Jun Maeda

Jun Maeda is the main scenario writer of the visual novel Air.

Life
Maeda started to write at a young age. In elementary school, he wrote his first gamebook, or a choose-your-adventure book. He was inspired by the writer J.H. Brennan. In junior high, he was one of the staff of the school newspaper, and published some short stories in it. In high school he started composing music and writing lyrics. While attending Chukyo University, he published some stories in the seinen light novel magazine, The Sneaker. While writing his graduation thesis, he started listening to techno music. He graduated from university with a major in psychology.

Early career
While attending university, he started composing music for video games, and wished to work for big companies such as Capcom, Nihon Falcom Coperation and Namco, but was unsuccessful. He managed to get an interview with TGL, but did not have correct documentation, and did not get the job. He eventually ended up working with the company Scoop. He was the main scenario writer for Scoop's first game, Chaos Queen Ryoko, but did not like the work environment, and filed his resignation after finishing the scenario.

He started working for Tactics, a new company formed under Nexton, after leaving Scoop in 1997. He worked on the scenario and music for Moon., the second game by Tactics. He then wrote the scenario for One ~Kagayaku Kisetsu~. After realising the positive reviews for the two games, Maeda and lots of other Tactic's staff left to work for VisualArts, where they formed the company Key. This included Itaru Hinoue, Naoki Hisaya, OdiakeS and Shinji Orito.

Key
Maeda is one of the co-founders of Key. He works as a scenario writer and a composer for the game's music. He likes to make "crying games", games with a melancholic feel to them. He has a built a steady fan base, with many fans complimenting the beautiful storyline of the games he has worked on. However, in in issue of the magazine Comptiq, he announced that after Little Busters!, he would not be working on scenarios anymore. He still, however, continues to work on the music for games.

Kanon
Kanon, Key's first game was released in 1999, and gave the company a good head start, as it was proven to be very popular. Maeda worked as the main scenario writer, along with Naoki Hisaya, who quit after the game was released.

Air
Maeda wrote most of the scenario and music in Air, as the main writer, composer and lyricist.

Clannad
Four years after Air, Clannad was released. Maeda worked on 75% of the game, where he did most of writing.

Tomoyo After ~It's a Wonderful Life~
Maeda wrote the music and scenario for Tomoyo After ~It's a Wonderful Life~, Key's fifth game.

Little Busters!
Maeda wrote Rin's arc, Refrain, and Saya's arc, who was included in ''Little Busters! EX''. He also wrote the music for the game.

Kud Wafter
Maeda supervised the game's music, after retiring from being a scenario writer.

Rewrite
Itaru Hinoue, Key's main illustrator, worked as the main scenario writer for this game. She consulted Maeda about who to employ for the rest of the scenario writers. Romeo Tanaka was employed as one of the scenario writers, but still did not know Maeda had stepped down as the scenario writer. He became more interested when he found out he would write most of the game. Maeda worked as the quality checker for the music of the game.

Angel Beats!
Angel Beats!, was created by Maeda and Na-Ga, one of Key's illustrators. Maeda was the writer, planner and composer for the game's music. Maeda thought he had reached his limit after writing Little Busters!, when inspiration struck him to write a story set in the afterlife. Maeda's original storyline, however, was not enough to set in thirteen episodes that went for twenty-one minutes each. So Angel Beats! was expanded to other media, such as manga and short stories. Maeda found it difficult to travel between Tokyo and Osaka, where Key is based, and also expressed difficulty in writing an entire script by himself. After he finished the script, he began composing the music, which he liked better. Maeda wrote fifteen songs for Girl's Dead Monster, spending about two days on each song. He tried to write songs he thought high school girls would compose. Because of this, Maeda commented that he thought the opening and ending songs, which he also composed, sounded like they were written by someone else.

Seiji Kishi was appointed to be the director, who was shocked to see that Maeda was the writer. Kishi appointed that Satoki Iida proofread the script, because of Maeda's fixation on composing music.

Maeda hosted the radio show, Jun Maeda's Brutal Radio Show, which was used to promote Angel Beats!, and featured other guest stars, such as Na-Ga.

Trivia

 * Maeda was left out of Key's fourth game, Planetarian ~Chiisana Hoshi no Yume~, with Yuichi Suzumoto as the scenario writer and Magome Togoshi and Shinji Orito composing the music.