TAMIYA Shunsaku was born in Shizuoka City in 1934. He graduated from Waseda University in 1958 and joined his father’s business, Tamiya Shoji & Co. Though originally engaged in planning and design- ing wooden models, he accomplished a major transition to manufacturing models using plastic rather than wood at a critical time when plastic models were coming in from the West. In 1968, he participated for the rst time in the Nuremberg Inter- national Toy Fair; since then for 51 straight years the company has continued exhib- iting under the company motto “First in Quality Around the World”. He has striven for quality management in models through measures such as the early establishment of a customer service department, and successfully improved the Tamiya brand. In addition, he utilized leading illustra- tors of their time such as KOMATSUZAKI Shigeru, UEDA Kihachiro, and TAKANI Yo- shiyuki to develop box illustrations, which became the face of plastic models, some- thing that surpasses the role of package decoration; in doing so, he established a style of illustration called box art. In 1994, he became Chairman of the Shizuoka Cooperative Association of Teaching Ma- terials. Every year, the Shizuoka Hobby Show is held in May and helps invigorate the local economy. In 2005, his company was presented with the Excellent Design Company Award. He has served as both the President and Chairman of Tamiya, Inc. since 2017, and has published writ- ings that include Tamiya Mokei no Shigoto (Master Modeler: Creating the Tamiya Style) and Tamiya Mokei wo Tsukutta Hito- bito Densetsu no Puramoya (The Legend- ary Plastic Model Business—The People Who Created Tamiya Models; both pub- lished by Bunshun Bunko).