Formation et développement des cultures autour de la « Geemu ongaku » (1980-1990)

Abstract

This article attempts to analyze the history and diffusion of the « game ongaku » (or video game music) in Japan. Despite their essential role in the formation of a Japanese video game music culture, two themes, scarcely addressed in Western research, guide this analysis: the development of a gaming culture in game centers (arcades) and the birth of the Dragon Quest console game series. The goal: to demonstrate how two phenomena of the same period – the 1980s – but from different contexts have definitively established a « golden age » of Japanese video game music and laid the foundation for what would become the modern Japanese music culture.