Tomoko Shiono

Tomoko Shiono

Staff Information

Biographical Information

One of the earliest and most influential artists in all of pop'n music, Tomoko Shiono has been around since the series' beginning, where she started out design work for the characters, and moved up to became an artist for pop'n music 2. Afterwards Tomoko worked on beatmania as a graphic designer. In late 2000 she returned to pop'n music again in pop'n music 5, where she remained a constant contributor for the next 15 years. At her peak Tomoko did as many as half to two-thirds of the character designs per pop'n music game. She remained part of the pop'n music staff through pop'n music Sunny Park.

Tomoko has also done videos for beatmania IIDX on and off since 8th style, mostly for wac, all of them except Votum stellarum and 凛として咲く花のごとく thanking her under various aliases. She's also done a few videos for the GuitarFreaks & DrumMania series as well.

Tomoko currently contributes as a CG designer for the SOUND VOLTEX series.

Trivia

  • Tomoko is tied with VJ GYO for the longest career of any in-house staff member in BEMANI, having have had a career in BEMANI since the very first pop'n music back in 1998, when she provided initial sketches for the characters.
  • While Tomoko has never revealed herself in pictures on any official pop'n music websites, caricatures of her (including those done by herself) consistently have her depicted as having short, black hair and wearing glasses.
    • She also commonly depicts herself as a small green frog, something she has done ever since she started working on pop'n music. Her pseudonym "kaeru" in beatmania / beatmania IIDX is most likely a reference to this, as it means "frog" in Japanese.
  • Tomoko at one point lived in Paris, as noted in the staff comments for ムーンライト伝説.
    • The staff comments for her version of Mimi note she watched Sailor Moon while in college there. Since the dub of that series began in France in late 1993, this pins her birth year being somewhere around the early 1970's.
  • According to a pop'n music 11 Q&A, the reason some artists for covers in pop'n music are only credited to ♪♪♪♪♪ is due to request from the singers themselves to not reveal their names, noting they're shy.
    • She also notes the music notes are there instead of a blank because she wanted to have something there.

Aliases

  • shio / シオ
  • kaeru

pop'n CG designs

pop'n music 2

pop'n music 5

pop'n music 6

pop'n music 7

pop'n music 8

pop'n music 9

pop'n music 10

pop'n music 11

pop'n music 12 いろは

Unless otherwise specified, all of shio's CG design in pop'n music 12 are character designs only.

pop'n music 13 カーニバル

pop'n music 14 FEVER!

pop'n music 15 ADVENTURE

pop'n music 16 PARTY♪

pop'n music 17 THE MOVIE

pop'n music portable

pop'n music 18 せんごく列伝

pop'n music 19 TUNE STREET

pop'n music portable 2

pop'n music 20 fantasia

pop'n music Sunny Park

pop'n music ラピストリア

GRAFICA

  • 博麗霊夢&霧雨魔理沙

Jacket Illustrations

Overlays

Videos