Eiji Aonuma

Eiji Aonuma (青沼 英二) born in 1963 is a Japanese designer and director of video games. He currently works for Nintendo, and just oversaw the development process of The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess (which was released for Wii on November 19th, 2006 and on December 11th, 2006 for the Nintendo GameCube), the latest game in the popular The Legend of Zelda series.

Education
Aonuma attended the Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music where he majored in design, working on moving mechanical figures (whose members were articulated), which were essentially marionettes. He graduated in 1988 and then acquired his job at Nintendo, with whom he has remained since.

Nintendo
Aonuma began work on the Super Famicom game Marvelous: Another Treasure Island, which was influenced by The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past. Shigeru Miyamoto, Nintendo's renowned game designer, saw his work and asked him to be assistant director on The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, destined for the company's Nintendo 64 system. Following the game's success, he was promoted to director of the next titles in the Legend of Zelda series, Majora's Mask, the Nintendo 64 successor to Ocarina of Time, and The Wind Waker, the first Zelda game for the company's GameCube console. After the mixed reviews of The Wind Waker, Aonuma considered moving onto other projects, but was convinced by Shigeru Miyamoto to continue with the Zelda series. Aonuma has recently finished working on The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, the newest title in the franchise and the second major Zelda title to be released for the GameCube, and a launch game for the Wii. He is currently working on a sequel to The Wind Waker for the Nintendo DS, The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass. He has said he "would like to make a Zelda that somehow surpasses the Ocarina of Time", a game very much lauded by both critics and fans alike.

Miscellaneous

 * Aonuma believes that Mario's name finds its origins in the word "marionette".
 * He enjoys music very much, being a member of a wind orchestra called "The Wind Wakers", named after The Wind Waker, which is composed of several Nintendo employees who perform concerts four times a year for other employees of the company, and in which he plays percussion (instruments as diverse as bongos, congas and timpani).
 * Aonuma also has a great passion for cooking, an affection he would somehow like to implement in a game.
 * Aonuma was voted Designer of the Year for his work on Twilight Princess in Electronic Gaming Monthly ' s 2006 1Up Network Awards.