For the first time, Japan’s highest cultural honor is going to a video game creator. The Japanese government named Nintendo’s Shigeru Miyamoto, the creator of Mario and The Legend of Zelda, as one of eight recipients of the 2026 Order of Culture on October 23. He is listed under a field that has never appeared on the honor roll before: “Media Arts (Gaming).”
Shigeru Miyamoto to Receive Japan’s Order of Culture in Historic First for Gaming Industry
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The Order of Culture is conferred by the Emperor, and the ceremony is traditionally held on Culture Day, November 3. Recipients are chosen from among Japan’s Persons of Cultural Merit, a list Miyamoto joined in 2019. This year he is honored alongside architect Toyo Ito, lighting designer Motoko Ishii, French literature scholar Tetsuya Shiokawa, chemist Kenso Soai, biologist Tsuneyoshi Kuroiwa, immunologist Shigekazu Nagata and composer Shunichi Tokura.
Why this one matters
Games have spent decades arguing for a seat at the table next to film, music and literature. This is that seat, at the very top. Putting “Media Arts (Gaming)” on the same list as architecture and immunology is a statement from the Japanese state about what games are: culture, not just commerce.
It also fits the man. Miyamoto has collected honors abroad for years, including France’s Chevalier of the Order of Arts and Letters in 2006, but recognition at home at this level is new territory for the medium he helped build. Four decades after Super Mario Bros., his characters reach people through theme parks and films as much as through games, and this honor recognizes the whole of that.
The reaction from players has been about what you would expect. “Well who if not him?” reads one of the top replies on the Nintendo subreddit. Nintendo has not yet commented; we will add any statement from Miyamoto or the company as it arrives.
