Yōichi Kotabe

is a Japanese animator and character designer, best known for his work on classic anime of the 1960s and 1970s, the ''Super Mario'' video game series, and the ''Pokémon'' franchise in television and film. He was an employee at Nintendo for two decades doing illustrations, character designs, and supervision from 1985 to 2007. After that, he began to work as a freelancer for the anime and video game industry, including for Nintendo again. Provided by Wikipedia