Biography
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Born
1 May 1957 (age 67)
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Born In
Tokyo, Japan
Kow Otani (大谷幸, Ōtani Kō, born May 1, 1957) is a prolific Japanese composer, arranger and pianist from Tokyo.
He's known for the music behind several anime (like Gundam Wing, Haibane Renmei, Eyeshield21 and Shakugan no Shana), several japanese movies (for example 咬みつきたい, Gamera and Godzilla, Mothra and King Ghidorah) and some video games (like Shadow of the Colossus, Sky Odyssey and Philosoma).
Soon after graduating from university he became one of the founding members of IMAGINE (currently known as IMAGIN), a company dedicated to producing high-end music for anime and anime-related video games.
Otani's first appearance as music producer would be as composer for the anime シティーハンター. Soon after he'd be composing the music for several anime like Spy Games (1988), The Ultimate Teacher (1988), The Yadamura Waltz (1988), Future GPX Cyber Formula (1991) and You're Under Arrest (1994). In 1995 he composed the music that would make his name more known internationally with the music composition for Gundam Wing and 2 years later for Gundam Wing Endless Waltz.
Several successful and lesser-successful anime would follow after that, among which Eyeshield 21, Outlaw Star, Tokyo Magnitude 8.0, aBe's Haibane Renmei and Shakugan no Shana.
But he wasn't only famous for his work on anime. In 1991 he composed the music for the movie 就職戦線異状なし about several students trying to find a job at the end of the 80s when japanese companies tried to hire only the best. Three more movies would follow untill he started to work on the music for the 9th Gamera movie, Gamera: Guardian of the Universe, in 1994(released 1995). Several other movies came soon after that among which 2 more Gamera movies in 1996 and 1999. Currently The iDol is the last movie for which he composed music.
He has also composed music for a few video games, most notably Shadow of the Colossus (Roar of the Earth), the PlayStation 2 flight simulator Sky Odyssey, and the PlayStation shooter Philosoma.
Roar of the Earth won the "Soundtrack of the Year" award in the United States-based video game magazine Electronic Gaming Monthly.
Kow Otani has also been involved in the education and advicing-role for several younger japanese composers among which 宮崎慎二 (Crayon Shin-Chan, Pokemon) and 浜口 史郎 (Final Fantasy XI, Rosario + Vampire). Most of which happened relating to producing studio IMAGIN.
During the summer of 2010 Bandai Visual announced Otani will be producing the music for the latest .hack// anime: .hack//Quantum, which is scheduled to be released in november 2010.
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