Shigesato Itoi

Shigesato Itoi worked with Nintendo to design video game-themed haramaki.

Itoi is an avid Monopoly player and is President of the Japan Monopoly Association (日本モノポリー協会, Nihon Monopoly Kyōkai). He also competed in the 1992 Monopoly World Championships and placed eighth. Itoi's video game development company Ape, Inc. developed two Monopoly games for the Super Famicom, with Itoi serving as producer. These versions of Monopoly were not released outside of Japan and featured a more role-playing experience.

Itoi launched a photo creation tool called "Dokonoko", which is designed specifically to be used with pets. It has been described as an "Instagram for pets". Dokonoko is most famous for a particular Japanese Labrador Retriever named Corky, who made front line news because of the abnormal length of her tongue.

Itoi was born on November 10, 1948, and raised in Maebashi, Gunma. He was a heavy smoker until he quit in 2002. Itoi has been married to actress Kanako Higuchi since 1993. He has a daughter from a previous marriage, whose handwriting inspired the style of the Japanese characters for the Mr. Saturns in EarthBound. In a 2019 interview, he mentioned that he has asthma, which causes him to cough when lying down. He would often play Mario when he was unable to sleep at night due to his asthma, and stated that he felt "indebted to Nintendo" and specifically wanted to work with them on Mother due to this. The protagonist of the game, Ninten, also has asthma, which was one of the first aspects of his character Itoi came up with.