The legendary Gainax anime studio has announced its bankruptcy filing.
The studio filed on May 29, and the Tokyo District Court accepted it earlier this month. Gainax was founded in 1984 by Hideaki Anno, Yoshiyuki Sadamoto, Hiroyuki Yamaga, Takami Akai, Toshio Okada, Yasuhiro Takeda, and Shinji Higuchi.
Hideaki Anno left Gainax in 2007 to start a new studio, Khara, but remained a shareholder. Other employees went on to establish Studio Trigger.
In an official statement, Gainax attributed the bankruptcy to debt and poor management.
The signs of Gainax’s downfall had been evident for a while, with their last production airing during the Spring 2015 season, leaving them inactive for nine years. In 2020, former CEO Tomohiro Maki was sentenced to two and a half years in prison for sexual misconduct and semi-coerced indecent acts. He was arrested in February 2019 for committing indecent acts on a voice actress contracted with his production company.
Maki was the representative director of Gainax International at the time of his arrest and became the representative director of the original Gainax company in October 2019. He had been a board director since 2015.
Gainax struggled to resolve the substantial debt accumulated under previous management, many of whom are also shareholders. They collaborated with Khara, directors, creators, and cooperating companies to manage intellectual property rights and ensure works could still be operated through production committees. However, they were sued in May over the debt and ultimately decided it was no longer viable to continue operating.
Gainax’s Representative Director Yasuhiro Kamimura apologized to fans, cooperating companies, and creditors for opting for bankruptcy after failing to meet their goals.
Khara issued a statement on its website, confirming Gainax’s efforts to transfer intellectual rights so creators could continue their work. The statement also revealed that Anno had asked KADOKAWA, King Records, and Trigger to help prevent reputational damage to the Evangelion series and other related works.
He assisted with management restructuring by having representatives from these companies serve as directors, aiming to resolve unpaid payments to studios and creators and to prevent the loss of IP and other internal documentation.
Thankfully, Khara announced that they had acquired the Gainax trademark, ensuring it is now in safe hands. Since its inception in 1984, Gainax became one of the most renowned anime production studios, known for iconic series such as Neon Genesis Evangelion, His and Her Circumstances, Gurren Lagann, Panty & Stocking, and FLCL. The extensive licensing and mishandling of the FLCL franchise, in particular, further exacerbated Gainax’s financial troubles.
Gainax’s final animated projects were the TV anime “Wish Upon the Pleiades” and the web anime “Masamune Datenicle,” co-produced with Gaina. The studio also canceled the planned three-part adaptation of the late Leiji Matsumoto’s “Zero Century,” which was initially announced at Japan Expo in 2017. While Gainax may be gone now, it still has spiritual successors in the forms of Studio Trigger and Khara.
