Gainax, the anime studio behind Neon Genesis Evangelion , FLCL , Gurren Lagann and more, has closed its doors after almost 42 years. Evangelion creator, Studio Khara founder and Gainax co-founder Hideaki Anno announced on Studio Khara’s website on December 10 that the bankruptcy proceedings against Gainax concluded with the remaining rights of various works returned to creatives and proper right holders, and thus the studio as a company was dissolved. Gainax originally announced the bankruptcy proceedings in June 2024 . The studio was founded from a collective of university students from Osaka University of Arts who made animated shorts for the Annual Japan National SF Convention, known as DAICON. After making waves with the Daicon IV short in 1983, the group incorporated under the name Gainax in 1984 to produce Royal Space Force: The Wings of Honneamise , directed and written by Hiroyuki Yamaga, which released in 1987. An envelope from Hayao Miyazaki congratulating the founding of Gainax, supported by a sheet of animation paper. From there, Gainax produced works such as Gunbuster , Hideaki Anno’s directorial debut, in 1988 and Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water , the studio's first full-length TV anime also directed by Anno, in 1990. The studio found its first commercial success with Neon Genesis Evangelion in the mid-1990s and also its first cracks. Anno explained in a Diamond Online piece published in 2019 that he learned during a phone call in 1999 with Evangelion broadcaster TV Tokyo that the studio had been evading taxes , and he had to apologize during that same phone call. The director felt he wasn’t respected in the studio and while he kept shareholder ties to the company, he moved Evangelion to Khara for the Rebuild films in the mid-2000s, and officially left Gainax as a regular employee in 2007. In 2014, representatives from Gainax, including co-founder Yasuhiro Takeda, borrowed 100 million yen from Anno to keep Gainax afloat, as detailed in the Diamond Online article . In December 2016, Khara sued Gainax to recollect on the 100 million yen loan, with Yamaga publicly apologizing for the situation a few days after the lawsuit was filed. In June 2017, a judge ruled in favor of Khara and ordered the full repayment . Anno said in the latest statement on Khara's website that, during investigations done after Gainax installed a new board of directors in February 2020, the studio "witnessed firsthand Gainax's lack of good faith regarding repayment" and that the former management team "showed a lack of respect for their own works, staff and the preservation of company operations and production materials." Anno alleges that this includes Yamaga telling Gainax employees to “pretend [Yamaga] was hospitalized," all while making “hostile statements” and looking for schemes to avoid payments. Anno noted the former Gainax management, which included Takeda and Yamaga, were friends from his university days and said that he “could never return to the kind of relationship I once had with them.” In the Diamond Online article , Anno also stated that Gainax had sold the rights to Gunbuster and FLCL in 2014 without informing him after he made an offer to buy the rights to help the studio. Gainax went under a restructuring in 2020 after then-president Tomohiro Maki was arrested in December 2019 for "semi-forced" indecent assault. Maki was then later formally sentenced to two years and six months prison time in December 2020. Yasuhiro Kamimura, rights manager for the Evangelion franchise through Groundworks, then became Gainax representative director and penned the Gainax bankruptcy statement in June 2024 . RELATED: Anime Studio Gainax Declares Bankruptcy Anno said in his latest statement that the team — who consisted of Yuko Takaishi (from Kadokawa), Atsushi Moriyama (from King Records), and Yoshiki Usa (from Studio Trigger) and Kamimura as representative director — worked with the original creators and rights holders to give them back to those who had a hand in making the anime a reality. This included original production material, some of which was shown at the Gurren Lagann x Kill la Kill Exhibition in Japan earlier last year year. The latest piece, which Anno says is “nearly every detail that could be made public,” ends with him thanking Kamimura, a friend also from his university days, for all his “hard work.” Anno explains that Kamimura has worked tirelessly since 2019 to “ensure the inheritance” of materials and rights and “sincerely faced creditors” to make sure everything was handled correctly, "amidst the abandonment of the historic animation studio Gainax by its former management.” Source: Studio Khara
