Former Falcom Sound Team jdk Member Wataru Ishibashi Dead at 39 Years Old

Wordhas recently come out that Wataru Ishibashi passed away earlier this year on Feb 16, 2014. He was 39 years old.

This was discovered publicly by a Japanese musician that had been in semi-regular contact with Ishibashi. Recently, Japanese musician Gin Satou, who had been in semi regular contact with Ishibashi, was beginning to worry after not having any phone calls or emails returned to him. When Satou made a somewhat recent attempt to contact Ishibashi again, and found that the call couldn’t be completed, he reached out to Ishibashi’s parents, when Ishibashi’s mother reported to him of the musician’s death.

Satou had confirmed that Ishibashi did have a funeral, and while he did not confirm the cause of death, he did find out that it was not suicide. During the process of researching this article, I found many other musicians and game music fans sending their condolences.

Wataru Ishibashi belonged to the Falcom Sound Team jdk from 1998 to 2006. (A listing of albums on VGMdb) He was one of the main composers involved in the soundtracks for Xanadu Next, VM Japan, Sora no Kiseki SC, and Cagesong of the Ocean. Individual songs that he composed for Falcom include Silver Will from the Sora no Kiseki soundtrack, the opening and ending themes from Zwei!!, and the ending themes for Ys VI and Gurumin.

Since leaving the Sound Team jdk, he Ishibashi had been involved in compositions for Namco for Taiko Master, and he was involved in a number of various doujin circles.

[ Gin Satou @ Tumblr ]