Akira Ifukube

Ifukube trained originally as a forestry engineer and worked in that field for years before pursuing music seriously, a technical, physical background that shaped the unusually percussive, tactile quality of his later scoring work.

He composed Godzilla's stomping four-note march and the monster's iconic roar itself, created by dragging a resined leather glove across a double bass string — sounds that have outlived every remake. That unusually physical, percussive sensibility became instantly identifiable across the entire kaiju genre he helped establish.

He continued scoring Godzilla films for decades, making his musical stamp on the franchise nearly as enduring as the monster itself and cementing him as the genre's defining musical voice.