I was listening to Retronauts 768 a couple of days ago, about the 20th anniversary of the release of Mother 3. It was interesting and you might enjoy it too, but the reason for this post is that they mentioned that Nintendo art legend Benimaru Itoh still maintains an old-school website.
That is a thing about Japan; it’s on average behind the times concerning technology and internet trends, for example Geocities Japan outlived the original by a decade, but it looks more and more like that’s actually a really good thing as the Western internet dives enthusiastically down the cyber-commode. Old-school websites are in again, at least among the right people, and one of those people is Benimaru Itoh.
The focus is mostly on his art, all of which I find very nice. Like this one:
Or this heartfelt image in memory of Nintendo’s beloved late president Satoru Iwata, who programmed many games for HAL Laboratory:
There’s plenty of other examples on the site, many of them promotional music posters. More in line with our focus here at Set Side B, Itoh was the artist of some of the old Nintendo Power comics, like the Metroid and Star Fox series. He’s also a musician, and has “a doubleneck acoustic/electric mandolin/ukelele!”
Benny’s Arcade: The Website of Benimaru Itoh
