Tales of Series character designer Mutsumi Inomata has passed away, as announced via her official X/Twitter account. She passed away last March 10 at the age of 63. 

No words can describe how we feel right now. She will be heavily missed. 

Mutsumi Inomata is a major figurehead for Tales, responsible for a big portion of character designs in the series, notably in Tales of Destiny, Eternia, Destiny, Rebirth, Tempest, Innocence, Hearts, Graces, and including Xillia/Xillia 2, Zestiria and Berseria alongside Kosuke Fujishima, Daigo Okumura and Minoru Iwamoto. She has also worked on several anime as character designer, animator and animation director, such as Brain Powerd, City Hunter and The Weathering Continent. She is renowned for her brilliant use of watercolors and the characteristic jewel-like eyes of her characters.

Art by • Mutsumi Inomata

R.I.P.

Mutsumi Inomata's works as appearing in some Dragon Quest novels.

Brain Powerd BD-BOX artwork by Mutsumi Inomata

Inomata’s Design Notes & Memories - Destiny Cast

Some notes:

I’ve linked images of each thing she references below.

Unlike the first batch of Eternia characters I previously posted, these were in Japanese. And unlike the Destiny 2 ones I translated, she talks about her experiences with the characters in the game and not just her design processes!

The book in question is this one.

What I think about most when designing characters is their colors and the components to their look. The characters are displayed as such small sprites, so in order to be able to differentiate them from each other, I give each of them a specific color palette and unique accessories to each of their outfits.

Stahn’s thing was his scarf. I also made sure his shoulder pads, gloves, and boots looked huge.

Rutee is supposed to be a thief, so I made her look a bit like a ninja. I didn’t want her to look too girly, so I gave her shorts and exposed her navel. For colors I went with red and black, since that’s a distinctive palette. Whenever I’d do boss battles, she’d always be joyfully picking 2 gald off the ground instead of healing my very low HP characters (laughs). I thought about removing her from my party to prevent this, but then I’d feel bad, and it just made me think “this is all part of her plot” (laughs).

Philia is a priestess through and through. I went for white and green to give her an earthly feel (laughs). Her glasses and braids were a strong request from Namco. I came up with designs for her, but they didn’t have the glasses or braids, so they were repurposed for the priests in Straylize Temple. It was the basis for Philia’s design as well as Elraine’s in the sequel. Philia has her eye on Stahn, but he eats too much and he oversleeps. I feel like they’d work out better if Philia was more the assertive type herself (laughs).

Woodrow is an archetypical handsome man, so I didn’t have much to stress about when designing him. He’s a king, so I wished he had a stronger atmosphere behind him. I almost never used him when playing the game though (laughs). When you break into Dycroft, I thought, “it’d be really cool in a narrative sense to use him here, but he’s just so weak”. But you get special dialogue if you take him along, so I went “tsk” and brought him anyway. “Just stick to the backlines and don’t die” (laughs).

Leon’s really easy to draw, so again I didn’t have much to stress about when drawing him. He has a princely vibe to him, so I gave him white tights, but everyone was taken back by it! I thought, “is it that weird?” and ended up making them less tight fitting (laughs). He acts a bit snobbish, gets seasick easily and refuses to eat vegetables, so he really crosses off a lot on the “young master” list. He’s also really fun to use in battle (laughs). He has a really low defense stat but he hits fast, so it’s crucial that you string your combos together. When paired with Stahn, if you can isolate your bosses in the far side of the screen, they go down quite fast. Then I see the popup that Rutee’s picking gald off the floor again and I just use healing items on him (laughs).

I wanted to make Chelsea cute and small, so I based her image off of little birds. I gave her a palette of pink, green and blue, and made her hair look like a cockatoo or parrot. Her bloomers look like a paper lantern and I find them quite cute (laughs). Her life story makes me want to cry though. She’s fine and all in the first game, but in the sequel, she’s still wearing those bloomers from when she was a kid, living all alone on a snowy mountain. And if you go through her drawers, you can take something that Woodrow gave to her. I felt so bad, I thought “even though it’s so out of the way, I’ll go buy all the items you need!” (laughs). Then she makes all of these bows for you, but by then, I’d already enhanced my weapons a lot… But I felt so bad that I never Refined them and thought, “I’ll keep these on me forever” (laughs).

Johnny’s original idea was “troubadour,” but as the story progressed and I gave him his hat and all sorts of plumes, he came out a bit comical (laughs). He’s a really fun character to have in your party though, and I fell in love with him right away. I love that his tone-deafness does physical damage to the enemies (laughs).

With the Swordians, they have the will of humans and I wanted to incorporate that into their designs, but it didn’t seem to fit so I went for something more inorganic. Berselius alone has a creepy aura to him, and when Destiny 2 came around I thought “But his owner is such a nice person! Is it really okay for him to have such a creepy design?” but then I thought well, maybe Harold just likes things that way (laughs).

Some sad news to share this morning - Prolific animator, character designer, and illustrator Mutsumi Inomata has passed away. She worked on many beloved anime titles throughout the 80s, including animation work on Urusei Yatsura, Space Warrior Baldios, City Hunter, and Goshogun. Her striking and unique style added unique flare to her character designs for beloved cult titles like Birth, Windaria, and Leda: The Fantastic Adventures of Yohko right alongside more mainstream titles like Plawres Sanshiro and the Future GPX Cyber Formula franchise. She was also a part of the video game world, doing illustrations for Dragon Quest novels in Japan, and being the main character designer for the popular "Tales Of" series of RPG games. Truly, her artwork touched many beloved pieces of media over the years. And for all her unique and beautiful work, she will be greatly missed.

Japanese illustrator and animator Mutsumi Inomata has passed away on March 10, 2024 at age 63. A cause of death was not shared.

Inomata is best known as one of the main character designer on a number of Bandai Namco's Tales of series. Her past works includeTales of Destiny, Tales of Eternia, Tales of Destiny 2, Tales of Rebirth, Tales of the Tempest, Tales of Innocence, Tales of Hearts, Tales of Graces, Tales of Xillia, Tales of Xillia 2, Tales of Zestiria, Tales of Berseria, and Tales of Crestoria.

Within anime, Inomata worked as an animator at Ashi Production from 1979 until 1982, when she and some animators from Ashi Production left the company and founded Kaname Production. There, she worked as character designer and animator on such anime as Acrobunch - The Quest for Treasure, Plawres Sanshiro, Leda - The Fantastic Adventure of Yohko, Once Upon a Time, and Watt Poe to Bokura no Ohanashi, among others. In her later freelance career, she drew character designs for such anime as Future GPX Cyber Formula, Saitama Bōsō Saizensen Flag! Shinimonogurui no Seishun!!, and Brain Powerd. She also drew the illustrations for the Utsunomiko and The Weathering Continent novel series, both of which later inspired anime adaptations.

Dragon Quest CD Theater scans

Mutsumi Inomata passed away on March 10th.

She made some illustrations for Dragon Quest early on, mainly from DQ1 to 5. As far as I can tell, she was the first one to draw Psaro as a white-haired bishonen type. Here are some of her works:

I was going to write this last night but all I could rly manage to do was yell about it on bsky but mutsumi inomata means so much to me and I'm so sad about her passing. I don't rly like to write stuff like this in fear of sounding like I'm making someone else's death about me, but she just had a big impact on me along with a few other artists she worked with.

This drawing was a recent study I did if her artwork last year, I've done many in the past, and I'll always continue to study her work and idk I just wanted to say something about it. Her style was truly unique and it's something I'm always floored about even looking at the same pieces I have for 20+ years, I've got many of her art books and the weathering continent and tales of destiny are two things that changed the core of what I do. She was an amazing artist and Im so sad she's gone :(

I said it on bsky and I'll say here too but I love you Inomata sensei, your influence is always present in everything I draw.

"Leda: The Fantastic Adventure of Yohko" (OVA) VHS cover illustrated by Mutsumi Inomata.

Mutsumi Inomata 40th Anniversary Art Book

Mutsumi Inomata

愛の輪郭[フィールド] Kokia (1998) artwork by Mutsumi Inomata