Eiji Aonuma

"To be honest with you, I just don't like action games that require you to jump. They're scary. The jumping factor kind of freaks me out."
	–Eiji Aonuma, GameSpy

Eiji Aonuma (青沼 英二) is a Nintendo employee and main producer for The Legend of Zelda series. Born March 16, 1963, he attended the Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music where he studied design and moving mechanical figures, and graduated in 1988.

Aonuma acquired his job at Nintendo when he was 25 years old; he met Shigeru Miyamoto during his interview and showed him some of his college work. Aonuma's first jobs at Nintendo were graphic design jobs, designing sprites for NES and SNES games.

He later directed Marvelous: Mōhitotsu no Takarajima, a 1996 Super Famicom title created by Nintendo Research & Development 2 and influenced by The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, the first Zelda title he was interested in. After this, Miyamoto asked Aonuma to be a designer for The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, beginning his involvement with the series. Aonuma would later be the director for his first title, The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask, and after directing The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker Aonuma considered moving on from the series, but was convinced by Miyamoto to continue. Aonuma has had a role in developing every The Legend of Zelda game ever since.

References

1st & 2nd Party / Owned Internal divisions Nintendo EPD • EAD* • SPD* • SDD* Nintendo PTD • BDD • SDD* • IRD* • RED* • Nintendo Network Services R&D1* • R&D2* • R&D3* Subsidiaries Nintendo of America (Treehouse) • NST • NTD Nintendo of Europe • NERD Nintendo Australia Nintendo of Korea iQue Nintendo Leisure System Co., Ltd.* Nintendo Sales Co., Ltd. Nintendo Pictures Nintendo Systems Co., Ltd. 1-UP Studio • Mario Co., Ltd.* • Marigul Management* • Mario Club • Mobile21* • Monegi* • Monolith Soft • Nintendo Cube • Next Level Games • Project M* • Project Sora* • RandnetDD Co., Ltd.* • Retro Studios • Shiver Entertainment • SRD Owned / Affiliated Seattle Mariners* • The Pokémon Company • Warpstar Inc. * – Former / Defunct
3rd Parties / Partners 8-4 • AlphaDream* • Ambrella* • Argonaut Games* • Arika • Artoon* • Arzest • AS Tokyo Studios • Bandai Namco • Capcom • Camelot • Cing* • Creatures Inc. • DeNA • DigiNin* • DigitalScape • Eighting • Flagship* • Fuse Games* • Game Freak • Ganbarion • Genius Sonority • Good-Feel • Grezzo • HAL Laboratory • Hatena • Hudson Soft* • indieszero • iNiS • Intelligent Systems • Jamsworks • Jupiter • Koei Tecmo • Kuju • Left Field Productions* • Level-5 • Mistwalker • Monster Games • Noise • Paon • PlatinumGames • Q-Games • Rare* • Red Entertainment • Sega (Atlus) • Sora Ltd. • skip • Softnica • Spike Chunsoft • Square Enix • St.GIGA* • Syn Sophia • TOSE • Treasure • Vanpool* • Vitei * – Former / Defunct
Key employees Presidents Founder: Fusajiro Yamauchi Successors: Sekiryo Kaneda • Hiroshi Yamauchi • Satoru Iwata • Tatsumi Kimishima • Shuntaro Furukawa NOA: Minoru Arakawa • Tatsumi Kimishima • Reggie Fils-Aimé • Doug Bowser NOE: Satoru Shibata • Koji Miyake Managers, etc. Internal Creative Fellow: Shigeru Miyamoto Technology Fellow: Genyo Takeda EPD: Shinya Takahashi PTD: Ko Shiota NST: Shigeki Yamashiro Subsidiaries NNSD: Yusuke Beppu Monolith Soft: Hirohide Sugiura, Tetsuya Takahashi 1-Up Studio: Gen Kadoi ND Cube: Hidetoshi Endo Retro: Michael Kelbaugh NERD: Alexandre Delattre