As TheBigN mentions, a lot of his work has a stylistic consistency — music from the first Rurouni Kenshin OAV would easily fit in ROD, too.

There are a few composers whose names I look for. In addition to Kanno, Kajiura, and Hisaishi, I’m also quite fond of Kenji Kawai. In fact, his Ghost in the Shell soundtrack was the beginning of my soundtrack downfall, even before the Ghibli movie soundtracks. His Vampire Princess Miyu soundtracks also caught my ear (and his soundtrack is probably the best thing that came out of the ill-fated Vampire Princess Miyu TV series).

Kawai, like Kanno, can deploy a great many styles, so it’s sometimes surprising that a given work is by him. However, he also has some reliable tropes, generally to do with instrumentation. There’s a snatch of the Higurashi no naku koro ni soundtrack that would fit in Miyu (perhaps unsurprising), and there are bits of the Fate/stay night soundtrack that just say “Kawai” to me.

In terms of Taku Iwasaki, there’s always a piece in a soundtrack he does that sounds similar to some of his other work (like a piece from NTHT wouldn’t seem “out of place” with ROD the TV), but he tends to have a lot of pretty good variety as well. I loved his work on Black Cat and Witch Hunter Robin, and it’s interesting to find out that he worked on EDs for SoulTaker and YKK. :3

In general though, I have “favorite” composers, but I don’t feel that one is better than the others I listen to. It’s just a matter of what I can listen to over and over again while feeling something important from it. That’s what I hope music can do for me.

I think anime (industry-wise, I guess) is special compared to most animation types especially in the broadcast TV format because often they spring the big bucks for quality musicians. So in a way I think there is a lot to be said under this topic.