Founded in 1984note The studio originally established in 1981 as Daicon Film by Hideaki Anno and five Macross animators. Gainax itself didn't come into being until 1984, 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. Which caused the creation of terms such 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).A crowd picture◊ for some of the many characters created by Gainax over its lifetime is available.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 & Stocking with Garterbelt, and one episode of FLCL also worked with Production I.G on Dead Leaves.Recently they seemed to have switched to doing shonen anime with smaller budgets and routine animation, rather than the expressive style they were known for, due to most if not all of their best animators quitting and moving to other studios like Studio Trigger and to do work for themselves.
Studio Gainax has created the following:
Daicon Film era (pre Gainax).
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. Due to the truly staggering amounts of shoutouts to both anime and American science fiction in both, plus the latter using Electric Light Orchestra's song "Twilight", any release above and beyond a laserdisc version in the early '80s have been vetoed by pretty much every license holder.
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.
Yamata no Orochi no Gyakushu (The Revenge of Yamata no Orochi), a direct to videokaiju movie made when Gainax was still Daicon Film, featuring ancient astronauts and a giant cybernetic Yamata no Orochi. Special effects by Shinji Higuchi.
Pre-Evangelion Gainax
Royal Space Force The Wings Of Honneamise, 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! (a.k.a. Die Buster or GunBuster 2) which was released 16 years after the original.
Appleseed - The original 1988 OVA. Produced in cooperation with AIC.
Sakyo Komatsu's Animation Theater - Produced in cooperation with AIC.
Beat Shot!!, a one shot OVA based on a Manga of the same name.
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).
Route 20 - Galactic Airport - An unfinished movie based on a Manga of the same name. Originally set for 1993, the only thing ever released was a three minute trailer.
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.
Still nothing beats Aoki Uru, a planned sequel to Royal Space Force The Wings Of Honneamise, which supposedly started initial pre-production back in 1988. So far the only output from this project seems to be a brief scenario draft and the couple of (admittedly spectacular) artbooks by Yoshiyuki Sadamoto. They still reportedly plan to make it somewhere in the future.
Playing Against Type: Out of all the Japanese animation studios available to adapt the Hanamaru Kindergarten manga into a TV show, the choice of Gainax comes as something of a surprise. Then again, does Gainax even have a type? Even considering theirmostpopularcreations, it's very hard to find an overarching theme. Blurring the line between Deconstruction and Reconstruction, somewhat thoughtful explorations of human nature, and tons and tons of big breasted women running, really tons of sexual humor in general. The fact that Gainax would adapt Hanamaru Kindergarten is itself Gainaxian. The overaching theme of Gainax is Nothingmakes sense.
Postmodernism: A staple of nearly all of their works.
◊ for some of the many characters created by Gainax over its lifetime is available.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 & Stocking with Garterbelt, and one episode of FLCL also worked with Production I.G on Dead Leaves.Recently they seemed to have switched to doing shonen anime with smaller budgets and routine animation, rather than the expressive style they were known for, due to most if not all of their best animators quitting and moving to other studios like Studio Trigger and to do work for themselves.
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