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Kinuyo Yamashita

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Kinuyo Yamashita (山下絹代) was born December 31st 1965 in Amagasaki, Hyōgo, Japan. She started playing the piano at age 4 and took lessons as a child. After graduating from Osaka Electro-Communication University in 1986 where she studied electronic engineering, she joined Konami and became a member of the legendary Konami Kukeiha Club.

During her three years at Konami, Kinuyo composed a number of soundtracks mostly for Japanese-only games, with her debut composition Vampire Killer which she composed with Satoe Terashima becoming a cult video game classic, as would its NES counterpart Castlevania. But stress and the pressures of work would catch up to her, and in 1989 she left Konami.

Kinuyo then became a freelance video game composer, mostly composing for Natsume, but also handling the soundtrack for Mega Man X3. She also performed for the pop/jazz cover band Honey Honey for four years beginning in 1991.

In 1998 Kinuyo suffered a brain hemorrhage while playing tennis and another one a week after. She was hospitalized for many months and had no recollection of her experience, but eventually she recovered and resumed her career.

Kinuyo lives in Wayne, NJ, where she moved in 2010, with her husband, and continues to write video game soundtracks, as well as branching out into other music genres.

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