Naoto Ōshima

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Naoto Ōshima (大島 直人, Ōshima Naoto^?) (January 26, 1964-) is a Japanese national and former Sega employee who designed the characters of Sonic the Hedgehog and Dr. Eggman (Dr. Ivo Robotnik). However, Yuji Naka and Hirokazu Yasuhara often get the credit for their work on the Sonic series, because of their close association with the Sonic name. Ōshima gained renown at Sega's Sonic Team for creating characters and playing integral roles in the development of games like Phantasy Star, Sonic CD, Nights into Dreams..., and Sonic Adventure.

After leaving Sonic Team, he formed an independent game company called Artoon. Since then he has stepped down from the position of president in the company, Yutaka Sugano being the current president. There he went on to work on such games as Pinobee and Blinx: The Time Sweeper, and in 2004, the sequel to Blinx, Blinx 2: Masters of Time & Space.

He is occasionally credited under the nickname "Big Island", which is a literal translation of his family name.

[edit] Production history

This section may require cleanup to meet Wikipedia's quality standards. Please improve this section if you can. (January 2008)

• Kujakuo (1988) — Designer
• Phantasy Star (1988) — Designer
• Phantasy Star II (1989) — Designer
• Sonic the Hedgehog (1991) — Character Design, Project
• Fatal Labyrinth (1991) — Designer
• Sonic Eraser (1991) — Special Thanks
• Sonic CD (1993) — Director
• SegaSonic the Hedgehog (1993) — Special Thanks
• Knuckles' Chaotix (1995) — Original Character Concept
• Sonic 3D Blast (1996) — Advisor
• NiGHTS into Dreams (1996) — Director, NiGHTS Designer
• Christmas NiGHTS (1996) — Director, Visual Designer
• Sonic R (1997) — Graphic Advisor
• Sonic Jam (1997) — Supervisor
• Burning Rangers (1998) — Director, Character Designer, Graphic Artist
• Sonic Adventure (1998) — Story Event Motion Designer, Story Event Coordinator, CG Movie Producer, Opening Movie Editor
• Pinobee: Wings of Adventure (2001) — Director
• Blinx: The Time Sweeper (2002) — Director
• Blinx 2: Masters of Time and Space (2004) — Director
• Yoshi's Universal Gravitation (2004) — Producer
• Yoshi's Island DS (2006) — Producer
• Blue Dragon (2006) — Executive Producer
• Lost Odyssey (2007) — Special Thanks
• Away Shuffle Dungeon (2008) — Character Designer