Some of the greatest moments of anime film history—Chihiro falling from the sky with Haku in Spirited Away, the fight between Ashitaka and the demon in Princess Mononoke, the first time we see Totoro at the catbus stop in My Neighbor Totoro—were soundtracked by one man. Joe Hisaishi is arguably the most acclaimed Japanese composer to have ever worked in film. Peerless in his home country, Hisaishi has come to enjoy a cult status internationally among anime fans for his prolific body of work, much of it with Hayao Miyazaki, anime’s greatest storyteller. Like Miyazaki, Hisaishi has earned the rare distinction of being both critically celebrated and extremely successful in the mainstream. He has written the music for four of the top 11 overall all-time highest grossing films in Japan (Spirited Away, Howl’s Moving Castle, Princess Mononoke, and Ponyo), which are all within Japan’s top five highest grossing anime films.

Born in Nakano, Japan in 1950 as Mamoru Fujisawa, Hisaishi has played music nearly all his life, initially studying at Tokyo’s renowned Kunitachi College of Music. His early discovery of electronic music, Yellow Magic Orchestra, and American minimalism had a profound effect on his writing as he began to compose music that blended, rather than categorized, all his varied influences. As his career began to boom, he took up the stage name Joe Hisaishi, which was inspired by Quincy Jones (the kanji for “Hisaishi” reads like “Kuishi,” which sounds close to “Quincy”). And after the success of 1984’s Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, Hisaishi’s collaboration and friendship with Miyazaki propelled him to international fame outside of Japan.

The frequent comparison of Hisaishi to John Williams, the western equivalent of a master film composer with close ties to a popular director, only hints at the full range of Hisaishi’s skills and accomplishments. Coming from an experimental background, Hisaishi also has an impressive solo career dappling in minimalism, electronic, and European and Japanese classical, all of which you can hear in his film work. Hisaishi also composed the music for many of Takeshi Kitano’s best films, which, compared to the kid-friendly My Neighbor Totoro, are ultra violent and nihilist. He also wrote music for the popular Ni no Kuni video game series and for his own film, 2001’s Quartet.

If it’s true that Miyazaki is really coming out of retirement, hopefully we’ll get to see another collaboration between these two masters. As a man in his sixties who’s still making excellent music on his own, Hisaishi shows no sign of slowing down. Here’s where to start with his vast body of work.

“Pulse In My Mind” from Mkwaju (1981)

Hisaishi composed and produced his first release, 1981’s Mkwaju, with the percussion ensemble Mkwaju Ensemble, to which the album is credited. Inspired by his idols Terry Riley and Steve Reich and of African rhythms (“mkwaju” is the Swahili word for tamarind, an African tree from which many wooden instruments were originally built from), Hisaishi showcased his early compositional talents while exploring the theme of ma, which in Japanese roughly translates into “emptiness” and is the musical theory of putting space between notes to give the music more tension and release, a theme he and Miyazaki would later bond over in their work together. He would perfect the art of repetition and ma on a grander scale in his future film work, but in the beginning, the joy for Hisaishi was creating as much music as possible with the fewest notes.

“Highway Cracker” from Information (1982)

Hisaishi released his second album, 1982’s Information, under the pseudonym Wonder City Orchestra. Whereas Mkwaju is ageless and ethereal, Information is very ’80s and very new wave. For all his interest in highbrow music, Hisaishi also loved pop music and had a natural talent for writing memorable hooks and melodies. Pretender, his underrated solo album released a couple years later, also proved that Hisaishi could do a solid Kenny Loggins impression.

“The Girl Who Fell From the Sky” from Castle in the Sky (1986)

In 1983, Hisaishi and Hayao Miyazaki met through a mutual friend who suggested that Miyazaki hire Hisaishi to write the score for his second film, 1984’s post-apocalyptic fantasy Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind. Miyazaki and Hisaishi have been close friends and collaborators ever since, with the film’s success inspiring the launch of Studio Ghibli. The music for Castle in the Sky, Miyazaki’s 1986 Nausicaä follow-up, was originally written on synthesizers, but later Hisaishi was commissioned to rework his music with a symphony orchestra to make the film more appealing to audiences outside Japan. Though he didn’t abandon his love of minimalism altogether—the music still retains a hint of small, tender yearning—Hisaishi’s early symphony scores are his most grand and traditional. “The Girl Who Fell From The Sky,” along with the equally beautiful themes to Nausicaä and 1997’s fan-favorite Princess Mononoke, is Hisaishi at his most John Williams.

“A Haunted House!” from My Neighbor Totoro (1988)

“A Haunted House!,” like My Neighbor Totoro, is disarmingly playful without any trace of irony. For the score, Hisaishi brought back his synthesizers and wrote simple, upbeat music that reflected the movie’s innocent tone. (Have you heard such a delightful haunted house before?) The film is so void of terror or violence that the popular, albeit false, rumor suggesting that Totoro is the God of Death seems like the only logical explanation for how a movie can be so pure—yet even the most hardened cynic would struggle to fight against Hisaishi’s most joyful score.

“Island Song” from A Scene at the Sea (1991)

Though he continued to work closely with Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli, Hisaishi wrote music for other directors as well. Hisaishi’s most notable non-Ghibli collaboration began in 1991 when he wrote his first score for Takeshi Kitano, a well-known Japanese comedian and TV host who became a director known for his violent and deadpan yakuza dramas. The two would collaborate together throughout the ’90s and early ’00s—a fruitful time for both, with Kitano making some of his best films and Hisaishi returning to his electronic roots while reaching new audiences outside of anime. A Scene at the Sea, one of the few Kitano films not about Japan’s organized crime syndicate, finds Hisaishi back in his calming Mkwaju Ensemble days while more confidently fleshing out his romantic tendencies.

“Eye Witness” from Sonatine (1993)

“Eye Witness,” from Kitano’s international breakout hit Sonatine, a film about an aging yakuza who’s been set-up by his boss to be taken out, is the “sound” of most Kitano films: sardonic, unsettling, and yet somehow sentimental. Hisaishi’s other major Kitano scores (Hana-bi, Kids Return, and Dolls) all pull a little bit from the restless rhythms and grinning nihilism of “Eye Witness.” Ironically, one of Hisaishi’s biggest hits, “Summer,” from Kitano’s 1999 bust Kikujiro, might be his most immediately pleasant and accessible piece yet.

“One Summer’s Day” from Spirited Away (2001)

Everything Hisaishi had accomplished by this point came together perfectly for “One Summer’s Day,” the standout piece from 2001’s Spirited Away, the obvious choice for Miyazaki’s best, or at least his most well-known, masterpiece. Because the film is so popular outside of Japan (it won the 2003 Academy Award for Best Animated Feature), “One Summer’s Day,” with his signature piano rolls and simple melody, is arguably Hisaishi’s defining work.

“Main Theme” from Ponyo (2008)

Hisaishi proudly wore his American influences on his sleeve for the main theme of 2008’s Ponyo, a surreal take on The Little Mermaid that features the absurdly star-studded cast of voice actors for an American dubbing of any Miyazaki film (Cate Blanchett, Matt Damon, Tina Fey, Liam Neeson, Betty White, and Frankie Jonas and Noah Cyrus, the kid siblings of the Jonas Brothers and Miley Cyrus respectively, voicing the main characters). But this time, it’s Aaron Copland's—not Steve Reich’s—America that inspired Hisaishi’s galloping score. Like the film itself, the Ponyo score—complete with an angelic choir and his loudest symphony orchestra yet—is an oddball entry but is nonetheless gorgeous.

“The Procession of Celestial Beings” from The Tale of the Princess Kaguya (2013)

Hisaishi’s music stands strong on its own, but its true power comes from watching how the music works within the films he scores. The music for 2013’s The Tale of the Princess Kaguya, which was produced by Studio Ghibli but is not a Miyazaki film (Ghibli co-founder Isao Takahata directed), is the latest example of a master composer working his magic with just a few instruments and simple melodies. It speaks to the greatest gift Hisaishi has given the world: a beautiful musical translation of what the Japanese call ma.