Eiji Aonuma

 is a Japanese video game designer, director and producer, who works for Nintendo as the producer and project manager of "The Legend of Zelda" series. Since 2019 he is one of the deputy general managers of Nintendo EPD.
Biography.
Aonuma graduated from the Tokyo University of the Arts in 1988 with a masters degree in composition design, working on marionettes.
Nintendo.
After graduating, he was interviewed at Nintendo. Aonuma met Shigeru Miyamoto during the interview, and showed Miyamoto samples of his college work. He landed a job at Nintendo without ever having played a video game before. He asked his girlfriend about video games, and she introduced him to two Yuji Horii games, "Dragon Quest" (1986) on the Famicom and "The Portopia Serial Murder Case" (1983) on the PC-8801, which were the first video games he ever played. His first projects involved graphic design, creating sprites for Nintendo Entertainment System games such as 1991's "NES Open Tournament Golf". Aonuma was director of development on 1996's ' for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. In a move which Aonuma attributes to his position on the "Marvelous" team, Miyamoto recruited Aonuma to join the development team for the "Zelda" series. He spent several years as a lead designer of "The Legend of Zelda" series: ' and its sequel "Majora's Mask", both for the Nintendo 64; and "The Wind Waker", the first "Zelda" game for the GameCube. After "The Wind Waker", Aonuma considered moving onto other projects, but was convinced by Shigeru Miyamoto to continue with the "Zelda" series.
He then led the production of ', the second major "Zelda" game to be released for the GameCube and a launch game for the Wii. He then produced a sequel to "The Wind Waker" for the Nintendo DS, ', followed by another Nintendo DS title, '. He also produced "Link's Crossbow Training" and ' for the Wii, ' for the Nintendo 3DS, and ' for the Nintendo Switch and Wii U. In November 2016, Aonuma received the Lifetime Achievement Award at the Golden Joystick Awards. In addition to producing "Zelda" games, Aonuma plays percussion as a member of a brass band he founded with five others in 1995, known as The Wind Wakers, named after the game of the same name. The band comprises over 70 Nintendo employees who perform four concerts a year. In June 2019, he was promoted to the position of Deputy General Manager within the company's Entertainment Planning & Development division.