Japanese artist Mutsumi Inomata, who lent her dreamy creative vision to a number of well loved anime films, series and RPG video games, died suddenly at age 63 on March 10. The news was shared to Inomata’s official Twitter/X account in a letter from her sister, who noted that the illustrator had a new drawing just started at the time of her passing.
Born December 20, 1960 in Kanagawa, Japan, Inomata was best known as one of the lead character designers for the Tales of video game series from Namco (later Bandai Namco Entertainment) with Kousuke Fujishima. Inomata was the sole character designer for Tales of Destiny 1 & 2, Tales of Eternia, Tales of Rebirth, Tales of the Tempest, Tales of Innocence, Tales of Hearts and Tales of Graces, and worked on recent titles like Tales of Asteria, Tales of Berseria, Tales of Xillia, Tales of Zestiria and their animated specials.
Inomata got her start as an animator at Ashi Productions in 1979, where she worked on Space Warrior Baldios and GoShogun. In 1982, she and several other animators left Ashi to form Kaname Production. Under this label, Inomata served as a character designer, animator and/or animation director on Acrobunch, Plastic Model Wrestling Sanshiro, Leda: The Fantastic Adventure of Yohko, Windaria, Once Upon a Time and The Legend of Watt Poe.
The gifted artist went on to become a freelancer, creating characters for the anime series and movies including Future GPX Cyber Formula, Brain Powerd, Sacred Seven and The Weathering Continent. Inomata also served as an animation director on the City Hunter series and sci-fi feature Birth . Her early animator credits also include Urusei Yatsura and Fist of the North Star.
[Source: @inomatanekomata via Anime News Network]
