Eiji Aonuma

Eiji Aonuma (青沼 英二) is a Japanese video game designer, director, and producer at Nintendo. He is a senior officer within their Nintendo EPD division and serves as the producer of The Legend of Zelda franchise.

Career
Aonuma was born as Eiji Onozuka (小野塚 英二) on March 16, 1963, in Nagano Prefecture, Japan. He graduated from the Tokyo University of the Arts in 1988 with a master's degree in composition design, working on animated puppets called karakuri. 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 on 1996's Marvelous: Mōhitotsu no Takarajima for the Super NES.

Miyamoto later recruited Aonuma to join the development team for The Legend of Zelda series. He was a lead designer for The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time and its sequel The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask. Following work on The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker, he considered moving on to other projects but was convinced by Miyamoto to continue with the series. Aonuma has since led the production of The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, Phantom Hourglass, Spirit Tracks, Link's Crossbow Training, Skyward Sword, A Link Between Worlds, Breath of the Wild, and Tears of the Kingdom.

Aonuma plays percussion as a founding member of the Wind Wakers, a brass band formed in 1995. The band comprises over 70 Nintendo employees who perform a few concerts a year. He was promoted to the position of deputy general manager within the company's Entertainment Planning & Development (EPD) division in June 2019. By 2023, Aonuma had been promoted to senior officer at EPD.

Recognition
Aonuma received a lifetime achievement award at the 2016 Golden Joystick Awards. In 2023, the Ministry of Culture in France chose to distinguish Aonuma with the Order of Arts and Letters.