Shoji Meguro
Shoji Meguro is a Japanese composer and guitarist who works for the video game company Atlus. Meguro joined them in 1995 and has since worked on many of their games, mainly those in the Persona series. His musical style spans several genres, including rock, electronic, jazz, classical, and J-pop.
Career
Early life
Born in Tokyo, Japan, Meguro became familiar with technology from a young age, due to his parents running a factory. As a child, Meguro did not take an interest in popular music, and instead listened to and enjoyed classical. In junior high, he became interested in the likes of jazz artists such as T-Square, Herb Alpert, and Casiopea. It was in junior high that he became particularly fond of writing and profiteering music. He then majored in hydrodynamics at the College of Industrial Technology at Nihon University.Atlus
After sending a demo tape and attending two interviews, Meguro was hired by Atlus in 1995. He got his start in the company by working on ' for the PlayStation, for which he composed 16 tracks, including one that became a staple in the series: "Aria of the Soul". Meguro continued to work on several projects in the mid to late 1990s, including ' on the Sega Saturn, composing around 50 pieces for the game, as well as Maken X on the Dreamcast.The first time he became a leading composer was on ' in 2003, where he somewhat diverged from the music in the prior games for the Megami Tensei series, giving the game a more orchestral and fusion sound. A crucial point of his career was '; he had creative freedom that let him establish his own sound. In 2005, Meguro took a break from the Shin Megami Tensei series to work on titles such as ', ', and '.
Meguro's career was propelled to international stardom in his craft with his work on Persona 3, where he used a pop-based vocal style, and the soundtrack to the game sold over 100,000 copies. In 2008, Meguro continued upon his success with Persona 4, where he blended genres to craft a unique sound. A concert at Akasaka Blitz was held to celebrate Meguro's work on the Persona series, where Persona favorites were played. During this time, he also worked on the music on '.
Meguro was promoted to game director for the PlayStation Portable remake of Persona. During this time he received some criticism from some fans for changing the soundtrack for the remake, but overall received a warm response. He later directed the PSP ports of both ' and '. In the mid-2010s, Meguro served as the sound director for three spin-off Persona titles, as well as composing and producing the majority of the soundtrack for Persona 5. Meguro also contributed to the upcoming Project Re Fantasy game, the film Mint, and Persona 5 Royal. He also served as the lead composer for , arranging various tracks from the original game in addition to writing new material.
Musical style and influences
Although many of his works feature a signature rock style, Meguro experiments with different musical genres, such as orchestral, electronica, jazz, and hip hop on various projects. Meguro cites video game composers Koichi Sugiyama, Hiroshi Kawaguchi, and Takenobu Mitsuyoshi, as well as T-Square, Casiopea, Beethoven, and Tchaikovsky as some of his musical influences. Regarding the use of English lyrics in many of the Persona games, Meguro stated that due to the Japanese people not fully understanding the language, it helped create music that was not as distracting to them as Japanese would be.Works
All works listed below were composed by Meguro unless otherwise noted.| Year | Title | Notes |
| 1996 | ' | with Hidehito Aoki, Kenichi Tsuchiya, and Misaki Okibe |
| 1997 | ' | with Toshiko Tasaki and Tsukasa Masuko |
| 1999 | Maken X | with Takahiro Ogata |
| 2001 | ' | |
| 2003 | ' | with Kenichi Tsuchiya and Toshiko Tasaki |
| 2004 | ' | with Kenichi Tsuchiya and Toshiko Tasaki |
| 2004 | ' | with Kenichi Tsuchiya |
| 2005 | ' | |
| 2005 | ' | with Kenichi Tsuchiya and Kenichi Kikkawa |
| 2006 | ' | |
| 2006 | Persona 3 | |
| 2006 | ' | Sound director |
| 2006 | ' | Composed the opening theme |
| 2007 | Persona 3 FES | with Kenichi Tsuchiya |
| 2008 | Persona 4 | with Atsushi Kitajoh |
| 2008 | ' | |
| 2009 | ' | Game director. Arrangements with Ryota Kozuka and Kenichi Tsuchiya |
| 2009 | ' | |
| 2009 | Persona 3 Portable | |
| 2010 | Trauma Team | with Atsushi Kitajoh and Ryota Kozuka |
| 2011 | Catherine | with Atsushi Kitajoh and Kenichi Tsuchiya |
| 2011 | ' | Game director |
| 2012 | Persona 4 Arena | with Atsushi Kitajoh |
| 2012 | ' | Game director |
| 2012 | Persona 4 Golden | with Atsushi Kitajoh |
| 2013 | Persona 4 Arena Ultimax | Sound director |
| 2014 | ' | Sound director |
| 2015 | ' | |
| 2015 | ' | Sound director |
| 2016 | Persona 5 | with Toshiki Konishi and Atsushi Kitajoh |
| 2017 | ' | with Toshiki Konishi |
| 2018 | ' | Sound director |
| 2018 | ' | Sound director |
| 2018 | ' | Sound director |
| 2019 | ' | |
| 2019 | Persona 5 Royal | with Toshiki Konishi |
| TBA | Project Re Fantasy |
| Year | Title | Notes |
| 2013 | ' | |
| 2014 | ' | Composed "Fate is In Our Hands" |
| 2015 | ' | with Tetsuya Kobayashi |
| 2016 | ' | Composed "Boku no Akashi" |