Renowned Anime And Game Artist Mutsumi Inomata Has Died

Mutsumi Inomata did some lovely 'Dragon Quest' artwork over the years.

In further sad news, the remarkably talented anime and game artist Mutsumi Inomata has died.

According to her official Twitter/X account (shown below), Inomata died on March 10 and her family held a private funeral. The cause of her death has not been disclosed.

As always, my thoughts are with Inomata’s family. It also comes as a shock, as she was only 63 and still working quite actively.

For those unfamiliar with Inomata’s work, from a gaming perspective she did a lot of the character designs for the Tales series.

While the first Tales of Phantasia had character designs by Kosuke Fujishima, the following game of Tales of Destiny featured Inomata’s work, as well as a great many of the subsequent Tales games.

She was also prolific in anime, having worked on Cyber Formula as well as the fan favorite Windaria. However, my personal favorite work involving her character designs were the amazing Weathering Continent novels.

Inomata also famously worked on Brain Powerd, something that Yutaka Izubuchi talked about when I interviewed him, and that both her and Mamoru Nagano were avid gaming buddies.

Her love of gaming was also well known due to her doing excellent Dragon Quest artwork (shown above), something that was eventually compiled in a lovely artbook.

Again, it’s sad to lose another great artist so soon after Akira Toriyama passed away, but her work in anime and games will certainly live.

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