Ryuji Kobayashi is a graphic designer of Nintendo. He started working at the company at the end of the Nintendo 64 era. He is well known for his major work on the Animal Crossing series. The later two was a Art Director who also helped shaping the Wii games graphical style working in Wii Sports and Wii Play was the lead 3D artist. His most notable work was being the lead artist of The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword, leading the biggest team of artists to work in a Nintendo game and also designing the new Link. Because of his involvement with this game Koji Takahashi took his role at the Animal Crossing series.