Keiji Inafune is a Japanese video game designer, illustrator and producer. He started his career in 1987 with Capcom working on the Arcade game Street Fighter followed by Mega Man for the Nintendo Entertainment System. Inafune was the main illustrator and artist for the Mega Man Series during the Nintendo Entertainment System and Super Nintendo eras. He had a major hand in the design of both the classic Mega Man series as well as the Mega Man X series.

Inafune join the team working on the original Mega Man mid way through development. Capcom Director Akira Kitamura had already been hard at work on the game and was the designer of the original Mega Man character. He had a basic concept of what Mega Man was supposed to look like as well as several bosses. Regardless of not creating the Mega Man character himself from scratch Inafune’s influence on the Mega Man series was so pronounced that he is commonly referred to as the father of Mega Man. At the end of the Super Nintendo era, Capcom appointed Inafune the producer of the Mega Man series in 1996 with his first title being Mega Man 8 for the Sega Saturn and Sony PlayStation.

While in the role of producer Inafune produced Mega Man X4, Mega Man X5, the Mega Man Legends series, the Mega Man Zero series and the Mega Man Battle Network series. While producing the multiple Mega Man series Inafune also produced “The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap” before being promoted to a Senior Corporate Officer of Research & Development in 2006. While heading up the Research & Development division, Inafune continued to produce the Lost Planet, Dead Rising and Onimusha series before leaving Capcom in 2010.

After parting ways with Capcom Inafune founded his own companies, Comcept and Intercept and became Representative Director of DiNG, a mobile game studio. On August 31, 2013, Inafune started a Kickstarter campaign for a game that was considered to be a spiritual successor to the Mega Man series, known as Mighty No. 9. The game was being designed and produced by Comcept while the development of the game was being handle by Inti Creates. After a multitude of delays, the game finally released in 2016 and was met with negative reviews from critics upon launch. In 2017, Comcept was purchased and became a subsidiary of Level-5, becoming Level-5 Comcept.