The differences in character direction are pretty immediate with Nishigori and Tanaka, given their last work on Franxx with it being noticeable in facial proportions yet keeping Honda's redos largely in tact. Thought it is subtle

This can be best exemplified in still frames of the movie, which take on a subtly different look then the last film. This seems to be only true of the last portion of the film, as the first closely resembles more of being inspired by Honda’s work (likely Iseki and Asano AD)




It’s crazy to think these are the same characters from the same movie, and the last ones. The film’s character direction might be a bit scatterbrained but all seems to be a result Anno’s perplexingly rushed decision making. Some shots the characters look completely different and then change the next shot. With some interesting choices such as these shots.


This all did seem to be intentional though, as the dream world portion felt just as impossibly complex as Anno’s brain.

Some examples of the correction being corrected came from Kouichi Arai. Arai has already been known to depart from character designs in his works, but here it felt largely unnecessary to insert a third movie design already into the second half that had redos in the last film. Here we can see Arai getting corrected by Tanaka then cleaned up by Nishigori (I THINK)

With a film highlighted by cgi and hand-drawn action, it was hard to expect the best use of this hybrid approach would be through character acting and 3D layouts. Where this whole scene sakugabooru.com/post/show/161978 was assisted sakugabooru.com/post/show/222320\. The most extreme example of this is Asuka trying to force feed Shinji.

This scene was one of the most ambitious portions of the film. Once Asuka starts to get her hands on Shinji, the camera movement is frenetic wild and seemingly moving like a 3rd character in the sot. This was because of using a motion capture rig reference to base the scene off of. This unfortunately was a last minute decision that put Tsurumaki and Iseki in a bit of a bind and forced the hand of the in-betweener and whoever the key animator was to make it work. Thankfully, it did.

As for action, those sections were handled by Keiya Tabuchi being the overeseer in the 3D and 2D departments with Nishigori pretty much being advisory, and being put on retake duty by Anno. For the 2D animators, a lot of the explosion goats such as Takashi Hashimoto, Yasushi Muraki, Hidetsusgu Ito, and more handle the initial attack scene. The dream battle between Shinji and Gendo (at least the 2D portion) had Studio Trigger head staff members Ikarashi, Imaishi, and Yoshinari taking over the scene

Some of the best character acting scenes are done by Toshiyuki Inoue who unfortunately wasn’t present for the action scenes unlike the last film.

Tetsuya Nishio however was available for those portions.

While the scheduling of the movie was a bit strenuous the film was ultimately successful enough to work on its own merits, and be a final goodbye to the franchise.

KA: Tadashi Hiramatsu

Another ambitious yet shorter effort from Nishigori came in the form of Voy@​ger video, an Idolmaster music video

A co-produced production between Khara and Cloverworks, this sees Nishigori really pushing the boundaries of his storyboarding and containing legitimately his strongest work. While much of Nishigori’s previous work was well done, here it seems like he’s fully committed to upping the ante with the stars of the Idolmaster series in a futuristic setting. I love the idea of the stars being 3D printed into the scene, then the gradual escalation of the background going from a sterile lab white to a flashy intergalactic lightshow. It feels more ambitious than he usually is. Once again Nishigori along with the 2D and 3D staff are able to do insane cgi integration with 2D characters, with the animators giving the stars a wonderful since of volume against these constantly moving rig cameras, this is thanks to photography director Yuuya Sakuma who had previously worked on another Idolmaster adaptation Cinderella Girls, and long time A-1 Pictures color designer Kazuko Nakashima.

The next year on Spy x Family Nishigori directed, storyboarded and and key animated the ED

Nishigori 0:00-24, 0:55-end
Such a cute animation. This whole ED is supplanted with some great references, the spy car cut being not only a reference to James Bond but an animated cut by Imaishi from Paradise Kiss of all things sakugabooru.com/post/show/56201\. The cute flat dream like atmosphere, with the cutout flowers and the three walking is somewhat reminiscent of Masashi Ishihama’s work albeit Nishigori is more character driven

As a complimentary special to 3.0+1.01 an OVA called Evangelion 3.0 (-46h) was released this year, taking place between 2.0 and 3.0 (confusing I know), Nishigori was Chief AD

This quick 11 minute special, just cover the character of Midori and her journey on surviving the third impact. Also gives an in universe explanation as to why her hair is pink. Nothing crazy aside, from essentially being Nishigori’s version of 3.0* events. There are some nice boards, cool 3D Eva action, and basically I need more content. (maybe not from the Rebuilds).

Wooooow. I love this guy's work. I've been using his reference sheets from P&S to influence my artwork.

Are we able to tell if he's back on board for season 2?

Considering his close ties to Trigger, and him being credited on only two Cloverworks mini projects in the last two years he very likely could be

Nishigori is an interesting fellow. He’s one of the few animators I’ve talked about on here who barely animates, or is hard to credit for what scenes he did since he’s indiscernible amongst others. Strength is found through his art and direction, which he has been somewhat inconsistent with but has marginally been consistent with when it comes to scale. As a disciple of Takeshi Honda, Nishigori is comparable in vision, but as always seemed more practical and easy going. The more character focused works on shows like Idolmaster give credence to Goripon being one of the best bishoujo artists of the last decade or so, and his attention to detail and tightly focused boards are tantalizing.

Goripon artwork and illustrations

If Nishigori were to come home and work on a new IM@​S project I could probably completely stop watching anime and not regret it.