COMPOSER

Kenji Kawai

1957 - Today

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Kenji Kawai (川井 憲次, Kawai Kenji; born April 23, 1957) is a Japanese music composer and arranger. Known as one of the biggest names in the soundtrack world, he has worked on a wide range of mixed media productions, including anime, TV shows, films and video games. Among his credits are Toei's Kamen Rider Heisei Generations Forever, Tsui Hark's Seven Swords and Young Detective Dee: Rise of the Sea Dragon; Wilson Yip's Ip Man; Mamoru Oshii's films The Red Spectacles, StrayDog: Kerberos Panzer Cops, Ghost in the Shell, Mobile Police Patlabor, and Assault Girls. He also worked on the OVA and TV anime adaptations of Vampire Princess Miyu, The Sky Crawlers and Avalon; the anime adaptations of Rumiko Takahashi's Ranma ½ and Maison Ikkoku; the live-action adaptation of Gantz and Hideo Nakata's films Ring, Ring 2, Chaos, Dark Water and Kaidan. Read more on Wikipedia

His biography is available in different languages on Wikipedia. Kenji Kawai is the 1,018th most popular composer (down from 717th in 2019), the 1,125th most popular biography from Japan (down from 796th in 2019) and the 10th most popular Japanese Composer.

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Among COMPOSERS

Among composers, Kenji Kawai ranks 1,018 out of 1,451Before him are Erkki Aaltonen, Mikael Tariverdiev, Knut Nystedt, Jean Mouton, Jāzeps Vītols, and Friedrich Kiel. After him are Cristóbal Halffter, Sándor Végh, Alberto Franchetti, Gustav Lange, Edvard Mirzoyan, and Philippe Sarde.

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Contemporaries

Among people born in 1957, Kenji Kawai ranks 215Before him are Goodluck Jonathan, Jean-Christophe Yoccoz, Carlos Renato Frederico, Nick Hornby, Ali Larijani, and Serhii Plokhy. After him are Eric S. Raymond, Gary Lewis, Mirjana Karanović, Simon McBurney, Maurizio Arrivabene, and Michaëlle Jean.

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In Japan

Among people born in Japan, Kenji Kawai ranks 1,125 out of 6,245Before him are Kiyotsugu Hirayama (1874), Hiroyuki Usui (1953), Norio Wakamoto (1945), Shigeru Kayano (1926), Shigemitsu Sudo (1956), and Akira Terao (1947). After him are Jinichi Kusaka (1888), Masayoshi Ito (1913), Hiroki Iizuka (1978), Susumu Hirasawa (1954), Minoru Chiaki (1917), and Ikuo Matsumoto (1941).

Among COMPOSERS In Japan

Among composers born in Japan, Kenji Kawai ranks 10Before him are Miki Matsubara (1959), Toshi Ichiyanagi (1933), Nobuo Uematsu (1959), Shunsuke Kikuchi (1931), Koichi Sugiyama (1931), and Keiko Abe (1937). After him are Akira Ifukube (1914), Koji Kondo (1961), Yasushi Akutagawa (1925), Fumio Hayasaka (1914), Shirō Sagisu (1957), and Akira Yamaoka (1968).