Aonuma graduated from the Tokyo University of the Arts in 1988 with a masters degree in composition design, working on marionettes.
Nintendo
After graduating, he interviewed at Nintendo. Aonuma met Shigeru Miyamoto during the interview, and showed Miyamoto samples of his college work. When he landed a job at Nintendo, however, he had never played a video game before, as he did not play them as a child. He asked his girlfriend about video games, and she introduced him to two Yuji Horii games, Dragon Quest on the Famicom and The Portopia Serial Murder Case on the PC-8801, which were the first video games he ever played. His first projects involved graphic design, creating sprites for Nintendo Entertainment System games such as 1991's NES Open Tournament Golf. Aonuma was director of development on 1996's ' for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. In a move which Aonuma attributes to his position on the Marvelous team, Miyamoto recruited Aonuma to join the development team for the Zelda series. He spent several years as a lead designer of The Legend of Zelda series: ' and its sequel Majora's Mask, both for the Nintendo 64; and The Wind Waker, the first Zelda game for the GameCube. After The Wind Waker, Aonuma considered moving onto other projects, but was convinced by Shigeru Miyamoto to continue with the Zelda series. He then led the production of ', the second major Zelda game to be released for the GameCube and a launch game for the Wii. He then produced a sequel to The Wind Waker for the Nintendo DS, ', followed by another Nintendo DS title, '. He also produced Link's Crossbow Training and ' for the Wii, ' for the Nintendo 3DS, and ' for the Nintendo Switch and Wii U. In November 2016, Aonuma received the Lifetime Achievement Award at the Golden Joystick Awards. In addition to producing Zelda games, Aonuma plays percussion as a member of a brass band he founded with five others in 1995, known as The Wind Wakers, named after the game of the same name. The band comprises over 70 Nintendo employees who perform four concerts a year. In June 2019, he was promoted to the position of Deputy General Manager within the company's Entertainment Planning & Development division.
