Keiji Inafune

In 1987, Keiji Inafune graduated from college. Looking for a job as an animator, he was hired by Capcom. At first he was to work on Street Fighter, but he got pulled off of that team, and re-assigned to a new project team responsible for Rockman (Megaman in the US). His job was to design all of the characters and the instruction booklet.

The first Rockman sold more than expected, but still did poorly. Capcom did not want to continue on with a second one. The Rockman team was to develop Pro Yakyū? Satsujin Jiken! (translation: Professional Baseball Murder Mystery), but they wanted to develop another Rockman. After the team begged to continue, Capcom agreed, but they had to develop Pro Yakyū? Satsujin Jiken! on time. After spending 20 hours a day developing both games at the same time, eventually they met their goal in creating both games. The Rockman II took off, due to its better graphics, better music, and more enemies.

Rockman continued on to be successful, and Keiji Inafune (often credited in games as Inafking) became known as the father of Rockman. There are now 40 titles under the Rockman trademark.

He worked as the General Manager of Capcom Production Studio 2 and senior corporate officer for Capcom. He is also the producer of the Rockman and Onimusha series of games.

At the end of 2010, after 23 years of working at Capcom, Inafune left the company. He has since launched a company named Comcept.