Short answers, pulled from the story.
Kazuko Shibuya is a Japanese video game artist born in 1965, best known for her contributions to Square's Final Fantasy series. She created the original game's characters, spells, monsters, fonts, menus, and opening bridge scene, and went on to design chibi versions of the characters and monsters across multiple entries in the series.
For the original Final Fantasy, released in 1987, Shibuya created the characters, spells, monsters, fonts, and menus, as well as the opening bridge scene. By Final Fantasy II, she was one of two designers responsible for all the pixel art in the game.
Kazuko Shibuya joined Square in 1986, after losing interest in her work at animation studios. Her first assignments included illustrations for the Alpha game manual and graphics for games still in development.
Before joining Square, Shibuya worked part-time at animation studios on Transformers, Area 88, and Obake no Q-taro. In middle school she had been inspired by anime including Space Battleship Yamato and Galaxy Express 999, which later led her to enroll in a technical school to study animation.
In 2019, Women in Games invited Kazuko Shibuya to be a member of honour during a lecture at Japan Expo Paris.
Kazuko Shibuya served as lead pixel artist on the 2020 Final Fantasy Pixel Remaster, thirty-three years after her original work on the Final Fantasy series beginning in 1987.