Amin Abbas

Solal Girardin is a talented French 2D animator based in Paris, who has worked on various anime series such as: My Dress-up Darling, Mushoku Tensei, Zombieland Saga, Boruto and Higurashi Sotsu.

Girardin shared how “I’m mostly inspired by the Shaft aesthetic, especially the Monogatari series. For the manga side, I think Tatsuki Fujimoto’s work is a big source of inspiration.”

About the establishment of his career as an animator, Girardin shared how he has been studying animation for 5 years in France, and “worked on multiple projects during my internship.” 

With regard to  Japanese anime, he “started as a Nigen artist on Zombieland Saga.”

About the challenges that he faced during his projects, Girardin said: “For Japanese animation, the challenges were mainly the Japanese language itself,” he also pointed out how Japanese characters are complicated to design.

Regarding his upcoming projects, Girardin said: “First, I have to finish school and the one-year internship in the studio Passion Paris. After that I’m planning to work for interesting anime projects” but he is now focused entirely on his studies, he told Arab News Japan.

Girardin has visited Japan in 2019 for three months, and shared how his favorite place is Nakano Broadway’s Mandarake where he found “an infinite amount of animation artbooks and gengashuu.”

Girardin admires how dedicated Japanese artists are to their work, and he is ” amazed by the quantity and quality they produce.” 

Girardin advises those aspiring to tap into the field to “watch a ton of good movies (not just Japanese animation) and be open to multiple things, maybe try to find the influences of your favorite artists, that’s how I discovered Jan Švankmajer thanks to Madoka!” He also encourages them to keep drawing, and experimenting.