a job. Her family and teachers were surprised because video game music was not highly respected back then. They had paid for her expensive music school and didn't understand why she would choose this path. But Yoko accepted the job at Capcom anyway.

Yoko Shimomura's Career in Gaming Music

Shimomura in 2007

While at Capcom, Yoko Shimomura helped create the music for over 16 games. This included the very popular Street Fighter II, where she composed almost all the music. Her first soundtrack at Capcom was for Samurai Sword in 1988.

Final Fight, released in 1989, was her first work to be featured on a separate music album. This album included music from several Capcom games. A year later, the soundtrack for Street Fighter II was the first album to feature only her music. She started by working on console games, but by 1990, she moved to the arcade game division. She was also a member of Capcom's band, Alph Lyla. They played music from Capcom games, including some of Yoko's songs. She even performed live with the band a few times.

In 1993, Shimomura left Capcom to join another game company called Square. She wanted to write "classical-style" music for fantasy role-playing games. At Capcom, she couldn't move to the console department to work on their role-playing game series Breath of Fire, though she did contribute one song to the first game.

Her first project at Square was the music for the role-playing game Live A Live in 1994. The next year, while working on Super Mario RPG, she was asked to help Noriko Matsueda with the music for Front Mission. Even though she was very busy and it wasn't the type of game she usually worked on, she couldn't say no. After these, she worked on Tobal No. 1. This was the last time she worked with another composer on a game for ten years.

Over the next few years, she composed music for several games, including Parasite Eve and Legend of Mana. Yoko feels that the music for Legend of Mana best shows who she is as a composer, and it's still her favorite. Parasite Eve was the first game she worked on for the PlayStation console. This allowed her to include a vocal song in the soundtrack, as the console had the right sound capabilities.

In 2002, she wrote the music for Kingdom Hearts. She says this soundtrack is the most "special" to her and was a big turning point in her career. She also considers the music for Street Fighter II and Super Mario RPG as important moments in her life as a composer.

Kingdom Hearts was a huge success, selling over four million copies worldwide. Many people praised Shimomura's music in the game. The main song has even been ranked as one of the best role-playing game title tracks ever. The soundtrack led to two albums of piano arrangements. Kingdom Hearts was the last soundtrack she worked on while at Square.

After Kingdom Hearts came out in 2002, Shimomura left Square for maternity leave. She started working as a freelancer in 2003. Since then, she has continued to build on her work. She has composed music for eleven Kingdom Hearts games and Nintendo's Mario & Luigi series. She has also worked on many other projects, like Heroes of Mana and various arranged music albums.

In February 2014, Yoko Shimomura played piano at a special concert in Tokyo. It celebrated her 25 years in music. She performed songs from games like Kingdom Hearts, Live a Live, and Street Fighter II. During a performance of "Beware the Forest's Mushrooms" from Super Mario RPG, fellow composer Yasunori Mitsuda joined her on stage, playing the Irish bouzouki. Most recently, she composed and produced much of the music for Final Fantasy XV. She started writing for this game in 2006, ten years before it was released. She is also a member of the music label Brave Wave Productions.

Yoko Shimomura's Works

Video Game Music

Compositions

Arrangements

Other Music Projects

Yoko Shimomura's Impact and Style

Yoko Shimomura is known as one of the most famous video game music composers. Her best works were put together in an album called Drammatica: The Very Best of Yoko Shimomura, released in March 2008. This album features her music from Kingdom Hearts and other games, played by a full orchestra. Yoko chose songs that fans loved and that sounded great with an orchestra.

In 2009, her wish came true when a concert called Sinfonia Drammatica was held in Stockholm. It featured music from her Drammatica album. In March 2007, Shimomura also released her first album that wasn't for video games, called Murmur. It featured vocal songs sung by Chata.

Music from Kingdom Hearts made up a quarter of the Symphonic Fantasies concerts in September 2009. The main song from Legend of Mana was also played by the Australian Eminence Symphony Orchestra in 2007.

Piano sheet music for songs from Legend of Mana, Kingdom Hearts, and Kingdom Hearts II has been published. This allows fans to play her amazing music themselves.

Yoko Shimomura's first concert outside Japan was in Paris in November 2015. Later that month, she performed in Mexico City. In September 2016, some of her music for Final Fantasy XV was performed by the London Philharmonic Orchestra in London and Boston. Yoko herself played the piano at these concerts. She also composed for the concert piece Merregnon: Land of Silence. This work was performed by the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra in 2021 and filmed. More performances have taken place since 2022.

Yoko Shimomura received a Lifetime Achievement Award at the 2024 Game Developers Choice Awards. She also received the BAFTA Fellowship award in 2025. These awards celebrate her long and successful career.

Musical Influences and Creative Process

On her website, Yoko Shimomura shares that composers like Ludwig van Beethoven, Frédéric Chopin, and Maurice Ravel have influenced her. She also enjoys "lounge-style jazz." Even with her classical training, she uses many different music styles in her work. These include rock, electronic, Asian-inspired, ambient, industrial, pop, symphonic, operatic, and chiptune music. Sometimes, she uses many of these styles in just one soundtrack!

She gets ideas for her songs from things that make her feel strong emotions. This could be "a beautiful picture, scenery, tasting something delicious, scents that bring back memories, happy and sad things... Anything that moves my emotion gives me inspiration." Yoko also finds inspiration when she is doing something different from her daily routine, like traveling.

She believes her music style has changed a lot over the years, but her love for music stays the same. Yoko thinks it's important for music to share a subtle message. Something that comes from your imagination and stays with the listener, without being too obvious. She has said that her favorite song she composed is "Dearly Beloved" from Kingdom Hearts.

See also

In Spanish: Yōko Shimomura para niños