Nobuo Uematsu (植松 伸夫, Uematsu Nobuo, born March 21, 1959) is a Japanese video game composer, best known for scoring most of the titles in the Final Fantasy series by Square Enix. He is considered to be one of the most well known composers in the video game industry. Sometimes referred to as the "Beethoven of video games music", he has appeared five times in the top 20 of the annual Classic FM Hall of Fame. Uematsu, a self-taught musician, began playing the piano at the age of twelve, with English singer-songwriter Elton John as his biggest influence. Uematsu joined Square in 1986, where he first met Final Fantasy creator Hironobu Sakaguchi. The two later worked together on many titles at the company, most notably in the Final Fantasy series. After nearly two decades with Square, Uematsu left in 2004 to create his own production company, which included the Dog Ear Records music label. He has since composed music as a freelancer for other games, including ones developed by Square Enix and Sakaguchi's development studio, Mistwalker. Many soundtracks and arranged albums of Uematsu's game scores have been released. Pieces from his video game works have been performed in various Final Fantasy concerts, where he has worked with Grammy Award–winning conductor Arnie Roth on several of these performances. From 2002 to 2010, he was in a hard rock band with Square Enix colleagues Kenichiro Fukui and Tsuyoshi Sekito called The Black Mages, in which he played electronic organ and other keyboards. The band played various arranged rock versions of Uematsu's Final Fantasy compositions. He has since performed with Earthbound Papas, which he formed as the successor to The Black Mages in 2011.
Masakazu Morita (森田 成一, Morita Masakazu, born October 21, 1972) is a Japanese actor, voice actor and singer. He works for Aoni Production. He is also the host of the radio show, Bleach B-Station. He played Ichigo Kurosaki in Bleach, Maeda Keiji in Sengoku Basara, Tidus in Final Fantasy X, Whis in Dragon Ball Super, Auel Neider in Mobile Suit Gundam Seed Destiny, Pegasus Seiya in Saint Seiya - Hades Chapter, Pod in Pokémon and Tenjuro Banno in Kamen Rider Drive. He won the "Best Rookie Actor" at the first Seiyu Awards.
