TOSE
Tose | |
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Founded | 1979 |
Headquarters | Kyoto, Japan |
Other Names |
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Tose (株式会社トーセ Tose Co., Ltd., pronounced Toe Say) is a Japanese game developer that was named after Toa Seiko (株式会社東亜セイコー). The company has been developing video games ever since the early 80's, and have many offices ranging from the United States to China.
The company has gained a reputation for not giving credit to either themselves or their development team. The Vice President of Tose's US division, Masa Agarida explained that TOSE's intention is to be secretive; Their policy isn't to have a vision, but to follow visions of the customers. Now they credit themselves and use real names of their staff, most of the time. TOSE may have been secretive to prevent their staff from leaving the company for another game developer, as the employees who left wouldn't be able to prove to another game company that they worked on a game because their name isn't in it. Some of TOSE's main publishers during their NES development included Bandai and Jaleco. They started using real names and showed their name on the Game & Watch Gallery games for the Game Boy. Some of TOSE's notable games include Tetris 2, Starfy, and the Bases Loaded series.
During their SNES development, the company was a bit better about game credits; they'd usually put credits in their Japanese releases but then remove them when released in the USA or Europe. Such examples include Super Goal!, Super Goal! Two, and some of the Dragon Ball Z games. Even then, some of their SNES titles did not have credits at all such as Tetris 2.
TOSE's name was first mentioned in the credits of Game & Watch Gallery, and the company later put their name in The Legendary Stafy series.
TOSE continues to develop games to this day for a variety of consoles. They also have 6 studios in Kyoto, 1 in Tokyo, 2 in China, and many more. In China, the company is known as Dongxing (东星 = Eastern Star). In Japanese, it would be 東星.
Contents
Games
Music Development
Game Boy
The music was written on the Game Boy itself using a development system by TOSE.
Galaga & Galaxian uses Masakatsu Maekawa's sound driver.
NES
The music was written in assembly macros on a Family BASIC computer. It is unknown who programmed the sound engine. Because of the secrecy of the company, the developers who know are not allowed to say who it is. However, it is believed to be a woman named Toshiko Kawanishi, who was credited in Akira. Also, a female sound effect designer who went by the moniker Peru was credited in some early games. It is suspected, but unconfirmed whether these two female sound designers are the same person.
SNES
TOSE used Nintendo's Kankichi-kun to create music and sound effects. The driver was reprogrammed by TOSE programmer Michinori Fukushima. The company had two different variants of the driver.
Per Mitsuhiko Takano, the composers at TOSE used Kankichi-kun to create the music and TACOS (Tako Sample) for the instrument samples (though it is actually called Tako Sample). The instruments were taken from many different keyboards including the Korg M1, Yamaha SY22, and more.
Gon uses Michiya Hirasawa's sound driver.
GEN
TOSE used the Z80 version of Sample Music Playback System. As a result, the composers most likely wrote in Z80 assembly using a PC-9801.
Game Boy Advance
The composers at TOSE used Nintendo's MP2K engine.
Nintendo DS
The composers at TOSE used Nintendo's Nitro Composer sound driver.
Audio Personnel
Because of the secrecy of the company, any TOSE titles that did happen to have a credits scroll, most of them list the game developers under aliases, some of which are very hard, if not impossible to decipher. On top of that, most developers who do know the real names of these developers are under NDAs not to disclose names.
- Akihito Hayashi
- Akihito Suita
- Akira Sato
- AKP! (Sound Designer for Super Tetris 3 (SFC).)
- Amu-Nyoro (Noriko Nishizaka?)
- Anchovy (Sound Engineer for Super Tetris 3 (SFC).)
- ASD•BAT
- Ayumu Murai
- Bokubo (Composer for Super Professional Baseball II (SFC).)
- Booing Boo/Booing Boo Mizutani (Japanese localization: ブーイング ブー みずたに, a possible alias for Yoko Mizuta.)
- Bunbunmaru (Composer for Tetris Blast (GB).)
- Cha♥Cha
- Dhal-Chan (Composer for Super Tetris 2 + Bombliss (SFC).)
- Dolphin Lover (Composer for Tetris Blast (GB).)
- Eri Tsunemoto (formerly Eri Yasuda.)
- Eriko Sasaki
- Fumihisa Hayakawa
- Funkid
- Gocky-7 Alives/Gockey7 Arrived/Gocky in Bose (Composer for Tetris Blast (GB) and 96 Zenkoku Koukou Soccer Senshuken (SFC).)
- Haruki Adachi
- Hidenori Miyanaga
- Hirohito Tsujii
- Hiromi (Credited in Famicom Tantei Club: Kieta Koukeisha (FDS).)
- Hiroshi Kitagishi
- Ichiro Kohmoto
- Jamuo Tagoshi (田越 邪武男)
- Kazuki Kikutani
- K4 (Composer for Super Tetris 2 + Bombliss (SFC).)
- Kan Hebiuma (蛇馬 漢)
- Kazuhiro Kotani
- Kengo Hagiwara
- Kenji Yamamoto (Not to be confused with the composer who worked for Nintendo.)
- Kidohin
- Kouji Murata
- Kyomoe
- LAH++ (Composer/Sound Designer for Tetris Blast (GB))
- Linus
- Mariko Yoyogi
- M2
- Masaru Sakakibara
- Masakatsu Maekawa (Contractor)
- Masaya Tsunemoto
- Matsukichi
- Michinori Fukushima
- Michiya Hirasawa (Contractor)
- Mitsuhiko Takano
- Mitsuto Suzuki
- Mitsutoshi Kodama
- Miyuki Uemura
- Mory (もーりー) (Credited in Crayon Shin-Chan 3: Ora no Gokigen Athletic. Not an alias for Morihiro Iwamoto.)
- Morihiro Iwamoto
- Nakajima (Takashi Nakajima?)
- Nicochimans (Composer for Virtual Bowling (VB).)
- Niwaka-Zu (Composer for Tetris Blast (GB).)
- Nobuya Ikuta (Composer for Yoshi's Cookie.)
- Noriko Araki
- Noriko Ishida
- Noriko Nishizaka
- Okaoka (おかおか)
- Peru (Toshiko Kawanishi?)
- Pro-Mars
- Riyou Kinugasa
- Ryuko Kamimura or Ryuko Uemura (上村 龍子)
- Saburo Sasaki
- Shami Taiko (Composer for Yamamura Misa Suspense: Kyouto Ryuu no Tera Satsujin Jiken (FC).)
- Shibikkun (Also translates to Civic-kun)
- Shigemitsu Goto
- Shinji Amagishi
- Shinobu Nakai
- SIR-1008 (Credited in Super Tetris 3 (SFC) and Tetris Blast (GB).)
- Sonoda (Composer for Bases Loaded 2.)
- Sukezo Oyama
- Takashi Honda
- Takazou
- Takeshi Ichida
- Tatsuya Nishimura
- Tomochan
- Tomoko Aoki
- Tonkupon
- Toshiko Kawanishi
- Totsukurzwell/Tottsi Totsuka
- Tsukishin
- Tsutomu Asahi (明日 努)
- Ucku-jun
- Wakka Dake
- Yasushi Tokunaga
- Yojiro Okino
- Yoko Shimokawa
- Yoshiharu Kawaze
- Yoshiki Nishimura
- Yoko Mizuta
- Yoko Matsutani
- Yoshio Hirai
- Yuki Sabakuma
- Yuko Sano
- Yumeo Suidou (Composer for Pipe Dream (SFC))
Links
- tose.co.jp/en/ - Official.
- w.atwiki.jp/gamemusicbest100/pages/4829.html - Atwiki.jp (Japanese).