Shigesato Itoi did not come from the world of video games. First, he put his creativity to commercial use through copywriters for ads. Then, in 1981, he published a book of short stories with the now world-famous Haruki Murakami, although reviews describe it less as a collection of short stories and more a “collection of random, aimless pieces of light-hearted writing that Murakami and Itoi clearly enjoyed making.” Jumping from medium to medium, he also voiced a character in the Japanese version of Studio Ghibli’s My Neighbor Totoro.
