Gainax

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"['Gainaxxy'?] I never know what people mean when they say that. It started out to mean big, bouncy breasts, then became existentialist angst, then became hyper-kinetic psycho-sexual slapstick. What's it mean now?" "All of that, at once." —RPG.net forum thread

Gainax, also known as Studio Gainax, is one of the better-known Anime studios, having created such series as Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water (Fushigi no Umi no Nadia), Neon Genesis Evangelion, FLCL, Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann and causing the creation of such terms as Gainaxing and the Gainax Ending.

Gainax is known for impressive visuals, gripping storylines, confusing plot points, and running out of money before the series is finished. This last tendency has been a particular problem in the past; the last episodes of Gainax series tend to be lower in quality and take a lot of shortcuts. The last two episodes of Evangelion were produced when the studio had been cut off by the main sponsor, and mostly reused clips from previous episodes with different dialogue. Still shots are frequent as well. The final episode of Top o Nerae! (also known as Gunbuster) is due to the black and white presentation often thrown into this bin, a common misconception as the black and white animation was actually more expensive. Thankfully, they seemed to have learned their lesson by Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann (see below).

Here is an image of the many characters created by Gainax over its lifetime.

As a small note, they have a good relationship with Production I.G, who did quite a lot of work on End of Evangelion and FLCL. The director of Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, Panty and Stocking With Garterbelt, and one episode of FLCL also worked with Production I.G on Dead Leaves.

But Gainax's time in the sun was about to come to an end. In 2006, Hideaki Anno founded Studio Khara and left Gainax not long after. In 2011, Hiroyuki Imaishi and Masahiko Ōtsuka left and founded Studio Trigger. There's also Gaina, which eventually became independent from the studio, taking rights to some series with them. Khara brought the rights to Neon Genesis Evangelion. All of this leads to a studio which was quickly shutting down operations and on the verge of collapse.

In the early 2010s, they switched to doing shonen anime with smaller budgets and routine animation (like Medaka Box), rather than the expressive style they were known for. In the mid 2010s, the studio even abandoned those smaller projects and stopped producing series. Hideaki Anno stated that Gainax has failed to pay back royalties and a loan from Khara, and later wrote a public letter expressing his disappointment with his former co-workers. By the 2020s, it's clear that Gainax is no longer what they used to be, with the studio operating out of an apartment.

On June 7, 2024, Studio Gainax filed for bankruptcy. At the time the bankruptcy was announced, Studio Khara appeared to have the rights to the Gainax name.

Studio Gainax created the following:

• Two original animated introductory films for Daicon III and Daicon IV, two iterations of a major Science Fiction convention in Japan. These were their first creations, before they had really formed the studio.
• Aikoku Sentai Dai-Nippon, a parody of the Super Sentai series. The first of several tokusatsu parodies made by them in the '80s. At this point, they weren't called Gainax yet, but Daicon Film.
• Kaiketsu Noutenki, a parody of Kaiketsu Zubat, made in 1982.
• Return of Ultraman, a parody of the Ultra Series of the same name, featuring Hideaki Anno as Ultraman!
• Yamata no Orochi no Gyakushu (The Revenge of Yamata no Orochi), a Direct to Video Kaiju movie made when Gainax was still Daicon Film, featuring Ancient Astronauts and a giant cybernetic Yamata no Orochi. Special effects by Shinji Higuchi.
• Royal Space Force: The Wings of Honnêamise, Gainax's first feature film. Like the Daicon shorts, the short pilot version of this was animated and shot on 8mm film in Hiroyuki Yamaga's garage.
• Top wo Nerae! (Aim for the Top!), a.k.a. Gunbuster
  • There is also a sequel - Top wo Nerae 2! (AKA Diebuster or GunBuster 2) which was released 16 years after the original.
• Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water (With Group TAC and Korean studio Sei Young)
• The Princess Maker videogame series, which had the player take responsibility for raising an orphaned girl to adulthood.
  • The anime Petite Princess Yucie was an adaptation of several of the games in the series.
  • Gainax also released variations of the game focused around Evangelion characters, such as The Rei Ayanami/Shinji Ikari Raising Project.
• Otaku no Video, a Mockumentary-style look at Otaku in Japan interspersed with an animated story about the life of one budding Otaking (Otaku King), whose company is a parody of Gainax itself.
  • Otaking is a real person - Toshio Okada, one of the Gainax founders, who left the studio in The Nineties for academia and now is a moderately renowned anime scholar (and an epic troll to boot).
• Neon Genesis Evangelion, notable for its Deconstruction of the mecha genre at the time, colossal impact on Japanese pop culture, and popularization of the Gainax Ending.
  • Congratulations!
• FLCL
  • The OVA was rumored to have started life as something to cheer up the staff after the fear and angst storm that was The End of Evangelion.
• Kare Kano
• Oruchuban Ebichu
• Mahoromatic
• Magical Shopping Arcade Abenobashi (With Madhouse)
• This Ugly Yet Beautiful World
• Re: Cutie Honey, a re-imagining of of Go Nagai's classic magical girl series.
• He Is My Master
• Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann
  • Spectacularly avoided the studio's typical money problems; a substantial portion of the show's budget (40%!) was reserved for the final episodes.
• Shikabane Hime, a.k.a. Corpse Princess
• Hanamaru Kindergarten
• Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt
  • Allegedly created when the crew headed to a spa for a get together and got drunk while telling stories to each other. They found the ideas hilarious and used that for the show.
• Houkago no Pleiades
  • A Magical Girl collaboration between Gainax and Subaru.
• Bibliotheca Mystica de Dantalian
• Medaka Box

The company also did minor work in the following:

• .hack (Franchise Collaboration)
• Agent Aika (In-Between Animation)
• Akira (Animation Cooperation)
• Alisia Dragoon (art and story)
• The Animatrix (In-Betweens in "Second Renaissance" and "Beyond")
• Avenger (In-Between Animation)
• The Big O (In-Between Animation)
• Black Lagoon (Key Animation - Second Season)
• The Borrower Arrietty (Animation Assistance)
• Dead Leaves (In-Between Animation)
• Eden of the East (2nd Key & In-Between Animation)
• Eureka Seven (2nd Key & In-Between Animation)
• Eyeshield 21 (Animation)
• Fairy Tail (In-Between Animation)
• Gintama (2nd Key & In-Between Animation)
• Gun X Sword (In-Between Animation)
• Green Lantern: First Flight (Production Assistance, Key & Assistance Animation alongside Studio Jungle Gym, Anime Spot and Mizo Planning (In South Korea, Key and In-Between animation, Key animation by Park Sung Hoo, a freelanced South Korean animator that was stationed at Mizo Planning during its production); Led by TMS Entertainment)
• Heroman (In-Between Animation)
• Highschool of the Dead (In-Between Animation)
• House of Five Leaves (In-Between Animation)
• IGPX: Immortal Grand Prix (In-Between Animation)
• Initial D (In-Between Animation - Fourth Stage)
• Michiko to Hatchin (Production Cooperation)
• Mobile Fighter G Gundam (Key Animation)
• Mobile Suit Gundam 00 (In-Between Animation)
• Mobile Suit Gundam: Char's Counterattack (Mechanical Design)
• Naruto (In-Between Animation)
• Nodame Cantabile (2nd Key Animation)
• Noein (2nd Key Animation)
• Pandora Hearts (In-Between Animation)
• Pokémon Movies
  • Pokémon 2000 (Digital Animation Assistance)
  • Pokémon 3 (In-Between Animation)
  • Pokémon Heroes (Animation Assistance)
  • Pokémon: Destiny Deoxys (In-Between Animation)
  • Pokémon: Giratina and The Sky Warrior (Animation Assistance)
• Real Drive (In-Between Animation)
• Ranma ½ (Animation Assistance - OVAs)
• Red Line (2nd Key Animation Cooperation)
• The Case Files of Yakushiji Ryoko (In-Between Animation, Animation Assistance)
• Spirited Away (Supporting Animation)
• Tekkon Kinkreet (In-Between Animation)
• Tokko (Composite)
• Toradora! (2nd Key Animation)
• Trinity Blood (Animation)

Gainax provides examples of the following tropes:

• Author Appeal: In relationship to Japan Takes Over the World, no studio (besides TMS Entertainment and Studio Ghibli) has ever done it with more boldness.
• Animation Bump: Most (if not all) of their series exhibit this.
• Ascended Fanboy: The studio was founded by a bunch of young anime fans.
• Asskicking Pose: The Badass Arm-Fold. Technically only used in two series and a continuation, it's done memorably enough to be known as the Gainax Stance in Japan.
• Decon Recon Switch: A meta example: they made Gunbuster, Neon Genesis Evangelion, and Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, in that order.
• Gainax Ending: Do we have to say any more? Due to Gainax's poor budgeting, they often run out of money before finishing a series, and resort to either Post Modernism phliosophy, Angst, or Clip Shows. Neon Genesis Evangelion uses all three.
• Fan Service: Tons and tons of it.

"It's Gainax! Fanservice adds to our character development!"

• Faux Symbolism: Obvious in Evangelion, less obvious in Nadia.
• Limited Animation: Taken to extremes in the last two episodes of Evangelion.
• Off-Model: Episode four of Gurren Lagann changed its entire art style, The fans were pissed off to say the least.
• Post Modernism: A staple of nearly all of their works.
• Shout-Out: To the brim, being a studio of Promoted Fanboys. Their later works are also filled with self-references.