Rest in Peace, Mr. Iwata

So, as most people know by now, Mr. Iwata unfortunately passed away about two weeks ago. Nobody really expected it and despite having to skip E3 the last two years, most thought it was nothing this serious (I mean, look how well he did in the E3 video as a Muppet last month!). A lot of people have been asking me to write something though so I will do my best.

It’s been hard for me to think of something to say. There are so many great stories about Mr. Iwata that people have posted and he was such a big contribution to both Nintendo and the gaming industry as a whole–being a gamer himself, he had a point of view beyond just a company president and did so many awesome things. In fact, Pokemon Gold & Silver were the first games I played in Japanese.

While I still couldn’t think of too much to say involving it beyond wishing all the best to Nintendo and Iwata’s family, I wanted to make sure I stopped by the tribute that the Nintendo World Store had set up. Today (July 24th) is the last day so I made sure to stop by yesterday and I tried my best to make something for the occasion:
foriwata

As for my note, it was a simple Thank you and a few other words, but I did do my best to draw a cute Kirby too. I didn’t feel right taking a picture of the table with his photo and the books, but it was a very nice set-up. We did take a picture of the area where everyone had placed things:
iwatatribute
Some close-ups:

Seeing everything together is really nice. But yes, Thank you so much Mr. Iwata for everything you did.