Jun Maeda

Widely regarded as one of the pioneers of the visual novel genre, Japanese writer and composer Jun Maeda is best known for crafting dramatic stories with elaborate storylines. Born on January 3, 1975, in the Mie Prefecture, he began honing his writing skills during elementary school, inspired by the work of James Herbert Brennan and Haruki Murakami. After majoring in psychology at Chukyo University, he landed his first professional gig at Tactics and contributed to the creation of the games Moon (1997) and One: Kagayaku Kisetsu e (1998) before creating the visual novel studio Key later that year. Apart from helping develop some of the company's most popular titles, including Kanon (1999), Air (2000), Clannad (2004), Angel Beats! 1st Beat (2015), and Summer Pockets (2018), Jun Maeda has also produced original music for all of Key's games, with the exception of Planetarian: The Reverie of a Little Planet (2004) and Rewrite Harvest Festa! (2012). In 2001, the company launched the Key Sounds Label label to officially release their video games' music. Some of the label's most popular releases include the Anri Kumaki collaboration Long Long Love Song (2017) and "Beat of the Night" (2021), specially written for the game The Idolmaster Cinderella Girls: Starlight Stage and performed by Kaoru Sakura. In 2022, the album Love Song from the Water, which compiled songs from the mobile game Heaven Burns Red, peaked at Number 6 on the Billboard Japan Albums chart.

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