Hiroji Kiyotake (清武 博二,Kiyotake Hiroji), born December 21, 1960, in Kagoshima Prefecture, Japan^[1]) is agame designer forNintendo and has been a part of thehistory of Nintendo since 1983.^[2]

Kiyotake graduated fromKyoto Seika University with a BA of Visual Design and was part of the rugby club.^[3]

Kiyotake started his employment atNintendo in 1983, working in theNintendo Research & Development 1 andProduct Engineering Departments, and is currently a member of the Planning and Development Department.

Hiroji was a designer forMetroid, which was originally designed for theFamicom Disk System. Hiroji is the character designer ofSamus Aran and named theMetroid character afterPelé, but he later found out that Pelé's full name was Edson Arantes do Nascimento, not Samus Arantes. Hiroji andYoshio Sakamoto and the rest of the team decided at the end ofMetroid to reveal that Samus was a female character, making Samus Aran one of the first femaleprotagonists in a video game.^[4]

Kiyotake is the original designer of Mario's rivalWario^[5][6] and one of the key people in theWario series. Kiyotake andTakehiko Hosokawa were thedirectors andgraphic designers ofSuper Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins andWario Land: Super Mario Land 3.^[7] ForVirtual Boy Wario Land, he acted as a director, and forWario games released afterWario Land 4, his role is mostly limited to the Wario design and advising, according to the staff credits of the respective games. During thedevelopment ofWario: Master of Disguise, Kiyotake supervised the numerous forms of disguised Wario designed bySUZAK.^[8]

• Super Mario Land 2 - 1992 Developer Interview (Shmuplations)
• Nintendo Dream: Famicom Disk System
• Metroid Developer Interview - NES Classic Edition

• 1960 births
• Living people
• Metroid
• Nintendo people

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