Gainax
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DVD cover of North American release of Otaku no Video. |
(pronounced 'guy-nax') is a
Japanese
anime studio most famous for the
television series Neon Genesis Evangelion. Gainax is known for its ambitious, experimental anime and controversial endings. Throughout its history, Gainax has been plagued by budgetary problems and poor management, and in the wake of
Evangelion's success, Gainax evaded taxes and its President,
Takeshi Sawamura, was sentenced to jail for accounting fraud.
Although until
Neon Genesis Evangelion, Gainax typically worked on stories created in-house, the studio has increasingly adapted existing manga like
Kare Kano and
Mahoromatic into anime shows. Gainax could be said to produce two types of anime today: commercial works like
Mahoromatic and
He is My Master versus more experimental works that follow the company's traditions, such as
FLCL and
Gunbuster 2. In addition to anime production, Gainax relies heavily on merchandising its famous properties. Even though the show ended in 1996,
Evangelion video games, t-shirts, and accessories are still being produced.
The studio was formed in the early
1980s as
Daicon Film by university students
Hideaki Anno,
Yoshiyuki Sadamoto,
Takami Akai, and
Shinji Higuchi. Their first project was to make an animated short for the 20th Annual
Japan National SF Convention, also known as
Daicon III, held in
1981 in
Osaka, Japan. The short is about a little girl who fights all sorts of monsters, robots, and spaceships from earlier science fiction TV shows (including
Ultraman,
Space Battleship Yamato,
Star Trek,
Star Wars,
Godzilla and many others) until she finally reaches a desert plain and pours a glass of water on a dried-out
daikon radish, which immediately resurrects itself and grows into a huge spaceship and beams her aboard. While this animated short was ambitious, its animation was rough and low-quality. An interpretation of the short that has floated around the net is that the water represents creativity and imagination, and the monsters and other adversaries confronting the girl represent those who try to quash the creative spirit for whatever reason.
The group made a much bigger splash at the 22nd Annual Japan National SF Convention,
Daicon IV, in
1983. The short they produced for this convention started with a recap of the original short, showing highlights of the little girl's adventures with much better animation quality; then it showed the girl all grown up: wearing a
Playboy bunny suit, fighting an even wider selection of creatures from all sorts of science fiction and fantasy movies and novels (appearances include
Darth Vader, an
Alien, a
Macross Valkyrie, a
Pern dragon,
Aslan, a
Klingon battle cruiser,
Spider-Man, and a pan across a vast array of hundreds of other characters) as she surfs through the sky on the sword
Stormbringer. The action was set to the song
Twilight from the group
Electric Light Orchestra. The use of this song, however, was unlicensed, and so all recent releases of the Daicon IV short (LD and DVD) have been silent, animation-only releases. The song was used again, legitimately licensed for the opening of the Japanese live-action TV series "Densha Otoko," which had opening animation by
GONZO. The Daicon IV short firmly established Daicon Film as a talented new anime studio. The studio changed its name to Gainax in
1985.
Gainax works include (year given is that of first broadcast, theatre showing, or publishing):
*
Royal Space Force: The Wings of Honneamise (1987)
*
Gunbuster (1988) ("Top o Nerae!" or "Aim for the Top!")
*
Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water (1990) ("Fushigi no Umi no Nadia")
*
Otaku no Video (1992)
*
Neon Genesis Evangelion (1995) ("Shin Seiki Evangelion")
*
Love & Pop (live action) (1998)
*
His and Her Circumstances (1998) ("Kareshi Kanojo no Jijo" or "Kare Kano")
*
Modern Love's Silliness (1999)
*
FLCL (2000) (pronounced "Furi Kuri," or "Fooly Cooly" in English)
*
Mahoromatic (2001)
*
Shiki-jitsu (2001)
*
Puchi Puri Yuushi (Petite Princess Yucie) (2002)
*
Magical Shopping Arcade Abenobashi (2002)
*
Melody of Oblivion (2004) ("Boukyaku no Senritsu")
*
This Ugly and Beautiful World (2004) ("Kono Minikuku mo Utsukushii Sekai" or "Konomini")
*
(2004)
*
Diebuster (2004) ("Top o Nerae! 2 or "Aim for the Top! 2")
*
He is My Master (2005)
*
Mahou Sensei Negima! (second series/season) (in production) (2006) (Collaboration with Studio Shaft)
* Gurren Lagana (2006)
Gainax has also produced a number of computer games, including a strip
mahjong game featuring
Evangelion characters, and its most famous games, the
Princess Maker series, which was later adapted as
Puchi Puri Yūshi.As Daicon Films, Gainax was also notable for making a series of
tokusatsu fan film shorts in the 1980s, usually parodies of monster movies and superhero shows, which have gotten lots of favorable media coverage. These productions included:
* (1982) – A parody of the popular
Super Sentai shows, which is also a satire of the
Russo-Japanese War. The title team is based on Japanese culture (of course) and the villains, the evil Red Bear Empire led by "Death Kremlin", are Russians. In this "episode", Red Bear confronts our heroes with the giant shark monster, Minsk Mask, while attempting to brainwash the children of Japan by swapping out the pages of their textbooks with red paper.
Shinji Higuchi worked on the special effects.
* (1982) – A parody of
Shotaro Ishinomori's
Kaiketsu Zubat, and the name of the hero's alter-ego (Ken Hayakawa) is the same, but the hero wears a sillier costume! Daicon/Gainax producer
Yasuhiro Takeda played Ken Hayakawa. It spawned three sequels: "Kaiketsu Noutenki 2" in which he faces off against a mechanical clone of himself, Mecha Noutenki, "Noutenki in USA" where the hero walks around in San Francisco, CA, seeing the sights whilest in costume and a supposed role-playing video
* (1983) – A same-title parody of
Return of Ultraman, with some impressive special effects, even for a low budget. The usual
Ultraman derring-do ensues, only replace New Ultraman/Ultraman Jack with a giant
Hideaki Anno in a vinyl Ultraman trick-or-treat outfit and glasses! Anno directed while
Takami Akai directed the special effects.
* (1985) – Daicon's epic 72-minute sendup of
daikaiju (giant monster) movies, with special effects by
Shinji Higuchi. This was the most heavily promoted of their short films.
* After a running gag where scenes were depicted in manga form on-screen,
FLCL's characters make a
tongue-in-cheek remark about the use of stills in animation (something for which Gainax had become notorious) being a cheap and annoying budget saving device. In fact, the manga scenes in
FLCL were "hard work" (as a character laments) but neccesary, in order to avoid getting "accused of being lazy."
* Several
Kare Kano animated sequences and clothing designs are remarkably similar to
Neon Genesis Evangelion, as well as a handful of more overt references. (For example, the shot of Miyazawa in
Asuka's yellow dress and her imitation of EVA-01's berserker mode in one episode.)
* Fans note the unusally strong similarity of character designs from
Nadia and
Neon Genesis Evangelion, although this may simply be an effect of having the same designer.
*
Magical Shopping Arcade Abenobashi contains dozens references to anime, including Gainax. The third episode features a giant robot "suit up" sequence using musical identical to the
EVA unit launching sequence in
Neon Genesis Evangelion.
*
FLCL features one of the leads dressing as the Daicon Bunny (see below).
* The mascot for Studio Gainax is an
SD Dr. Ritsuko Akagi.
* In one episode of
He is My Master, there was reference of all the anime worked on by Gainax, by showing them as
action figure,
plushies, or
clothings.
* In American fandom, Gainax popularized the term and usage of
fanservice, and unusually precise animation of a woman's chest bouncing became known as "the Gainax bounce" or "gainaxing".
* Gainax's controversial endings are the result of experimental storytelling and low budgets. See
Gainax ending and
limited animation.
*
GAINAX NET - Gainax's official Web site
*
Gainax Network Systems - The English version of the site (no longer updated)
*
Gainax's Official Daicon Films Website - Info on their classic tokusatsu & anime shorts (DVDs available there).
*
The Gainax Pages - a fan site
*
Daicon III and IV Opening Animations - a fan site about the Daicon shorts and the early history of Gainax
*
The Most Holy Gainax Cult - another fan site
