Shigeru Miyamoto was born on November 16, 1952, in Sonobe, Kyoto, Japan. Before entering the video game industry, he nurtured a strong interest in cartooning and manga. During high school, he started a manga club and created original characters, initially aspiring to become a professional manga artist. He ultimately studied industrial design at Kanazawa Municipal College of Industrial Arts, graduating after five years. His early desire to work in manga and his background in illustration directly informed his later approach to character creation and visual storytelling.

Miyamoto joined Nintendo in 1977 as an artist, initially working on arcade game art before creating the characters and designs for the revolutionary Donkey Kong in 1981. As the creator of the Super Mario Bros. and The Legend of Zelda franchises, his original character designs and game concepts have been adapted into several anime productions. His role in these animated works is consistently credited as Original Creator, Original Character Design, or as the writer based on his game concepts.

Among the anime works for which Miyamoto is credited as an original creator is the 1986 theatrical film Super Mario Brothers: Peach-hime Kyuushutsu Daisakusen. Released on July 20, 1986, this was the first film based on a video game, predating the live-action Hollywood adaptation by seven years. The film was directed by Masami Hata, and Miyamoto is credited for the original characters, with the screenplay by Hideo Takayashiki. The plot follows Mario and Luigi as they enter the Mushroom Kingdom to rescue Princess Peach from Bowser.

In 1989, the three-episode original video animation series Amada Anime Series: Super Mario Brothers was released on August 3. This OVA, produced by Studio Junio, retells classic Japanese fairy tales including Momotaro, Issunboshi, and Snow White with characters from the Mario franchise. Miyamoto is officially listed as the original character designer and original creator for this series.

Another OVA, Mario Kirby Meisaku Video, was released in 1993. This educational video was aimed at teaching young children kanji characters. The production features both Mario and Kirby in separate segments. Miyamoto is credited as the original creator and original character designer for the Mario portions of the video, while Masahiro Sakurai is credited as the original creator for the Kirby segments. This marks one of the earliest anime appearances for the Kirby character.

Miyamoto is also credited for the educational short films Super Mario no Kōtsū Anzen, which focuses on traffic safety, and Super Mario no Shōbōtai, which focuses on fire safety. These productions utilized the recognizable Mario characters to teach safety lessons to children, further extending the original game characters into educational media.

Miyamoto's artistic identity is characterized by playful, imaginative worlds with simple but engaging narratives. His design philosophy emphasizes intuitive exploration and discovery, where players and viewers are encouraged to engage with whimsical environments. The narrative structure of his games and the stories adapted from them often reflect the kishōtenketsu format, a classical Japanese narrative structure common in manga that he has cited as an influence. This stands in contrast to the Western three-act dramatic structure, favoring a twist or turn that provides a unique perspective.

The industry significance of Shigeru Miyamoto as an original creator in anime rests on his role as the source material author for some of the most recognizable characters in media history. While not a director or screenwriter for these anime adaptations, his original video game concepts provided the foundational characters, settings, and aesthetic that made these productions possible. The 1986 film holds historical importance as the first feature-length movie adaptation of a video game, establishing a template for transmedia franchising that would become standard practice decades later. His background as a young manga artist who turned to game design created a direct lineage between the manga industry and the video game industry, influencing how Japanese game characters are designed to be expressive and memorable enough to carry animated adaptations.