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Yoko Kanno (菅野 よう子, Kanno Yōko, born March 18, 1964) is a Japanese composer, arranger and musician best known for her work on the soundtracks for many anime films, television series, live-action films, video games, and advertisements. She was born in Sendai, Miyagi Prefecture, Japan. She has written scores for famous animated works, including Darker than Black, Macross Plus, Turn A Gundam, Cowboy Bebop, The Vision of Escaflowne, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex, Wolf's Rain, Kids on the Slope, and is the most trusted composer by veteran and new-wave directors such as Yoshiyuki Tomino, Shinichiro Watanabe and Shoji Kawamori. Kanno has also composed music for pop artists, the most notable being Maaya Sakamoto and Kyōko Koizumi. She is also a skilled keyboardist, and is the frontwoman for the Seatbelts, who perform many of Kanno's compositions on the various original soundtracks for which she is responsible.