Atsushi Nishigori

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Nishigori graduated from the Toei Animation Institute and joined Gainax as an in-betweener but he rapidly distinguished himself as a key animator. He was inspired to enter the field because he liked Hidenori Matsubara and Takeshi Honda's drawings.

His first major role was serving as character animation director for Top wo Nerae 2! Diebuster, with the task of adapting Yoshiyuki Sadamoto's character designs for animation. This experience led him to become one of the main character designers at the studio, designing the iconic characters for Gurren Lagann.

He left Gainax to have his debut as director on The Idolm@ster, a personal passion project since he's a great fan of the series. Several Gainax staff followed Nishigori to A-1 Pictures and worked on the series, alongside staff from newly formed Trigger.

In 2018 he directed his original project Darling in the Franxx, once again reuniting with his Gainax friends spread among CloverWorks, Trigger and Studio Khara.

More recently he worked as character designer and chief animation director for Hideaki Anno's final Evangelion installment, Evangelion: 3.0+1.0 Thrice Upon A Time.