The Game Changers Metal Gear Solid and Halo composers Nobuko Toda '03 and Kazuma Jinnouchi '02 talk about the paths to their careers and what it takes to level up in the video-game industry.
By
Kimberly Ashton
November 26, 2022
Nobuko Toda 03 and Kazuma Jinnouchi 02
Image by James Day
In 2006, Nobuko Toda '03 was working on the music for the fourth installment of the blockbuster video game franchise Metal Gear Solid when she called her former classmate Kazuma Jinnouchi '02 to ask him to help her score the project.
Jinnouchi, who at the time was an arranger and indie pop-rock guitarist gigging around Tokyo, hadn't done any professional work as a screen scorer. Moreover, years prior, as a new student at Berklee, he had dropped any nascent idea he had harbored of pursuing film scoring after feeling overwhelmed by an introductory class. Sure he wasn't up to the task, Jinnouchi declined Toda's offer.
But Toda knew what Jinnouchi could bring to the project. As students, the two often had found themselves in the same classes and would listen to each other's music and give feedback. After graduation, they stayed in touch and occasionally worked together. In addition to knowing the quality of Jinnouchi's musical ideas, Toda knew that he was capable of working long hours in a demanding production environment, which is just what she needed in a collaborator on Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots.
All the orchestral things I could just teach him afterward, Toda said during a recent interview from Tokyo.
Swayed by his friend's insistence, Jinnouchi went through the demo process at Konami Digital Entertainment, makers of Metal Gear Solid, and got the job. The only thing left to do was to learn how to score a game. All these scoring things were so new to me, so Nobuko pretty much taught me how to write to the visual, Jinnouchi said.
The game was a hit, and the two continued to work together for the next five years as in-house composers at Konami subsidiary Kojima Productions. In 2011, Jinnouchi left the company to join the team making the latest Halo game, one of the industry's most famous franchises, at Microsoft's 343 Industries. A member of the in-house audio team, Jinnouchi served as an additional composer, music editor, music director, and music programmer on Halo 4, and brought in Toda, who was by then a freelancer, as an orchestrator and score producer.
For the next release in the franchise, Halo 5: Guardians, Jinnouchi was the composer, and Toda was the game's orchestrator and executive music producer. That game was the biggest Halo launch at the time, bringing in over $400 million in sales in its first week. (For comparison, the highest-grossing movie in history, 2009's Avatar, had an opening week of $137 million.)
Jinnouchi left Microsoft in 2018. Today, he and Toda both work as freelancers, and have collaborated on Marvel's Iron Man VR and many animated series, such as Ultraman, Ghost in the Shell SAC_2045, and Star Wars: Visions. They're currently working on a Japanese animated film as well as a major superhero franchise video game, due out in 2024.
Kazuma Jinnouchi 02
Image by James Day
During a busy August that found one or both of them in Tokyo, London, Prague, Kuala Lumpur, or Seattle, Toda and Jinnouchi dialed into a video call to talk about their music backgrounds, scoring a franchise game, trends in video game music, advice they'd give to aspiring video game composers, what they listen to when they drive, and more. Jinnouchi, who's lived in Seattle for 11 years, provided some translation for Toda, who's been primarily based in Tokyo. The interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Tell me about your early experiences with music. How old were you when you began playing instruments? Kazuma Jinnouchi: This goes back to elementary school, but I originally wanted to start taking piano lessons just because I was fascinated by the instrument by watching my teacher play. I was really small at the time so my parents didn't know if I would continue to be interested in that kind of musical instrument, so that request got rejected. Later, when I was in the third grade, I was looking at this picture of the flute. I think it was in the newspaper. And I thought it looked really cool I made the request again: Hey, if its flute, can I go take lessons? and then they said yes.
Nobuko Toda: I grew up in a very poor family. My father reduced his own allowance so that I could learn to play the piano and organ. When I started attending classes, my father picked up a small foot-pedal organ from somewhere and I played it every day. I had an electronic organ and the piano. I don't exactly remember how I started playing those instruments, but my mother told me that when I was very young I pointed out a picture of an electric organ in the newspaper and said I wanted to play it. I started playing for fun. I also would read picture books and then write original music to the book. I really liked to make storybooks too.
For quite a while I was self-taught on the instrument. The same for composition, for writing music. But when I wanted to enter a competition for electric organ performance, the requirement was also to perform my own music so I was writing for that every year.
How old were you then?
Nobuko Toda 03
Image by James Day
NT: From middle school to high school, so from around 11 or 12 to 16 or 17. My dream was to be a performer who toured abroad.
Kazuma, what was your involvement in music at that age? KJ: I was continuing to take my flute lessons throughout the rest of my elementary school and middle school years, and then I started getting into coding, [into] programming things, because all my friends were playing video games on the Nintendo system and I had asked my dad if
North America Stories
03/12/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission has opened a docket for comments on the proposed $6.2 billion Nexstar acquisition for Tegna and set deadlines f...
03/12/2025
MILAN, Italy Brightcove has released seven new features designed to expand global reach, improve audience engagement, enhance live-streaming quality and streaml...
03/12/2025
NEW YORK Great American Media said it plans to launch Pure Flix Familia, a dedicated Spanish-language platform, in 2026....
03/12/2025
SOUTHPORT, Conn. Main Street Sports Group has announced that the FanDuel Sports Network app is now available directly on Vizio and on smart TVs with Vizio OS. T...
03/12/2025
SAN JOSE, Calif. Harmonic has announced that Telia, the second-largest telecom operator in Norway, is modernizing its broadband network with the company's c...
03/12/2025
GREEN BAY, Wis. Sinclair said Jay Zollar, vice president and general manager of WLUK-WCWF here, will retire Dec. 31 after 26 years running the stations. Station...
02/12/2025
Case Study: How Mid-Atlantic Sports Network Moved to All-IP Distribution in 60 D...
02/12/2025
2025 Sports Broadcasting Hall of Fame: Lee Corso, Coach, Commentator, FirebrandBy Ken Kerschbaumer
Tuesday, December 2, 2025 - 7:00 am
Print This Story | S...
02/12/2025
SVG All-Stars: Dan Nabors, Senior Director, Remote Engineering, TNT SportsThe veteran tech leader is helping guide Warner Bros. Discovery's at-home' re...
02/12/2025
National Lacrosse League Opens Season With New Cloud-Based Official Replay-Revie...
02/12/2025
Platinum White Paper: The Cinematic Look in Live Production - Bridging Aesthetic...
02/12/2025
SVG India Announces Advisory Board; JioStar's Prashant Khanna Named ChairmanBy Ken Kerschbaumer
Tuesday, December 2, 2025 - 11:15 am
Print This Story |...
02/12/2025
SVG Summit 2025 Preview: New AI Production Tools Workshop' Features ESPN, F...
02/12/2025
Written and directed by Hailey Gates, Atropia won the U.S. Grand Jury Prize: Dramatic at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival....
02/12/2025
The lightweight and highly portable CORVUS-RAVEN, recently demonstrated at the V...
02/12/2025
The lightweight, rugged Panther 2 tri-band VSAT delivers high-speed data communications for Internet, VPN connectivity and video transmission over commercial an...
02/12/2025
NGID volunteers in the United States
NGID volunteers in Mexico
NGID volunteers in India
NGID volunteers in Spain
NGID volunteers in Australia
NGID voluntee...
02/12/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission's Media Bureau has issued a reminder that stations in DMAs 111 through 120 must implement its audio descrip...
02/12/2025
SAN DIEGO Sony Electronics today introduced the Alpha 7 V (ILCE-7M5), the fifth generation of its Alpha 7 full-frame mirrorless lineup, powered by the newly dev...
02/12/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission has opened a docket for comments on Nexstar Media Group's proposed $6.2 billion acquisition of Tegna and se...
02/12/2025
WASHINGTON The National Association of Broadcasters has added a trio of media executives, Veronica Rodriguez, Matt Schnaars and Jeff Warshaw, to its board of di...
02/12/2025
MILAN, Italy Brightcove has released seven new features designed to expand global reach, improve audience engagement, enhance live-streaming quality and streaml...
02/12/2025
BCNEXXT, the developers of the advanced playout platform Vipe, today announced a new Service Provider Partner agreement with NPC Media, the Australian managed p...
02/12/2025
DPA Microphones today announces the immediate availability of its new N-Series Digital Wireless Microphone System for customers throughout the U.S. In addition ...
02/12/2025
Hiltron Communications reports a well attended and successful Space Tech Expo exhibition, held at the Messe Bremen from Tuesday November 18 through Thursday Nov...
02/12/2025
The beginning of September saw Riverfire by Australian Retirement Trust, in association with Channel 9 and Triple M, kick off the 2025 Brisbane Festival in spec...
02/12/2025
SGM Lighting is pleased to announce an exciting new partnership with ACT Entertainment, under which ACT will serve as the exclusive distributor for SGM's ne...
02/12/2025
Harmonic (NASDAQ: HLIT) today announced that Telia, the second largest telecom operator in Norway, is modernizing its broadband network with the company's i...
02/12/2025
European cloud data protection specialist Keepit is expanding its sales network in the DACH region and has gained TIM AG, one of the leading value-added distrib...
02/12/2025
Featured products at ISE 2026
This year s ISE 2026 theme "Push Beyond" reflects Calrec s direction of travel. The company is dedicated to supporting the AV an...
02/12/2025
Czech Television, the national public broadcaster, has deployed one of the largest LiveU live production projects in the region for live sports and news coverag...
02/12/2025
Test & measurement innovator, Leader Electronics, has announced the release of v8.2 software for its ZEN and ZEN-W Series, bringing advanced cinematic camera se...
02/12/2025
Global provider of video streaming software and services, Accedo, and OTT platform provider, Magine Pro, have signed a binding agreement to carve out and merge ...
02/12/2025
With proven success in broadcast, OTT, and content supply chains, K.S Avinash set to scale Skandha's service-first approach across APAC
Skandha Media Servi...
02/12/2025
AJA Video Systems has joined the RAVENNA community, a network of partners devoted to advancing the RAVENNA standard for distributing real-time audio over intern...
02/12/2025
HUNT VALLEY, Md. Sinclair and its wholly-owned subsidiary One Media Technologies have released a new report focused on how ATSC 3.0, the IP-based NextGen TV sta...
02/12/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission's Media Bureau has issued a reminder that stations in DMAs 111 through 120 must implement its audio descrip...
02/12/2025
WASHINGTON Members of the Advanced Television Systems Committee have elected four industry veterans to three-year terms on the organization's board of direc...
02/12/2025
A new survey from S&P Global Market Intelligence Kagan highlights how important social media is for younger consumers, with Gen Z spending 5.1 hours a day on so...
02/12/2025
Faculty Notes: Fall/Winter 2025 Recent accomplishments, releases, and events by Berklee faculty.
December 1, 2025
By
Editorial Staff
The cast of Kind of M...
02/12/2025
Today, Mistral AI announced the Mistral 3 family of open-source multilingual, multimodal models, optimized across NVIDIA supercomputing and edge platforms.
M...
02/12/2025
Ring In The Holidays With Our Biggest Sale Ever On Ivory II Pianos!From now until December 31st, you can save 50% or more on every Ivory II piano and collection...
02/12/2025
Back to All News
Made in America: How Stranger Things' Electrified the US Economy
Entertainment
02 December 2025
GlobalUnited States
Link copied to cl...
02/12/2025
Back to All News
Culinary Class Wars' Season 2 Trailer Teases New Rules, R...
02/12/2025
At AWS re:Invent, NVIDIA and Amazon Web Services expanded their strategic collab...
01/12/2025
L3Harris and PentenAmio formalise their teaming agreement at MilCIS 2025, streng...
01/12/2025
Artemis II is NASA's first crewed flight test of the Space Launch System rocket and Orion spacecraft. The crew, from left: Commander Reid Wiseman, Pilot Vic...
01/12/2025
IRVINE, Calif. Wooden Camera has introduced its new Accessory Collection for the Canon EOS C50. The new lineup includes a low-profile, gimbal-ready cage, expand...
01/12/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission has released a tentative agenda for its Dec. 18 Open Commission Meeting that will include a vote on a report an...
The Game Changers Metal Gear Solid and Halo composers Nobuko Toda '03 and Kazuma Jinnouchi '02 talk about the paths to their careers and what it takes to level up in the video-game industry.
