Legendary Anime Studio Gainax Is Officially Shutting Down
Anime News Network has reported that Gainax — the anime studio behind such influential and cult titles as Gunbuster, Gurren Lagann, FLCL, Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water, and of course, Neon Genesis Evangelion — is officially dissolving after filing for bankruptcy last May.
Anime director Hideaki Anno announced on the website of his Studio Khara on Thursday that the anime studio Gainax’s bankruptcy proceedings have concluded, and that Gainax has officially and legally been dissolved as of Thursday, December 10. Anno noted that all of the rights to Gainax’s works, deliverables, and products have been legally transferred to their “rightful owners” and the creators of those works.
In the statement, Anno also outlined his frustrations with figures within the company’s management in the first half of its last decade, including alleged misrepresentations by former Fukushima Gainax representative director Yoshinori Asao as well as Hiroyuki Yamaga, Yasuhiro Takeda, and others. Anno, Yamaga, Takeda, and others co-founded Gainax. Anno pointed to the former executives’ mismanagement of the company, the delinquent repayment of Khara’s loan to Gainax, and others. By contrast, Anno stated that Yasuhiro Kamimura, the last representative director of Gainax since 2020, was forthright in dealing with creditors, and prevented the scattering of the rights to Gainax’s works.
According to ANN’s report, Gainax had fallen into a years-long spiral of debt that prevented the studio from paying royalties and led to lawsuits. What’s more, the studio had sold intellectual properties to other companies without first getting permission from the original rights holders. And finally, the studio’s situation only really came to light after studio president Tomohiro Maki was arrested in 2019 for sexually harassing a voice actress in her late teens. (In 2020, Maki was sentenced to two-and-a-half years in prison for committing “semi-coerced indecent acts.”)
All told, it’s a pretty ignominious end for one of anime’s most iconic studios.
Founded in 1984 by Hideaki Anno, Toshio Okada, Yoshiyuki Sadamoto, and several others, Gainax was originally called Daicon Film in honor of the elaborate anime shorts they made for the Daicon sci-fi conventions in the early ’80s. Gainax quickly became synonymous with “otaku” culture — its founding members were unabashed sci-fi fans and geeks themselves, as detailed in Sean O’Mara’s extensive history of the studio — and throughout the ’90s, they helped popularize mecha anime with Gunbuster and Evangelion. They also became infamous for the fan service in their works, and in particular, the “Gainax bounce” (don’t worry, it’s a work-safe link) exhibited by their more, um, well-endowed characters.
Gainax was involved in numerous titles during their 40-year existence, often providing additional animation for other studios including Madhouse, Production I.G, and Wit Studio. Their last original titles included 2015’s Wish Upon the Pleiades and 2014’s Magica Wars. However, spin-off studio Gaina, now called Benten Film, released Grendizer U in 2024.
Several Gainax alumni have launched their own studios, most notably Studio Trigger and Khara. Hiroyuki Imaishi and Masahiko Ōtsuka launched Studio Trigger in 2011, which has since produced Kill la Kill, Promare, and Cyberpunk: Edgerunners. Hideaki Anno founded Khara in 2006 specifically for his Rebuild of Evangelion project. But they’ve also worked on Mary and the Witch’s Flower, Kaiju No. 8 and Mobile Suit Gundam GQuuuuuuX as well as live-action films including Shin Godzilla and Shin Ultraman.