Amin Abbas

DUBAI: Eiji Shiroi is a veteran Japanese illustrator who worked for gaming company SNK in the 1990’s. Her first official work in the video games industry was Group SNE’s Sword World PC (1992).

Shiroi shared exclusively with Arab News Japan  her inspiration for illustration: “I don’t get inspired by anime, manga, or games. I’m more often inspired by the culture of countries around the world that I’ve seen in movies and documentaries and the places I’ve visited at events and on trips.”

“I’ve been drawing since I was a child. It’s lucky if what I draw is well-received, and it’s wrong to draw with the intention of it being well-received,” she added.

Shiroi is best known as the main illustrator and character designer for the Samurai Showdown series as well as many other SNK series, including ‘Art of Fighting 2’, ‘Kizuna Tag Battle’ and ‘King of Fighters’ series.

“When I was working on Samurai Shodown, I was so busy that I had a stiff shoulder, and I drew pictures while feeling nauseous,” Shiroi said.

“After I left SNK, I became a manga artist and illustrator and have distanced myself from the game industry to focus on creating my own original works. However, I think the reason people still call out to me is because they recognize my work at the time and because my coworkers were very friendly,” she added.

Shiroi visited the Middle East region multiple times and was one of the Japanese artists who were invited to Animenia Abu Dhabi 2024. She was very pleased to meet fans at the event.

”The people in all those countries (GCC countries) have lovely smiles, and I feel happy when I’m with them. It’s a shame that the event schedule doesn’t give me many opportunities to experience culture. I did realize that the food is delicious. There are so many countries and cities I haven’t been to. I want to go back there to experience traditional Middle Eastern art and more. I also want to interact with Middle Eastern illustrators and creators,” she added.

Shiroi said that she is recently working on creating illustrations for a card game as well as holding personal and group exhibitions.

About her recommendations for those who want to be an illustrator for video games, anime, and manga, Shiroi said: “Watch and learn a lot of things other than games, manga, and anime; be moved by them; and remember them. Being good at drawing and talking is proportional to the breadth and amount of your knowledge. That will become your weapon.”