Star Fox And F-Zero Character Designer Takaya Imamura Announces His Retirement From Nintendo

With a career that lasted over three decades at Nintendo, art director Takaya Imamura has had a hand in shaping the design of some of Nintendo's most popular games and characters. Having worked across games such as The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask, F-Zero, and Star Fox, Imamura announced his departure from Nintendo on his Facebook page this week.

"This is my last day going to work. I took a selfie with the empty office. I guess I won't be coming in here anymore. As you'd expect, I'll miss it," Imamura wrote (as translated by Kotaku). Imamura's selfie was taken outside of Nintendo's empty Kyoto headquarters, as staff are currently working from home due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Imamura also took the time to thanks many of his fans who left him encouraging messages of support as he headed into retirement.

Some of Imamura's most notable creations include Captain Falcon from F-Zero, Star Fox's Fox McCloud, and the iconic Moon from Majora's Mask that was on a collision course with Clock Town. And also Tingle, whose green full-body jumpsuit leaves very little to the imagination.

Nintendo is currently occupied with business and theme park management, as in addition to its acquisition of Luigi's Mansion 3 developer Next Level Games, it's also dealing with the delayed opening of Super Nintendo World due to a new state of emergency being declared across various Japanese prefectures.