Yōichi Kotabe (小田部 羊一, Kotabe Yōichi; born September 15, 1936)[3] is a Japanese animator and character designer, best known for his work on classic anime of the 1960s and 1970s, the Super Mario video game series, and the Pokémon franchise in television and film.[1][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., which was his introduction to video games. He continued working as a character designer and illustrator on the Super Mario series, contributing to the design of Yoshi by drawing inspiration from a chameleon sticking out its tongue, which was adapted into Yoshi's character. He would also work on games in The Legend of Zelda and Pokémon franchises. His work on the Kuru Kuru Kururin series was his last role as a character designer at Nintendo. He left the company in 2007, although he had originally only intended to stay at the company for one or two years at most.[9][10]
