In his three decades at Nintendo, Takaya Imamura worked on some of the company’s most iconic games, including F-zero, Star Fox, en The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask. He also designed Tingle, for which we will be eternally grateful.
Today, on his Facebook page“Imamura uploaded a selfie taken outside Nintendo’s headquarters in Kyoto and wrote, ‘This is my last day of work. I take a selfie with the empty office. I think I will not come in here anymore. As you would expect, I will miss it. ‘Imamura has expressed his gratitude for the past 32 years.
[Note that he mentioned the company is empty because many Nintendo staffers are working from home due to the pandemic.]
Imamura first joined Nintendo in 1989 as a graphic designer, where he cut his teeth F-zero. He went to work Star Fox, who models the characters to his colleagues: Fox McCloud, for example, was based on Shigeru Miyamoto, and to design Tingle. Imamura also acted as supervisor on Smash Bros.
We thank Imamura for all the wonderful characters and games and wish him a pleasant retirement.