Kikuchi, Shunsuke

Hometown: Hirosaki
Date of death: April 24, 2021

Kikuchi Shunsuke was a prolific Japanese composer who specialized in incidental music for media such as television and film.

Active since the early '60s, he was one of Japan's most highly demanded film and TV composers, working principally on tokusatsu and anime productions for children, as well as violent action films, jidaigeki, and dorama. His works were comparatively more common in Toei-related productions.

Kikuchi's compositions characteristically have a 16-beat blues and pentatonic basis. Up-tempo works like those in Kamen Rider and Abarenbo Shogun form the majority of his works, while the 12/8 theme of Doraemon and the slow background music from long-running series have become some of his best-known works.

As anime and tokusatsu like Doraemon, Kamen Rider, Dragon Ball, Dragon Ball Z, jidaigeki such as Abarenbo Shogun and Choushichirou Edo Nikki, and TBS Saturday-night productions ranging from Key Hunter to G-Men '75 became long-running hit series, people began to say that "if Kikuchi Shunsuke is in charge of the music, the show will be a hit."

Shunsuke Kikuchi died of aspiration pneumonia on April 24, 2021 at 89 years old.

(Source: AniDB, edited)