is a Japanese anime composer, arranger and orchestrator. He is best known for composing music to the anime franchises Girls und Panzer, One Piece, and Oh My Goddess! and arranging/orchestrating music in the Final Fantasy series. He frequently collaborates with fellow composers Kohei Tanaka and Akifumi Tada on anime scores. Biography Early life and career Born in Fukuoka, Japan, Shiro Hamaguchi graduated with a music degree from Tokyo University of the Arts, where he befriended fellow video game musician Masashi Hamauzu. After graduation, he was hired as a department project manager at Victor Entertainment from 1994 to 1996. In 1996, he joined the anime and video game music production company Imagine, where he worked alongside famed composers Hayato Matsuo, Kohei Tanaka, and Kow Otani. His debut role was the anime series Violinist of Hameln (1996), where he arranged Tanaka's works. His music impressed Final Fantasy composer Nobuo Uematsu, who chose Hamaguchi as the arranger for the Final Fantasy VII Reunion Tracks album. He provided orchestral renditions of "Aeris's Theme", "Main Theme of Final Fantasy VII", and "One-Winged Angel", which have become iconic through their use in various Final Fantasy concerts. Subsequently, he created music for the anime series Ehrgeiz (unrelated to the video game) and AWOL - Absent WithOut Leave. Further career Hamaguchi scored the pirate-based anime One Piece in 1999 with Tanaka, later returning to compose four of its movies. He also worked as an arranger for the Sakura Wars series. The success of his Final Fantasy VII arrangements led Uematsu to hire him to orchestrate four pieces for the 1999 title Final Fantasy VIII, including the opening theme "Liberi Fatali" and the theme song "Eyes on Me". These pieces and nine new arrangements appeared in the orchestral album Fithos Lusec Wecos Vinosec Final Fantasy VIII. The following year, he arranged a selection of tracks from the game's soundtrack for the series' first Piano Collections album in five years. The success of "Eyes on Me" prompted Kenji Ito to use Hamaguchi as the arranger for his theme song in Chocobo Racing. In 2000, Hamaguchi composed the Megumi no Daigo film and the Dinozaurs anime series, the latter with Imagine colleague Akifumi Tada. He provided orchestrations to Final Fantasy IXs full motion video music, featured in Final Fantasy IX Original Soundtrack PLUS, and an arrangement of the theme song "Melodies of Life"; he also created another Piano Collections album to