Nintendo game designer Shigeru Miyamoto has been elected to become an honorary citizen of Nantan City, Kyoto. The proposal, which passed at the city's council meeting on December 20, marks the first time Nantan City has elected honorary citizens since the city was formed in 2006 from a merger of several towns in the Funai and Kitakuwada districts.

Miyamoto, whose hometown is Sonobe (now part of Nantan), was chosen for the honor alongside three other people: former Chief Cabinet Secretary Hiromu Nonaka, the late Chief of Justice Ekizo Fujibayashi, and former ambassador plenipotentiary Mutsuo Mabuchi.

Miyamoto is the main designer of the first incarnations of some of Nintendo's most celebrated, well-known, and long-running game franchises, including Mario Bros., Donkey Kong, The Legend of Zelda, and Star Fox, and continued to be a main designer for some of those franchise's later games. He also helped shape the concept behind the Wii, one of Nintendo's most successful console platforms. He has the title of Representative Director and Creative Fellow at Nintendo. In October, the Japanese government deemed him the year's Person of Cultural Merit honor.

Source: Kyoto Shimbun via Crunchyroll News (Daryl Harding)