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Naoto Ohshima (大島 直人 Ōshima Naoto?) is a Japanese artist and former Sega employee who designed the characters of Sonic the Hedgehog and Dr. Eggman. Ohshima gained notoriety at Sega for creating characters and playing integral roles in the development of games like Phantasy Star, Sonic the Hedgehog, NiGHTS into Dreams..., Burning Rangers and Sonic Adventure. He used to be credited under the nickname "Big Island," which is a literal translation of his family name.
After leaving Sonic Team in 1999, he formed an independent game company with former Sega employees called Artoon, and later Arzest, of which he is currently vice president. During his time at these companies he has been involved with various games including Blinx: The Time Sweeper and its sequel, Yoshi's Island DS, the Nintendo 3DS version of Mario & Sonic at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games and Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story + Bowser Jr.'s Journey.
On 23 July 2020, it was announced that Ohshima was working with Yuji Naka, and they had founded Balan Company, Square Enix's action game brand. Ohshima was the character designer of Balan Wonderworld, with Naka as director, and with Ohshima's Arzest developing. It marked the first time since Sonic Adventure that Ohshima and Naka had worked together on developing a videogame.
Notable non-Sonic works
- Phantasy Star — Design
- NiGHTS into Dreams... — Director, visual designer, character designer
- Blinx 2: Masters of Time and Space — Director
- Yoshi's Island DS — Producer
- Balan Wonderworld — Character designer
Credits
Character design
- Sonic the Hedgehog
- Knuckles' Chaotix - Original character concept
Direction
- Sonic the Hedgehog CD
- Sonic 3D Blast - Advisor
- Sonic R - Graphic advisor
- Sonic Jam - Supervisor
Production
- Sonic Adventure - CG movie producer
Special thanks
Trivia
- Before they released, Naoto Ohshima devoted fan artwork to both Sonic Mania and Sonic Forces on his Twitter page.
External links
- Naoto Ohshima on Twitter
- Naoto Ohshima at Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Producers | Akinori Nishiyama · Takashi Iizuka · Yuji Naka · Yoji Ishii |
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Programmers | Takahiro Hamano · Takeshi Sakakibara · Tetsu Katano · Yuji Naka · Yoshihisa Hashimoto |
Designers | Eitaro Toyoda · Hirokazu Yasuhara · Kazuyuki Hoshino · Makoto Yonezu · Manabu Kusunoki · Naoto Ohshima · Nobuhiko Honda · Hiroshi Miyamoto · Sachiko Kawamura · Shinichi Higashi · Shiro Maekawa · Shun Nakamura · Takashi Yuda · Yasushi Yamaguchi · Yoshitaka Miura · Yuji Uekawa |
Directors | Hiroshi Nishiyama · Kenjiro Morimoto · Morio Kishimoto · Takashi Iizuka |
Sound engineers | Hideaki Kobayashi · Jun Senoue · Kenichi Tokoi · Mariko Nanba · Masaru Setsumaru · Naofumi Hataya · Takahito Eguchi · Tatsuyuki Maeda · Teruhiko Nakagawa · Tomoya Ohtani |
Other | Yui Karasuno |