Naoto Ohshima

Naoto Ohshima
Place of birth: Osaka, Japan
Date of birth: 1964-02-26 (age 54)
Role(s): Artist, designer, director
Education: Kyoto Seika University (1986)

Naoto Ohshima (also Ōshima) (大島 直人) is a Japanese artist and former SEGA employee who was the original character designer 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, NiGHTS, and Sonic Adventure. After leaving Sonic Team, he co-founded (and later became president of) an independent game company called Artoon. There he went on to work on such games as Pinobee and Blinx the Time Sweeper. In 2010, Ohshima and other key Artoon members left the company to form Arzest, another video game development company. Ohshima currently holds the title of Executive Vice President.

Production history

• Iri-san (Dreamcast;
  No results
  9999) — Designer
• Phantasy Star (Master System;
  1987) — Design (as Rockhy Nao)
• Space Harrier 3D (Master System;
  1988) — Art Designer (as Bigisland)
• SpellCaster (Master System;
  1988) — Designer (as Big Island)
• Phantasy Star II (Mega Drive;
  1989) — Designers (as BigIsland)
• Super League (Mega Drive) (Mega Drive;
  1989) — Fielder Designer (as Big Island)
• Last Battle (Mega Drive;
  1989) — Art Director (as BigIsland)
• Fatal Labyrinth (Mega Drive;
  1990) — Designer (as Big Island)
• NiGHTS into Dreams (Saturn;
  1996) — Director
• NiGHTS into Dreams (Saturn;
  1996) — NiGHTS Designer
• Christmas NiGHTS into Dreams (Saturn;
  1996) — Director
• Christmas NiGHTS into Dreams (Saturn;
  1996) — Visual Designers
• Burning Rangers (Saturn;
  1998) — Director
• Burning Rangers (Saturn;
  1998) — Graphic Artist
• Burning Rangers (Saturn;
  1998) — Character Designer

• Sonic the Hedgehog (Mega Drive version) (1991) — Character Design (as BigIsland)
• Sonic Eraser (1991) — Special Thanks (as BigIsland)
• Sonic CD (1993/1995) — Director (as Naoto Ohshima (BigIsland))
• SegaSonic the Hedgehog (1993) — Special Thanks (as N.Ohshima)
• Knuckles' Chaotix (1995) — Original Character Concept
• Sonic the Hedgehog (anime) (1996) — Supervisor
• Sonic 3D: Flickies' Island (1996/1997) — Advisor (SOJ) (Sega) (as Naoto Oshima)
• Sonic Jam (1997) — Supervisor
• Sonic R (1997/1998) — Graphic Advisor (Sega Enterprises Ltd.) (Sega) (as Naoto Oshima)
• Sonic Adventure (1998) — Story event coordinator, Event motion designer, CG movie producer, Opening movie editor
• Pinobee: Wings of Adventure (2001) — Director (Development Staff), Character Designer (Development Staff)
• The King of Fighters EX: Neo Blood (2002) — Art Director
• Ghost Vibration (2002) — Game Designer (Development)
• Blinx the Time Sweeper (2002) — Director, Game Designer
• Blinx 2: Masters of Time and Space (2004) — Director, Game Designer
• Yoshi Topsy-Turvy (2004) — Producer
• Yoshi's Island DS (2006) — Producer
• Blue Dragon (2006) — Executive Producer (Artoon Co., Ltd.)
• Vampire Rain (2007) — Producer
• Lost Odyssey (2007) — Special Thanks
• Vampire Rain: Altered Species (2008) — Producer
• Away: Shuffle Dungeon (2008) — Character Designer
• FlingSmash (2010) — Senior Producer
• Yoshi's New Island (2014) — Development Producer (Arzest)
• Terra Battle (2014) — Character Designer
• Mario & Sonic at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games (3DS version) (2016) — Supervisor (Arzest Corp.)

Interviews

• Yuji Naka and Naoto Oshima interview by Saturn Power (July 1997)
• Naoto Oshima interview by Gamasutra (December 4, 2009)

External links

• Naoto Ohshima on Twitter