Maeda Jun was born January 3, 1975 in Mie Prefecture, Japan. He is a writer working for the software company Key; he has majorly contributed as a scenario writer, lyricist, and musical composer for the visual novels the company produces. His birth name in kanji was written as Maeda Jun (前田純), though there is no change in pronunciation. Originally from Mie, he graduated from Kaisei high school and later went on to graduate from Chukyo University with a major in psychology. Before forming Key, Maeda worked for the company Tactics where he had a hand in the creation of two games for that company, Moon. and One: Kagayaku Kisetsu e. After forming Key, Maeda has put much work into such famous titles as Kanon, Air and Clannad. He is also the author of a manga series entitled Hibiki's Magic.
Maeda Jun started writing at a young age; while attending elementary school, Maeda wrote his first amateur gamebook. Maeda was initially inspired by the Grailquest series of gamebooks by J.H. Brennan, especially the first two books in the series The Castle of Darkness and The Den of Dragons which he found to be especially interesting. Through junior-high school, Maeda worked on the school newspaper and even had some short stories published in the paper. Once attending Kaisei high school, he started to write lyrics and compose music. It was at this time that he became immersed in the fantasy genre of fiction. While attending Chukyo University, Maeda managed to get some short stories published in Kadokawa Shoten's seinen light novel magazine The Sneaker. Finally, when he was writing his graduation thesis, he started listening to techno music.
While still attending university, Maeda sought to being working as a musical composer for video games, and desired to work at big-name companies like Nihon Falcom Corporation, Namco, and Capcom, but he was unsuccessful. He eventually was able to be granted an interview with the video game developer TGL, but was unable to supply correct documentation, and did not get the job. As he was unable to get a job working with music, Maeda decided to change his occupational choice to that of a scenario writer for a video game company. At the time in the mid 1990s, scenario writers for consumer video games were inexperienced, so Maeda decided to shoot for adult games instead. During a period of one month, Maeda wrote a long three-hundred page erotic story intending to sell it to an adult game developer. He first tried with AliceSoft, makers of the popular Rance series, but finally ended up working for the company Scoop. At Scoop in 1997, he contributed as the main scenario writer for the company's first game, Chaos Queen Ryouko, however Maeda was not happy with the work environment and promptly filed his resignation with the company shortly after finishing his work on the scenario.
After leaving Scoop in 1997, Maeda went to work for the newly-formed company Tactics under the publisher Nexton. There, he went to work on the scenario and musical composition of Tactics' second game Moon., followed by his work on the scenario for their third game One: Kagayaku Kisetsu e in 1998. After realizing the positive reception received for both titles, Maeda and much of the staff who made both Moon. and One, including Itaru Hinoue,
Orito Shinji,
Hisaya Naoki, and OdiakeS, left Tactics to work under the video game publishing company Visual Art's where they formed the company Key.
