The following are a list of people that have worked on multiple Castlevania games, or simply other games of interest. While in no way complete, it’s interesting to see what games have what staff in common. Unfortunately, there may be some errors here - many older games lacked credits, or had lots of weird pseudonyms (the end credits for the Japanese Castlevania 2 are so completely cryptic it boggles the mind.)
Therefore, there has been a bit of guesswork, and these occasions are noted. Some of these were also obtained from Japanese web pages, of which I cannot ascertain their validity. Thanks to Sugimo’s Record of Blood, SF Kosmo’s Treasure page, Ed Oscuro, Reaping Death and Pfloydguy2 on the Dungeon boards, and several users on the Aria of Sorrow GameFAQs boards, including n3m3sis, Setzer the Gambler and Jude for their help in compliling this.
Most interestingly: the core team behind Castlevania Bloodlines also worked on Contra: Hard Corps, Rocket Knight Adventures and Sega CD Snatcher.
Before Koji Igarashi took over the series, many of the games were the brainchild of a man named Toru Hagihara, who is still involved with Konami.
One of the original composers of Super Castlevania 4 did a few of the new tracks for Circle of the Moon.
Castlevania 64 and Circle of the Moon shared a few key members (which makes sense, considering they were both developed by Konami Computer Entertainment Kobe.)
Koji Igarashi: Also known as IGA, Igarashi-san has become the series frontman for the Castlevania series. In addition to serving as the producer on the PSX Chronicles port, the PS2 Lament of Innocence and Curse of Darkness games, and the GBA games Harmony of Dissonance and Aria of Sorrow, he was also the Assistant Director, Scenario Writer, and a Programmer for Symphony of the Night. He also got a “Special Thanks” at the end of PC Engine Dracula X. Other games he worked on include one of the many Tokimeki Memorial side stories.
Ayami Kojima: This Japanese artist has done plenty of fantasy artwork for various Japanese novels, but her character designs first appeared in Symphony of the Night. She has also become the primary character designer as of recent, having worked on Chronicles, Harmony of Dissonance, Aria of Sorrow, Curse of Darkness and Lament of Innocence.
Toru Hagihara: Hagihara-san has apparently been around for awhile - he was the primary director and programmer for both Dracula X PC Engine and Symphony of the Night, as well as coding for Belmont’s Revenge. Also worked on the NES Contra and Tiny Toons games. Hagihara apparently holds a very high position in Konami Computer Entertainment Tokyo.
Tomikazu Kirita: Served as the produer of Castlevania Bloodlines, Rocket Knight Adventures, Contra Hard Corps and the Sega CD Snatcher. May be the same Tokikazu Kirita that is currently the the Senior Vice President of Sony Computer Entertainment Japan, and the producer of the PS2 rhythm game Mad Maesto. According to the JORDAN computer database in Snatcher, his nickname is “Kiri-chan”, and he loves Sonic the Hedgehog, and his favorite movie is “Roman Holiday”.
Takashi Takeda: The director of Harmony of Dissonance was also an enemy programmer for Bloodlines and Contra Hard Corps.
Shinichiro Shimamura: One of the planners and graphic designers for Harmony of Dissonance, Shimamura-san was also part of the design staff for Symphony of the Night.
Hideo Ueda: The director of the original Dracula X68000 game, and one of the main programmers. Also was in charge of Axelay for the SNES, and was given special thanks in Dracula X PC Engine.
Nobuya Nakazato: Served as a graphic designer for The Castlevania Adventure and Symphony of the Night. Also pretty much in charge of the Contra series: he directed Contra 3, Hard Corps and Shattered Soldier.
Kouki Yamashita: Yamashita-san was the director of both the SNES Dracula X and Castlevania Legends.
Jun Furano: Also known as Mitch Ueno, the main programmer and director of Super Castlevania 4 also shows up under the credit “Technical Advice” for Contra 3, and apparently worked on Axelay as well. He is now the Senior VP of Konami of Hawaii.
Kazumi Kitaue: The producer of both Super Castlevania 4 and Symphony of the Night now holds a very rank in Konami Japan: Executive Corporate Officer.
Shigeru Umezaki: The producer for Castlevania 64 and Circle of the Moon (also known as Ko-G) was also a programmer for the original Contra series.
Etsunobu Ebisu: The other producer for Castlevania 64 and Circle of the Moon.
H. Akamatsu: The director and one of the programmers of Castlevania 3 also programmed for Snake’s Revenge. Apparently he had some hand in Castlevania 2 as well, though given the cryptic credits in the Famicom Disk Version, who knows.
Norio Takemoto: Credited as “Special Design” for Bloodlines, Takemoto-san was one of the Japanese team members in charge of Castlevania Resurrection before it got canned. He also gets a “Special Thanks” in the Harmony of Dissonance and Silent Hill 2 credits.
Yasuomi Umetsu: Listed as “illustrator” for Castlevania 64. There is a famous anime director/artist named Yasuomi Umetsu who created such violent pornfests as Kite and Mezzo Forte - I guess it’s possible they’re the same person.
Akihiro Yamada: Artist for the SNES Dracula X, other works include various pictures for Record of Lodoss War, as well the character designer for Front Mission 3.
Michiru Yamane: She is the primary music composter of Symphony of the Night, Aria of Sorrow, Lament of Innocence and Bloodlines. She also contributed a few tracks (the remixed Vampire Killer and boss rush songs) to Harmony of Dissonance. Other soundtracks Yamane-san has worked on include Suikoden 3, Contra: Hard Corps, Detana Twinbee, Ganbare Goemon 2 (Mystical Ninja) for the Famicom, Nemesis on the Gameboy, and the Japanese PSX games Elder Gate and Gungage.
Sota Fujimori: Fujimori-san was responsible for all of the arranged version songs on Castlevania Chronicles. In addition to working with Yamane-san on Gungage, he also did music for Contra: Shattered Soldier (many of the techno/electronic tracks were done by him) and composed a few Dance Dance Revolution songs, including Look to the Sky, featured in DDRMAX.
Sotaro Tojima: Often going under the name “Souji Taro”, Tojima-san composed music for Super Castlevania 4, as well as a few of the new songs in Circle of the Moon (the Catacombs and Chapel themes, and Dracula battle.) He also composed for Axelay and his name appears on one of the dog tags in Metal Gear Solid 2.
Masanori Oodachi: The other composer for Super Castlevania 4. However, there is another composer at Konami named Masanori Adachi, leading me to think they are possibly the same person. This one is credited as composing for Contra 3, Rocket Knight Adventures, and the Japanese-only Madara 2 for the Super Famicom.
Kenichi Matsubara: Apparently Matubara-san did the music for Castlevania 2, as well as Haunted Castle. Other games composed for include Crisis Force and Wai Wai World 2 for the Famicom, and Twinbee Rainbow Bell Adventure for the SFC.
Kinuyo Yamashita: Worked as composers for severl MSX and Famicom games, most importantly Vampire Killer and the original Castlevania, as well as Nemesis 3 and Parodius.
S. Terishima: Another of the Vampire Killer composers, also did NES Life Force and did something for Castlevania 2, possibly the music or sound. Could be known as “Drum Terashima”.
Tomoya Tomita: Another of the Dracula X SNES sound team, Tomita-san composed for the original Mystical Ninja 64 game, as well as Parodius. Also served as the sound producer for Circle of the Moon and Castlevania 64.
Masahiko Kimura: One of the many on the Dracula X SNES sound team, Kimura-san also composed for Castlevania 64 and Suikoden 3.
Harumi Uekou: Still another of the Dracula X SNES composers, Uekou-san worked on the SNES Mystical Ninja and Gradius 3 games, all of the Silent Scope series, and Snatcher.
Mikio Saitou: One of the four listed composers for Dracula X PC Engine (credited as Metal Yuuki), Saitou-san worked on the PC Engine port of Gradius 2, as well as composing for Tokimemki Memorial.
H. Funauchi: Apparently Konami’s Gameboy composer for some time, he composed for both Castlevania Adventure and Belmont’s Revenge, as well as Operation C.
H. Maezawa: One of the composers behind Castlevania 3, Contra, Gradius 2 FC, Super C, Life Force, Detana Twinbee and The Adventures of Bayou Billy. Sometimes goes under the name “Michael Maezawa”.
Jun Funahashi: One of the three composers for Castlevania 3, he worked on Tiny Toons and The Adventure of Batman and Robin for the SNES. He also did a lot of music and arrangements for the GBA Konami Arcade package.
Yukie Morimoto: Another of the Castlevania 3 composers, Morimoto-san worked on Gradius 2 FC and 3 SFC, Tiny Toons SNES, and Pop’n Twinbee.
Rika Muranaka: One of the music producers as Konami, she is the one responsible for “I Am the Wind” from Symphony of the Night. She also produced the vocal songs “Esperadonte” (Silent Hill), “The Best Is Yet To Come” (Metal Gear Solid), and “Can’t Say Goodbye to Yesterday” (Metal Gear Solid 2).
Cynthia Harrell: The vocalist of “I Am the Wind”, who apparently is some jazz singer.
Motoaki Furukawa: One of the composers for Castlevania 64, he also worked on several Guitar Freaks tracks, as well as Salamander 2.
Soshiro Hokkai: The primary composer of Harmony of Dissonance. It doesn’t seem like he’s worked on anything else.
Kenichiro Horio: The programmer of Bloodlines also took part in Contra: Hard Corps and Rocket Knight Adventures.
Masato Maegawa: Here’s an interesting one - Maegawa-san was one of the programmers for the Castlevania Adventure, but he left to join the Treasure team to become one of their most important members - the CEO, in fact. He served as a Supervisor for Gunstar Heroes, Producer for Sin and Punishment and Radiant Silvergun, and was the programmer for many, many of their other titles.
Satoshi Kushibuchi: One of the graphic designers for Super Castlevania 4 also contributed to on Contra 3 and the Sega CD version of Snatcher.
Kazuko Fujihara: The character designer for Circle of the Moon hasn’t done any other works I could find.
S. Kitamoto: Had some role in Castlevania 3, and was also the director of the NES Contra games.
K. Kimura: The graphic designer for the first two Castlevania Gameboy games also jumped ship to Treasure and became a graphic designer for Guardian Heroes and DynamiteHeaddy, amongst others.
Noriyoshi Sato: One of the many artists for Symphony of the Night, Sato-san also worked on modeling graphics for Silent Hill 2.
Toshiharu Furukawa: Furukawa-san was the character designer for the PC Engine Dracula X, and also did graphics for Symphonyof the Night and the arranged Castlevania Chronicles sprites. He also worked on the Symphony scenario.
Osamu Kasai: This sound programmer worked on Bloodlines and Symphony of the Night.
Gagensai F.: A programmer for Dracula X PC Engine and Symphony of the Night.
Masaki Morimoto: Morimoto-san was an enemy programmer for Castlevania 64 and Circle of the Moon.
