Yuji Horii
Aonuma graduated from the Tokyo University of the Arts in 1988 with a masters degree in composition design, working on marionettes. After graduating, he was interviewed at Nintendo. Aonuma met Shigeru Miyamoto during the interview, and showed Miyamoto samples of his college work. He landed a job at Nintendo without ever having played a video game before. He asked his girlfriend about video games, and she introduced him to two Yuji Horii games, "Dragon Quest" (1986) on the Famicom and "The Portopia Serial Murder Case" (1983) on the PC-8801, which were the first video games he ever played.