Tingle’s Designer Takaya Imamura Has Retired From Nintendo

Nintendo has created a lot of weird and wonderful characters over the years, but one of the standouts is Tingle.

The recurring character, who first started out in The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask on the Nintendo 64, was designed by Takaya Imamura. Today, this same veteran Nintendo staffer – who was also responsible for the terrifying design of the Moon, announced via Facebook that it was his last day at the company after 32 years.

“This is my last day going to work. I took a selfie with the empty office. I guess I won’t be coming in here anymore. As you’d expect, I’ll miss it.”

The “empty office” is due to many Nintendo staff members working from home due to the pandemic.

Imamura started out at Nintendo in 1989 on F-Zero (1990) as a graphic designer – creating Captain Falcon. Over the years, he contributed to various other Nintendo series such as Star Fox – designing characters like Fox McCloud alongside Shigeru Miyamoto, and more recently was credited on Smash Ultimate as an original game supervisor.

On behalf of the community here at Nintendo Life, we wish Takaya Imamura all the best in his retirement.