Yōichi Kotabe (小田部 羊一, Kotabe Yōichi, born September 15, 1936)[3] is a Japanese animator and character designer. He has worked on several anime films from the 1960s and 1970s,[1] the Super Mario video game series, and the Pokémon series in television and film.[4] He was an employee at Nintendo for two decades doing illustrations, character designs, and supervision from 1985 to 2007.[5] After that, he began to work as a freelancer for the anime and video game industry, including for Nintendo again.
Kotabe became interested in animation after watching the short filmMomotarō no Umiwashi as a child. He was fascinated with how the fighter moved in the film. His father, who was an oil painter, also influenced his decision to work as an artist. Kotabe found oil painting to be difficult, so he instead worked in watercolor painting.
In 1985, he was scouted by Nintendo and assumed the position of game development advisor, where he created package illustrations for Super Mario Bros. This was his introduction to video games. He left Nintendo in 2007, although he had originally only intended to stay at the company for one or two years at most.[5][unreliable source?]
