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born 11 February 1954 is a Japanese composer and vocalist, best known for composing the soundtracks to the anime series Rurouni Kenshin and the video game franchises Tenchu and Way of the Samurai. He is well known for combining traditional Japanese music with elements of rock, jazz, and other world music. He established the music production studio Mega-Alpha in 2003, which composes for various types of media.
In 1998, Asakura composed the soundtrack to , after being introduced to producer Masami Yamamoto and delivering a sample from a previous project, which became the game's opening theme. Contrary to popular belief, "Add'ua", the theme song to the first Tenchu game was not sung in Japanese, but rather in the West African language of Hausa language. "Sadame", the theme song for , and "Kurenai No Hana", the theme song for , were performed in Japanese. Following his work on Tenchu, Asakura composed the soundtrack for Acquire's Way of the Samurai. Asakura composed and performed "THE BUSTER," serving as the ending theme for Siren, which released in 2003.
In 2003, Asakura established Mega-Alpha, a music production company, in order to compose music for television programs, anime, and video games. Under Mega-Alpha, Asakura composed for multiple anime series, including Ragnarok the Animation, Major, and . In 2008, Asakura returned to the Tenchu franchise, composing , taking influence from his prior compositions and classical music. In 2014, Asakura composed Kadokawa Games' tactical role-playing game Natural Doctrine, which included an arrangement of " The Court of the Crimson King" by King Crimson as the ending theme song. Asakura composed additional music for , which released in March 2019. In 2020, Asakura composed Katana Kami: A Way of the Samurai Story, a spin-off of the Way of the Samurai franchise. Asakura was to compose for Tokyo Babylon at King Records, which was set to premiere in 2021. The series was canceled following investigation of plagiarism regarding character designs by the production company, with a new anime production to be produced by a different studio.
Asakura composed for , which released in 2025. Asakura was approached based on his work on the Ruroni Kenshin anime in order to compose a soundtrack that would match the Japanese aesthetic of the setting, with his experiece in the game industry allowing him to better match the gameplay context. The soundtrack was recorded using a live orchestra, which Asakura suggested during development.
Style
Motivated by a desire to take a different approach to soundtracks for historical Japanese fiction, Asakura combines traditional Japanese music with elements of rock, as well as folk music from multiple Asian countries including China, Thailand, and Turkey. Asakura further developed this style with Tenchu and Way of the Samurai. Asakura's style is also influenced by the way progressive rock musicians expanded on rock music in the 1970s, adopting a more experimental approach to traditional music in order to expand the horizons of its conventions.
Works
+Video games
!Year
!Title
!Notes Way of the Samurai 2 Siren composed "THE BUSTER!" Capcom Fighting Evolution Way of the Samurai 3 Katana Kami: A Way of the Samurai Story +Anime
!Year
!Title
!Notes Ragnarok the Animation
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