Tsukasa Masuko

History

Tsukasa Masuko was born on April 3, 1963, in Hokkaido. He graduated from Ashibetsu High School in 1982 and began studying sound engineering while working part-time at an arcade in Shinjuku. Later that year he joined Tehkan (later known as Tecmo) as a part-time sound engineer while continuing his studies at Japan Electronics College. He graduated in 1984 and became a full-time employee at Tehkan the same year.

In 1986, Masuko left Tehkan and joined Atlus as one of the company's seven founding members. At that time Atlus was a small, recently established developer, and Masuko became its primary composer. His first major work was Digital Devil Story: Megami Tensei (1987) for the Famicom, followed by Digital Devil Story: Megami Tensei II (1990). The music he wrote for these two titles was unlike most game soundtracks of that era — heavy, dark, gothic. While other composers were writing bright melodies for platformers and adventure games, Masuko was writing compositions layered with distorted rock, brooding choir, and an atmosphere of decay.

Those choices were not safe. The Megami Tensei series was already unusual in its subject matter — demons, fusion, moral ambiguity — but Masuko's music gave that world a voice. The sound became inseparable from the identity of the series. Players who entered those dungeons in the late 1980s remember the music as much as the gameplay. The darkness was not decoration; it was structural.

In 1990, Masuko left Atlus as a full-time employee. The reasons are not publicly detailed, but he continued to contribute to the series as a freelancer beginning with Shin Megami Tensei (1992) for the Super Famicom. That title, and its sequel Shin Megami Tensei II (1994), became defining works in the franchise's history — and Masuko's music remained central to both. The collaboration continued through Devil Summoner: Soul Hackers and other entries in the sprawling franchise.

Over the decades, Masuko's compositions have been rearranged by other composers, becoming recurring elements within the series. Several of his themes have taken on a life beyond their original context, appearing in later titles and remakes. In 2023 he crowdfunded an arrangement album titled Megami Tensei I · II ReArrange, which was released in 2024, bringing his original work full circle with orchestrated and modernized interpretations.

Masuko has worked under several aliases during his career, including macco and Project SATAN. He lives in Hachioji, Tokyo, with his wife. In 2025, it was announced that he had joined the music team for Dark Auction, continuing his work as an independent composer more than forty years after he first joined the game industry as a part-time arcade worker.

His career is a record of what happens when someone refuses to soften the edges. The Megami Tensei series is now one of the longest-running RPG franchises in existence, and Masuko's music is part of the reason it has remained distinct. He brought rock into a place where most people were still writing cute tunes. The darkness stayed.