Fusajiro Yamauchi

Fusajiro Yamauchi was a Japanese artist and entrepreneur who lived in Kyoto, Japan during the late 19th and early 20th century. He was the founder of Nintendo, a company that started as a small card game shop and later became a global video gaming giant. Yamauchi was born on November 22, 1859, as the oldest son of Sosuke Fukui. He was adopted by Naoshichi Yamauchi in 1872 and received the surname Yamauchi. He worked at Haiko Cement Company before starting his own business. On September 23, 1889, Yamauchi opened the first Hanafuda (flower cards) card shop called "Nintendo Koppai", during a time when the Japanese government was banning playing cards from the public, due to their association with gambling. Yamauchi's cards featured unique handcrafted artwork painted on the bark of mitsu-mata trees. His cards were a hit, and he had to hire staff to help make more of them. By 1907, the company's cards were so popular that they needed to be mass-produced. Nintendo also began creating western-style playing cards, thus becoming Japan's largest playing cards manufacturer. Yamauchi also developed an expansive library of original card games for Nintendo playing cards. Yamauchi retired from the company in 1929, leaving his son-in-law Sekiryo Kaneda (who changed his name to Sekiryo Yamauchi) in charge of the company. Yamauchi remained uninvolved in the business for the rest of his life until he died of a stroke on January 1, 1940, in Kyoto. Yamauchi's great-grandson, Hiroshi Yamauchi, took over Nintendo in September 1949 and ran the company for 53 years, transforming it from a card game company into a multibillion-dollar video gaming company and global conglomerate. Yamauchi is widely regarded as one of the pioneers of the gaming industry and the founder of one of the most influential and iconic brands in the world.