Gainax

GAINAX Co., Ltd. (Japanese: 株式会社ガイナックス, Hepburn: Kabushiki-gaisha Gainakkusu) is a Japanese anime studio famous for productions such as Neon Genesis Evangelion, Royal Space Force, Gunbuster, Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water, Kare Kano, FLCL, Magical Shopping Arcade Abenobashi, and Gurren Lagann, which have garnered critical acclaim and commercial success. Evangelion has reportedly grossed over 150 billion yen, or approximately US$1.2 billion. In a discussion at the 2006 Tekkoshocon, Matt Greenfield claimed that Evangelion had grossed over US$2 billion; Takeda reiterated in 2002 that "It sold record numbers of laserdiscs in Japan, and the DVD is still selling well today", as well as for their association with award-winning anime director and studio co-founder Hideaki Anno. The company is headquartered in Koganei, Tokyo.

Until Neon Genesis Evangelion, Gainax typically worked on stories created in-house, but the studio has increasingly developed anime adaptations of existing manga like Kareshi Kanojo no Jijou and Mahoromatic. Series produced by Gainax are often known for their controversial twist endings.
The Animage Anime Grand Prix has been awarded to Gainax for Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water in 1991, Neon Genesis Evangelion in 1995 and 1996, and The End of Evangelion in 1997.

## History

Studio Gainax is a Japanese anime studio founded in 1984 by Hideaki Anno, Yoshiyuki Sadamoto, Hiroyuki Yamaga, Takami Akai, Toshio Okada, Yasuhiro Takeda and Shinji Higuchi. Gainax is known for their impressive visuals, gripping storylines, and confusing (but no less engaging) plot points. On a less flattering note, they also had a tendency to run out of money before finishing some of their longer projects, with the last episodes of Gainax series often being lower in quality and taking a lot of creative shortcuts. The most famous example of this are the last two episodes of Evangelion, which mostly consisted of reused clips from previous episodes with different dialogue due to the show's main sponsor leaving the project out of frustration with the production. Thankfully, they seemed to have learned their lesson about production planning and budgeting by the mid-2000s. A crowd picture◊ for some of the many characters created by Gainax over its lifetime is available.note

While Gainax ha collaborated with a good number of other anime studios on the majority of its projects, it shared it's closest business relationship with Production I.G, who did quite a lot of work on End of Evangelion and FLCL.

However, Gainax is not what it used to be. During the latter half of the 2000s, the studio began to lose some of its longstanding and most noteworthy talent. In 2006, Hideaki Anno would leave to form Studio Khara and take the Evangelion IP with him. A few years later in 2011, Hiroyuki Imaishi would follow suit and establish Studio Trigger. Then there's the situation with Gaina (note the lack of an "X"), previously known as Fukushima Gainax: despite being founded by the company in 2015, it soon became a legally-distinct entity that was later bought out in 2018; a sale which included the rights to Gainax properties such as Gunbuster and Royal Space Force: The Wings of Honnêamise sequel Uru in Blue. Toss in a number of troubling financial and legal issues, and the end result is an anime studio that was all but dead by the end of the 2010s, now operating out of an apartment. But whatever may befall Gainax in the 2020s, be it a decisive death or surprise comeback, at least the "Daicon Spirit" lives on through their aforementioned descendant studios.