Over 10 years ago, when I was a young child, my older brother borrowed a game from his good friend. I remember watching him play through this incredibly magical game, enamored with the bright, flashing colors, amusing sound effects, lovable Disney characters, and most importantly, beautifully captivating music (composed by the lovely Yoko Shimomura).

My brother encouraged me to start playing this game, too, as I would spend hours watching him. Mischievous as he was, he set up the game for me, and put it at “Expert Mode” (resulting in memorization of numerous cut scene lines, including but not limited to “The sea and all its spoils BOW TO MY POWER!!!!!” and “Kairi’s a princess!?” [oops spoiler lulz sorry]). For those of you who have not guessed yet, this game was none other than Kingdom Hearts.

Little did I know at the time that this game would change my life. It would become, musically, a gateway to a path of Japanese and Korean pop music and video game soundtracks that I would find myself still happily traversing in the decades to come. With her simple yet heartbreakingly gorgeous main menu theme (“Dearly Beloved”), and ingeniously composed battle-oriented pastiches of well-known Disney themes (e.g. “An Adventure in Atlantica” [“Under the Sea” by Alan Menken], “Spooks of Halloween” [“This is Halloween” by Danny Elfman], to name just a couple), Yoko Shimomura’s original soundtrack for Kingdom Hearts is still to this day one of my most dearly beloved (:3) video game OSTs.

Slightly more musically educated and introspectively attentive than the child that fell in love with KH, I am presently a music teacher, composer, and gamer. This site features beautiful music chosen by me, and can be enjoyed by any and all lovers of music and video games.