Who composed Castlevania's music?

The early themes were house music in the literal sense. Konami's composers worked under playful pseudonyms, the story the Library's credits page tells, and three tunes from that era hardened into standards the series still quotes: Vampire Killer from the 1986 original, Bloody Tears from Simon's Quest, and Beginning from Dracula's Curse. By 1993 the music was already being treated as repertoire: the Rondo of Blood team recorded fresh arrangements of all three for the series' first CD audio game, with arranger Mikio Saitou saying on record that he took the job as a fan of the Famicom originals.

Michiru Yamane joined that tradition deliberately. Trained in classical composition from childhood, she told interviewer Chris Greening that she carefully analysed Vampire Killer, Beginning and Bloody Tears to find, in her words, the secret of their charm, then fused her classical schooling with the series' rock elements, dynamic bass lines and groove. Her first Castlevania score was Bloodlines in 1994. On Symphony of the Night in 1997 the PlayStation's CD audio let her write orchestral and vocal music at full length, and the soundtrack album followed on CD in Japan that April.

Yamane scored ten Castlevania games in all, through Order of Ecclesia, sometimes sharing the chair, as on Portrait of Ruin with veteran Yuzo Koshiro. The afterlife is unusually well documented for game music of its era: in March 2010 Konami released the Akumajo Dracula Best Music Collections BOX in Japan, eighteen discs of series music plus a DVD, closing with a disc of Yamane's own new arrangements and an interview with her. A composer who began by studying the standards ended by curating them.