Matt Bozon

Matt Bozon is the co-creator of Shantae, alongside his wife Erin Bozon. He is also the brother of video game journalist and designer Mark Bozon. On his former website, he claimed to have designed and directed over 50 titles.

Studies
Matt Bozon studied at Northwestern College in Minnesota (now known as the University of Northwestern - St Paul) from 1989 to 1991, getting an Associate of Arts Degree in Graphic Design, and then at the California Institute of the Arts, in the Character Animation Department from 1991 to 1993, from which he graduated as a certificate student. He created traditionally short animated films thanks to a grant from Walt Disney.

Career
In his first years, Matt Bozon was sketching caricatures at a Six Flags theme park.[1]

Matt Bozon is a founding member of WayForward Technologies. He started with the job of making arts for a Super Nintendo game.[1] He has since served as creative director, lead designer, and director for Looney Tunes: Duck Amuck, Contra 4, the Mighty series and the Shantae series, among others.

Creation of Shantae
While Matt Bozon was still engaged with his future wife Erin, she got a flash of inspiration while coming back from her camp counselor days, and created the character of Shantae, named after one of the campers. Matt Bozon liked the idea and fleshed out the background and mythology surrounding the character.

At the time, Erin had very long hair and Matt would often take a blow in his face each time she turned around. It inspired him for the hair whip, Shantae's trademark attack.

Influences
Matt Bozon claims his drawing style was heavily influenced by Ranma ½, Hayao Miyazaki (宮崎 駿), G1 Pokémon, and 80s cartoons such as Ducktales and Transformers.

For Shantae specifically, Matt has claimed Ranma ½ and Miyazaki as influences, as well as Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water, Disney's Aladdin, and such video game series as Castlevania, Mega Man and The Legend of Zelda.

Works
This is a list of projects Matt Bozon was involved in according to Moby Games, a google search over allgame.com (before the site's demise) and Metacritic.