Meeting Eiji Aonuma

Hey everybody at Zelda Informer! Colin here, your ecstatic Managing Editor. We don’t normally do these kinda of posts, but I felt it was absolutely necessary to share with you this euphoric, once-in-a-lifetime experience. Why am I so excited, you ask? Beyond the rush of attending E3, I just met a man who happens to be one of my most revered personal heroes.

If you’re on here, chances are, you’ve heard of a man named Eiji Aonuma, who has played various roles as Director and Producer on nearly every Zelda game since Ocarina of Time in 1998. Today at E3, I had the incredible honor of meeting that man.

I was walking back to the hotel after a long day of travel, and I had just received my media badge when I spotted a familiar face on the other side of the street standing with a woman with whom he seemed to be having a lovely conversation. For a moment I hesitated, and in fact kept walking after stopping on the corner of the road a moment to contemplate. “What if it’s not him? That would be so embarrassing. What if it is him? I wouldn’t want to bother the man in his downtime.” I made my way back to the hotel and decided it was worth the risk. I turned around, exited the doorways, and luckily enough, he was still there on the other side of the street.

I approached the man with his familiar glasses and salt-and-papper hair and said, “Excuse me? I’m a huge fan.” Sure enough, as it said on his credentials, I was standing in front of Eiji Aonuma. I offered my hand out for a shake, which he happily gave; asked for a hug, to which he jovially agreed; and then asked for his autograph, to which he gladly obliged. Lastly, at the risk of being a bothersome fan, I humbly asked for a picture, and as gleefully as ever, he said yes. Afterwards I said an enthused goodbye and we went our merry ways.

Though this exchange only lasted for about a minute, it was undoubtedly one of the most surreal, most rapturous, and most humbling experiences of my life. At the risk of sounding cliché, I will truly remember this experience forever and I can only dream that my fortune may once again live up to that of today’s.