James Banana

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Kinuyo Yamashita, also known as James Banana, is a Japanese video game music composer. Her most famous work is Konami's Castlevania, which she composed shortly after graduating from college, for the Nintendo Entertainment System (Famicom Disk System in Japan). All of the credits for the Western versions were fictional, and notably included misspellings of Bela Lugosi and Bram Stoker, the original author of Dracula. The game was called Akumajou Dracula (Demon Castle Dracula) in Japan, and is by far her most critically acclaimed musical work. As of 2006, she primarily works with Game Boy Advance titles. She produces music on a hybrid Macintosh/Roland Keyboard system and uses a technique called "ramming" to squeeze the music into cart specs, which is described on her site.

Interestingly enough, Kinuyo also dabbled in a cover band. She has played American pop covers on the piano and also sings for the duet “Honey Honey” formed with her friend, Yoshiko. The name on the album cover is not the last name she’s presently using on the site, so we can assume this was an old project she’s since left behind.