Ko Takeuchi

Ko Takeuchi (竹内 高 Takeuchi Kō, born 1970) is a Japanese visual artist and video game designer working for Nintendo. He has also worked for other companies and specializes in video games and music. Takeuchi is one of the key developers of the WarioWare series. Among his most important work in terms of Nintendo games is the character design of the WarioWare and Rhythm Heaven series. In 2001, Takeuchi founded his own design studio Kokosac along with his wife Sachiko Imai.

Life and Work
Ko Takeuchi was born in 1970 in Kōchi in the Kōchi Prefecture of Japan. He graduated from the Horikoshi High School in Tokyo, then Takeuchi studied at the Cartooning Faculty of the School of Visual Arts in New York City, United States. Before working for Nintendo, he joined the now-defunct game developer Warp after his return to Japan and worked on Sega Dreamcast games. Afterwards, he started at Nintendo as one of the designers of the game Wario Land 4. In the year of the game's release, 2001, Ko Takeuchi and his wife Sachiko Imai founded their own design studio Kokosac located in Kyoto.

Takeuchi is responsible for the character design in all games of the WarioWare series, starting with WarioWare, Inc.: Minigame Mania released in 2003, and is a key designer of the franchise in general. He designed newly introduced characters such as Jimmy T., Mona, 9-Volt and Ashley who have become a recurring cast since. His characters are usually based on real people, including his friends, colleagues and people he met on the street. Takeuchi's style, which is commonly seen as "cute", is influenced by artists such as Akira Toriyama and Yoichi Otabe.

Trivia

 * When Ko Takeuchi tested WarioWare: Snapped! during its development, he got mad by the slideshow at the end depicting himself and yelled "What the?! You darn thing!" and "No one said anything about this!"