In his three decades at Nintendo, Takaya Imamura worked on some of the company’s most iconic games, including F-Zero, Star Fox, i The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask. He also designed Tingle and for that we will be grateful forever.
Today, to his Facebook page, Imamura posted a selfie taken outside Nintendo’s Kyoto headquarters and wrote, “This is my last day at work. I took a selfie with the office empty. I guess I won’t go in here anymore. As expected, I will miss him. Imamura 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 joined Nintendo in 1989 as a graphic designer, where he cut his teeth F-Zero. He continued to work Star Fox, modeling the characters after his colleagues: Fox McCloud, for example, was based on Shigeru Miyamoto and Tingle’s design. Imamura also served as a supervisor in Smash Bros.
We thank Imamura for all the great characters and games and wish him a pleasant retirement.