Game Music Showcase: Taito Songs

Taito is one of the more well-known Japanese game makers, mostly for its classic coin-ops, and several of its gaming franchises prevail even today. But did you know that despite being completely based in Japan, Taito was not founded by a Japanese person? It's true! It was founded in 1953 by Michael Kogan, a Russian Jewish businessman as Taito Trading Company, which mainly deals in the import/export of vending machines and jukeboxes. Its first videogame was released in 1978, which is the now-classic Space Invaders, one of the games that triggered the boom period for arcade gaming in the 1980s.

After Space Invaders, the trading company shifted into the interactive entertainment world permanently, renamed as Taito Corporation. Taito was bought up by Square Enix in 2005, making it a subsidiary of the publishing giant, however its projects are still independent from that of Square Enix's, and continues to churn out high-quality games like the Cooking Mama franchise, Music GunGun and BlazBlue, and of course, not forgetting the continuing success of its classic franchises like Bubble Bobble and its countless other shooter games.

All the Taito game songs in this series are composed by ZUNTATA, the official Taito sound team founded by Hisayoshi Ogura (also known as OGR). In its more than 15 years of activity, the band has featured a number of famous Taito developers, such as Masahiko Takaki (Mar.), Yasuhisa Watanabe (Yack), Shuichiro Nakazawa (SHU) and Kazuko Umino (karn.). One of its oldest members, Tamayo Kawamoto, left the band in 2006 and founded another band, Betta Flash, with the singer Cyua.