Kentaro Haneda dies of cancer at 58
 

Totally stole this from STC. Even used the same thread title. :tpg:

Sad news. His Wizardry stuff was pretty good. :(

oh no!! This is horrible, horrible news! :( This disappoints me a great deal, as I was a big fan of his work. Like you said, CHz, his contributions to the Wizardry series were amazing. For a long time, Wizardry and Haneda were like Uematsu and Final Fantasy; like Sugiyama and Dragon Quest.

... This really sucks.

My condolences go out to his family during this time.

I'm really sad and disconsolate.

Aw ... Saddening news indeed. His early 80s anime works and VGM compositions/arranges always had a special place in my heart. ;_;

This is very, very unfortunate. I've only heard one of his Wizardry albums (Llylgamyn Saga) but thought it was really nice. A sad day for VGM indeed.

His score to the original Macross was really great, not to mention that he composed pretty much all of the songs as well (both the opening/ending and the ones sung by Mari Iijima.) :(

I can't say I'm familiar with him or his works, but I'll give him my regards nonetheless. I find it peculiar that he's composed some Japanese Disney albums, unless those are an entirely different thing from Disney altogether.

As a Haneken fanboy, I'm one of the saddest person in the earth today. I appreciate his works highly, even though he's still underappreciated and almost unknown to vgm community (only few people have listened his works I guess)

Hopefully more people will appreciate his ouvre more after his death.:(

I've listened to a few of his works, so this thread came as a bit of a disheartening surprise to me. Condolences to his family. Haneken will be missed. :(

Well, for one I don't think he's that under appreciated by VGM communities, even the non Japanese ones. His work for Wizardry is quite well known, if only for it's orchestral arranges, and his works as an arranger for Falcom are legendary.

Secondly, he was much more of an Anime music composer than a VGM one, when you look at the list of his works. His early 80's anime soundtracks have a cult status in Japan, and are well known by Anime music enthusiasts around the world. Here in France we were lucky to be exposed to his music at an early age since almost all of the 80s animes he composed music for were aired on TV. So yeah, his work got quite a wide exposition, when you think of it.

And again, he was already a living legend in Japan. His work won't be forgotten, don't worry. =)

ah, I'm glad you mentioned it niki, but you know, someday in future, someone should translate the japanese entry of Haneken's biography, cause the english is really a stub :roll: I have tried to translate some phrase slowly, but it's very difficult ><

I bet you're the one that translating the page into french wikipedia =O

I didnt write the French page, but it is indeed using some stuff I translated and put up on my old site a few years back. Looking back, I wouldnt swear it's all that accurate. =s

I recognize his name, but unfortunately I can't pull in any specific works. So you say he arranged Falcom music? That's enough to be a legend in my book. Of course, it's always disheartening to learn of a death of someone in the VGM community. My condolences to his family, and may he rest in peace.

Symphony Sorcerian, Symphony Ys and a few minor others. Best Falcom orchestral renditions, in my opinion. He had that epic yet groovy touch that a few other anime composers from the 70ies/early 80ies have.