Music of the Mana series

The Mana series (known in Japan as *Seiken Densetsu*, or "Holy Sword Legend") is a role-playing game franchise from Square Enix, created by Koichi Ishii. It began as a handheld spin-off of *Final Fantasy*, but most *Final Fantasy* elements were dropped after the second game, *Secret of Mana*. The series now spans multiple genres within the fictional world of Mana. Its music includes soundtracks and arranged albums for most entries: *Final Fantasy Adventure*, its remake *Sword of Mana*, *Secret of Mana*, *Trials of Mana*, *Legend of Mana*, *Dawn of Mana*, *Children of Mana*, *Heroes of Mana*, and *Rise of Mana* (the exceptions are *Friends of Mana* and *Circle of Mana*, which lack soundtrack albums). *Final Fantasy Adventure* also has an arranged album and a combined soundtrack-and-arranged release; *Legend of Mana* has a promotional EP; and music from *Secret* and *Trials* was combined into one arranged album. For the series’ 20th anniversary, a 20-disc box set of previously released albums was produced, alongside an arrangement album by Kenji Ito, a composer for several games.

Kenji Ito composed the music for *Final Fantasy Adventure*, while Hiroki Kikuta scored *Secret of Mana* and *Trials of Mana*, and Yoko Shimomura wrote the score for *Legend of Mana*. The *World of Mana* subseries—*Children*, *Dawn*, *Friends*, and *Heroes*—involved multiple composers: Ito, Kikuta, Shimomura, Tsuyoshi Sekito, Masayoshi Soken, and Ryuichi Sakamoto worked on *Dawn*; Ito, Masaharu Iwata, and Takayuki Aihara on *Children*; and Shimomura alone on *Friends* and *Heroes*. *Rise of Mana* was composed by an ensemble including Ito, Kikuta, Shimomura, Sekito, Yasuhiro Yamanaka, and Kokia. Music from the series has been performed at live concerts such as the Orchestral Game Concerts and the Symphonic Game Music Concerts, and made up a quarter of the *Symphonic Fantasies* concert in Cologne, Germany. Piano arrangements have also been published as sheet music books.

*Final Fantasy Adventure* (released as *Seiken Densetsu: Final Fantasy Gaiden* in Japan and *Mystic Quest* in Europe) was Ito’s second original score, after *SaGa 2*, and his first solo work. Released in 1991 on the Game Boy, it was remade in 2003 for the Game Boy Advance as *Sword of Mana*, which reworked the original to align with later Mana games and removed its *Final Fantasy* ties. Ito also composed for the remake