Mamoru Fujisawa (Japanese: 藤澤 守, Hepburn: Fujisawa Mamoru, born December 6, 1950), known professionally as Joe Hisaishi (久石 譲, Hisaishi Jō), is a Japanese composer, musical director, conductor and pianist, known for over 100 film scores and solo albums dating back to 1981.

He is also recognized for his music for filmmaker 'Beat' Takeshi Kitano, including A Scene at the Sea (1991), Sonatine (1993), Kids Return (1996), Hana-bi (1997), Kikujiro (1999), Brother (2000), and Dolls (2002), and for the video game series Ni no Kuni.

He started learning the violin at the age of four using the Suzuki method, and began watching hundreds of movies each year with his father.

[4] In 1983, Hisaishi was recommended by Tokuma, who had published Information, to create an image album for Hayao Miyazaki's animated film Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind.

He also composed for such TV and movie hits as Sasuga no Sarutobi, Two Down Full Base, Tonde Mon Pe and the anime Tekuno porisu 21C (all 1982), Oz no mahôtsukai (1982), Sasuraiger (1983), Futari Taka (1984), and Honō no Alpen Rose (1985).

Other films he scored included, Birth (Bâsu) (1984), Arion (1986), Robot Carnival (1987), Totoro (1988), Crest of the Royal Family (1988), Venus Wars (1989), Kiki's Delivery Service (1989) and Ocean Heaven (2010).

He also did theme-song arrangements and composed other anime opening, closing, and insert title theme songs such as Mahō Shōjo Lalabel (1980), Hello!

Sandybell (1981), Meiken Jolie (1981), Voltron (1981), Ai Shite Knight (1983), Creamy Mami, the Magic Angel: Curtain Call (1986), and Kimagure Orange Road: The Movie (1988).

Its main theme, Merry-Go-Round, became Hisaishi's most commercially successful movie score, with over 87 million Spotify streams as of March 2024.

In 2005, he composed the soundtrack for the Korean film Welcome to Dongmakgol (웰컴 투 동막골), and participated in Korea's MBC drama series The Legend (태왕사신기 "The Story of the First King's Four Gods"), released in 2007.

[14] He also scored I'd Rather Be a Shellfish (私は貝になりたい, Watashi wa Kai ni Naritai), a post-World War II war-crime trial drama, based on the 1959 Tetsutaro Kato novel and film currently being remade and directed by Katsuo Fukuzawa, starring Masahiro Nakai and Yukie Nakama.

In August 2008, he arranged, performed in, conducted, and played piano in a concert with the World Dream Symphony Orchestra[15] to observe his 25 years of collaboration with director Hayao Miyazaki.

深海の超巨大イカ),[19][20] narrated by David Attenborough, for BBC's Natural World special Giant Squid: Filming the Impossible.