Kinuyo Yamashita

is a Japanese composer and musician known for her contributions in video games. Her best known soundtrack is Konami’s Castlevania, which was also her debut work. She was co-credited with Satoe Terashima under the pseudonym James Banana for her work on the Nintendo Entertainment System version of the game. This pseudonym was a pun of the name James Bernard, the composer of the 1958 film Dracula. Life Yamashita was born in Amagasaki, Hyōgo, Japan. She began playing the piano at the age of four and took piano lessons as a child. After studying electronic engineering at the two-year college Osaka Electro-Communication University, she graduated in 1986 and went to work for Konami. After leaving Konami, Yamashita established a career as an independent composer. She moved to the United States in 2010, and currently resides with her husband in Montague, New Jersey. Career In 1986, Yamashita and Satoe Terashima composed the music to the video game Castlevania, which was her first composition. The composition of the music was made under strict hardware constraints of the Famicom hardware. Yamashita established the format for much of the music in Castlevania games, which are fast beats as wel