[HN Gopher] Gainax, known for 'Evangelion' anime production, goe...
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Gainax, known for 'Evangelion' anime production, goes bankrupt
Author : lnyan
Score : 217 points
Date : 2024-06-10 15:09 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.japantimes.co.jp)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.japantimes.co.jp)
| Something1234 wrote:
| Seems like the franchise is safe just a bunch of executives at
| some subsidiary squandered everything.
| atomicnumber3 wrote:
| That's my takeaway too.
|
| "Gainax tried to rebuild itself with the support of Khara,
| which currently owns the rights to the Evangelion series and of
| which Anno serves as president."
|
| So all the actual franchise stuff was with Anno in Khara, and
| Gainax was the creative staffing for the anime/movies?
| noirscape wrote:
| Gainax was bought in 2019 by Studio Khara, Studio Trigger,
| Kadokawa Group and Studio Gaina (a former subsidiary) after
| the previous CEO got arrested for inappropriate behaviour
| around teenage VAs.
|
| Khara and Trigger are the successor studios to Gainax as in
| that those are the studios made by their biggest creatives,
| and it's to my understanding that all relevant IPs from the
| creatives behind Khara and Trigger during their time at
| Gainax were transferred to them after the buyout. The only
| Gainax IP that's not owned by the creative behind it is FLCL,
| since Gainax sold the rights for it to Production I.G. in the
| late 2000s.
|
| Another, more indirect, successor studio to Gainax is Studio
| Cloverworks at A1 Productions, although that one was mostly
| general staff.
|
| That said, it's not like Gainax did much in the ~5 years
| between the formation of Studio Trigger and the buyout; they
| released exactly one anime and one OVA. There was pretty much
| nobody creative left at the company to make anything,
| specifically because the CEO got cold feet on approving
| creative projects.
| dragontamer wrote:
| Sounds like the bankruptcy system is working correctly
| then.
|
| All the valuable assets are going to the people who matter:
| Cloverworks, Trigger and Khara. Its a bit sad for Gainax as
| an entity to be collapsing, but the individuals who bring
| us these stories (through producing, acting, animating, or
| other skills) still exist out there.
|
| I'll definitely say that Evangelion 3.0 + 1.0 from Studio
| Khara lost a lot of the mech-design that made Gainax
| great... but its clear that all the "mech designers" are
| alive and active over at Studio Trigger.
|
| Its sad to see the team split up, because nothing like
| Evangelion (90s) will ever come out again. But on the other
| hand, these other studios are clearly active and seemingly
| successful. So the show goes on...
| noirscape wrote:
| Yeah, it's sad in that they're a pretty massive name
| that's going away (and one of the few studios mostly
| known for doing original work rather than adaptations),
| but it's been a long time coming and the actual losses
| are minimal (it's really only FLCL but that happened
| years ago).
|
| One small correction though: no IPs will be transferred
| to Cloverworks as far as I know. Cloverworks didn't
| really get any specific creatives from Gainax, moreso
| just that a lot of the intermediate staff that you
| usually don't hear about ended up at Cloverworks. (Which
| to my understanding was largely a coincidence: A1 had
| formed Cloverworks, put out hiring ads and in the next
| month, Gainax basically declared they weren't ever going
| to make any experimental anime again, causing a mass
| exodus from the company.)
| chc4 wrote:
| Squandered, along with things like "commit massive tax fraud
| that caused several executives to go to jail and be forced to
| pay millions of dollars of fees"
| ordinaryradical wrote:
| The real talent left to form Studio Khara, I think it part
| because of this kind of mismanagement.
|
| Gainax has a long history of financial follies despite having
| created one of the most successful anime in history.
| isk517 wrote:
| Also Studio Trigger.
| Cyph0n wrote:
| Mostly Trigger. They are currently working on Delicious in
| Dungeon, which starts off slow but evolves into an amazing
| story.
| quink wrote:
| And, thanks in no small part to the final collapse of
| GAINAX, they've announced a second season of Panty and
| Stocking after getting the rights.
| dragontamer wrote:
| Delicious in Dungeon, Cyberpunk: Edgerunners, Little Witch
| Academia, and Kill la Kill.
|
| Trigger is knocking it out of the park. Clearly a top-tier
| animation studio of the last decade.
| dimmke wrote:
| Cyberpunk: Edgerunners is such a killer anime, it's
| honestly one of my top all time favorites even though you
| can tell it had a small budget.
|
| Even their less popular stuff I dig. I just watched
| Darling in the Franxx and I'm about to start Kiznaiver.
| dragontamer wrote:
| I dunno if you can call Darling in the Franxx "less
| popular". At least in my circles it seems like a hugely
| popular work. A lot of people like it but I do consider
| it a bit of a waifu-trash anime, lol. So I didn't think
| it was as critically good writing as the other stuff I
| listed.
|
| Kinznaiver is on the less popular side. As is BNA (Brand
| New Animal). The Tokusatsu community seems to like the
| SSSS.(Gridman/Dynazenon) anime, but arguably taking the
| Gridman name makes them more into Tokusatsu than the
| anime community anyway.
| jandrese wrote:
| It's really hard to take an anime seriously when the
| girls outfits have butt handles. Darling in the Franxx
| got a lot of attention, but a lot of that was the meme
| crowd have a field day with it.
| GaggiX wrote:
| Not really everyone watches anime "seriously", you can
| watch them in a more light-hearted way. I'm a big fun of
| Kill la Kill really because of how silly and over the top
| it is, same for the second season of JoJo.
| jandrese wrote:
| I actually liked KLK, even with the sometimes extreme
| levels of fanservice. I think the thing that made KLK
| work for me is how it was both a love letter and at the
| same time a direct challenge to the cosplay community.
|
| Franxx however tossed me out when the robots are
| controlled by dry humping teenagers. There's a level of
| pandering at which I just couldn't take it anymore.
| GaggiX wrote:
| So you whine that Franxx has girl outfits with "butt
| handles", but then you like Kill la Kill, an anime that
| is so unapologetically about fan service. Actually funny.
| dragontamer wrote:
| Sorry to intrude into this discussion but... Franxx is a
| different level than Kill la Kill.
|
| Have you seen the two shows? I know if you've only seen
| Kill la Kill where the BDSM "Disciplinary Captain" gets
| power from whipping himself, it sounds like things can't
| get any more hypersexualized, but somehow Franxx made it
| more awkward than Kill la Kill ever made it.
|
| A big problem is that the romance / dating aspects of
| Darling in the Franxx were front and center, so the
| characters are supposed to have sexual attraction /
| romantic feelings for each other. So somehow all these
| sex-jokes just landed differently / in a totally
| different context than Kill la Kill's more joke-heavy
| style.
|
| Somehow its different when the characters involved are
| "seriously" romantically involved with one another.
| Because now we as the audience are seriously considering
| the implications of these positions or sex-jokes /
| whatever.
| jandrese wrote:
| I think you've expressed it perfectly. Both KLK and
| Franxx are fanservice heavy, but Franxx made it awkward
| and uncomfortable to watch. To be fair, there are some
| parts of KLK that go beyond as well, but they don't
| appear until later in the series. Franxx put it front and
| center in the first episode.
| dimmke wrote:
| I had not heard of it until a month or two ago and yeah
| parts of it were definitely a bit cringe in the classic
| anime fashion but I liked the story and art style
| overall.
| Akronymus wrote:
| Can't forget about stuff like the gridman series of
| series, BNA and even a movie, promare.
| lukan wrote:
| I watched the beginning of Delicious in Dungeon.
| Interesting weird and funny concept, but seemed too shallow
| and I do not like the overly dramatic anoying way of
| talking, or rather screaming all the time by the female
| character (I know it is characteristic to some Anime). But
| if there is an actual story to be found, I might have to
| give it another shot..
| 12345hn6789 wrote:
| There is a story and decentish world building. It's just
| slow. Most of it happens from off handed comments the
| characters make. It's there! I can understand not wanting
| to watch 3 hours of anime to get background information
| though.
| Cyph0n wrote:
| It's quite slow - I would suggest giving it 8 or so
| episodes.
| velcrovan wrote:
| Are they actually still working on Delicious in Dungeon?
| The last episode in season 1 comes out this week, and I've
| been looking for confirmation that another season is coming
| but to no avail so far.
| Cyph0n wrote:
| No clue! I guess I could have phrased that a bit
| differently - my point was that Trigger is still churning
| out quality anime.
| Night_Thastus wrote:
| I wasn't totally sold on it for the first ~4 episodes or
| so. I especially didn't like Marcille's role in it.
|
| However, from around episode 5 onward, it started getting
| REALLY good.
|
| I think the thing I appreciate the most of DiD is that it
| really feels grounded in its setting. Every character and
| detail feels like it connects and is a part of a cohesive
| setting. There's a lot of anime that isn't like that.
|
| It also has a good sense of tone. It knows when to take
| things seriously and when to cut loose and joke and
| balances those two fairly well.
|
| It's willing to have some slower and calmer sections which
| I like. (Though IMO I'd like even more)
|
| It's unfortunate to say this, but it's basically one of the
| only _good_ anime I 've seen in maybe a decade. Most of the
| stuff out there is so terrible...
| dragontamer wrote:
| > It's unfortunate to say this, but it's basically one of
| the only good anime I've seen in maybe a decade. Most of
| the stuff out there is so terrible...
|
| A lot of the shows that get meme'd to top status are
| pretty terrible at writing. The top shows are more about
| drawing style + music rather than contemplating the
| story.
|
| The strongest "story" shows of the 2014 through 2024
| decade are:
|
| * Ranking of Kings
|
| * The Promised Neverland S1 (S2 drops the ball but at
| least finishes the story).
|
| * I actually have a softspot for Studio Trigger's "Little
| Witch Academia" (2017), an innocent school-setting /
| slice of life. Its probably my favorite Studio Trigger
| work actually (Gurren Lagaan is their best stuff ever
| IMO, but that was done when the team was still
| technically Gainax). I would argue the "techno-witch"
| Croix Meridies, who serves as the antagonist (with her
| "break tradition, embrace technology") has aged well as
| we moved from 2017 into 2024. The focus on tradition from
| the protagonists (and Shiny Chariot + her motif of the
| North Star) vs technology+progress (Led by Croix
| Meridies, obviously a riff on the Southern Cross / South
| Astronomy) is a simple, but relevant, debate. Nothing
| outright villainous but instead is a lower-stakes debate
| appropriate for the setting, and I bet it will be a
| timeless story moving forward.
|
| Its Studio Trigger however, so expect things to get
| kicked up a notch as the ending arc comes about. But the
| bulk of the storytellilng / philosophical debate is well
| thought out and likely timeless.
|
| * OddTaxi
|
| -------
|
| I'm slowly going through what many have considered were
| thoughtful anime of the past decade, but I haven't
| actually finished these yet.
|
| * Sonny Boy
|
| * Rascal does not dream of Bunny Girl sempai
|
| * I'm surprised by "Toilet Bound Hanako-kun" and need to
| see where its going. Genre-aware ghost trying to help the
| main character is... actually fun. And the characters
| were deeper than they were letting on.
|
| -----
|
| I know everyone likes Frieren these days, which I do
| consider anime of the year. But I purposefully am leaving
| it off the list for "top of the last decade". I do think
| other shows have deeper stories / better thought out
| characters than Frieren (even if Frieren is above-average
| compared to typical popular shows). Frieren being the
| best of the popular shows is quite different from best
| thought-out overall.
|
| I admit that I haven't seen any "Delicious in Dungeon"
| yet. Maybe its good, but that will have to wait and see
| until I get a chance to watch it.
| livueta wrote:
| Have you seen _Showa Genroku Rakugo Shinju_?
| Tade0 wrote:
| The manga has a lot of side notes and chapters dedicated
| to just explaining the lore.
|
| There's also a book by the author entitled _Delicious in
| Dungeon World Guide: The Adventurer 's Bible Complete
| Edition_ with even more content.
|
| The author really did her homework regarding
| worldbuilding.
| Cyph0n wrote:
| Oh we are going to have disagree on that last point: I
| can name multiple anime of the same caliber from just the
| last few seasons alone :)
|
| On the contrary, I think we are getting more quality
| anime per season than ever before.
| GauntletWizard wrote:
| "Gainax Bounce" and "Gainaxing" just had a flow to them,
| though. The world just won't be the same if we have to rename
| them... "Trigger Bounce" and "Triggering" draw up very
| different images.
| archgoon wrote:
| > Trigger Bounce
|
| Mostly makes me think of some EE effect you'd see with a
| o-scope.
|
| "Yeah, that's not real, it's just Trigger Bounce"
| dmoy wrote:
| I have an EE degree. Trigger bounce is a real thing.
|
| But it's not an EE thing, it has to do with a firearm
| malfunctioning in a way such that a normally semi-
| automatic firearm fires more than once per trigger press,
| due to some internals on the trigger that I'm forgetting
| about / don't know about.
|
| Now that I put my EE hat on though, there is a
| significant parallel to "switch bounce", which is an EE
| thing.
| aidenn0 wrote:
| Assuming it's the same thing as hammer follow, it's
| usually caused by a worn disconnector or hammer.
|
| The disconnector prevents the hammer from moving forward
| until the trigger is pressed again (semi-auto) or the gun
| is in battery (full auto, closed bolt). I suspect open-
| bolt guns don't have one, but I've never looked at the
| trigger group of an open-bolt gun so can't be sure.
| Akronymus wrote:
| Sadly, tvtropes removed the link to the video [1] from the
| page on gainaxing[2]
|
| [1] https://vimeo.com/512552697
|
| [2] https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Gainaxing
|
| Edit: So, I wanted to check the discussion/history page to
| see when/why it was removed. Both need a login, and I can't
| create an account with a disposable address... Feels pretty
| suspicious.
| ihuman wrote:
| And Gaina
| quink wrote:
| Aoki Uru will never get made and even if Top o Nerae 3 gets
| made, one can consider TRIGGER's entire early catalogue and
| Gurren Lagann spiritual sequels of sorts already.
|
| And that's it for any of GAINA's projects that have been
| announced 5 years ago now that might have given a hint of
| them carrying GAINAX's torch.
| GrumpyYoungMan wrote:
| Ouch, now that really stings to wake up to. Eva aside, Nadia,
| Gunbuster, FLCL all stand out among the great anime of the
| '90s-'00s. Even lesser known series, like KareKano, which Anno
| had a hand in, really have a vivaciousness to them to them that
| just isn't that common. RIP Gainax.
| pachouli-please wrote:
| It stings a little, but most of the Good People have gotten
| around to other studios anyways. As I understand it gainax was
| really just an IP holding company for the most part in recent
| time
| jacoblambda wrote:
| Honestly I'm super excited for this. An important detail of
| note is that Studio Khara will be responsible for selling off
| and distributing IP to interested parties. Realistically most
| of these properties will go to Khara themself, Trigger, and
| studios like SHAFT that worked closely with gainax in the early
| days.
|
| So if anything this is how many of those beloved projects will
| get out from under Gainax's death grip and get something new
| other than a pachinko machine.
| MisterBastahrd wrote:
| Well, their biggest success is pretty much done to death now.
| NGE has had a series, multiple OVAs, multiple movies,
| multiple revamp movies... there's really not much else to get
| out of it unless you want to tell the story of how they got
| into that mess to begin with, which might be the most
| interesting part of all of this to its core fanbase given
| their age. Maybe tell the story of the project up until
| Shinji's mom dies or something.
| paul_funyun wrote:
| There's all kinds of fun things that could be done with the
| franchise. An isekai where an Otaku gets reborn as Shinji
| and tries to do it right would be great.
| noirscape wrote:
| They announced that, but all major IPs they had were already
| transferred to Khara and Trigger a couple years ago (that's
| why the TTGL movies reappeared in cinema a couple years ago).
| It's likely just some of the older/less popular stuff that's
| not easy to assign owners to that will need to be
| redistributed.
| nebula8804 wrote:
| >Even lesser known series, like KareKano
|
| Ahh the memories...I'll never forget their style of running out
| of funds mid series and then switching to the anime version of
| powerpoint style transitions to tell the remainder of the
| story! :D
|
| And who can forget Mahoromantic with the quintessential other
| Anime quirk: The budget runs outs so the important people just
| die and the credits roll with sad music....the end. :D
|
| I discovered in early high school after investing considerable
| time into a few series only to be burned by bad endings, that I
| should try something other than Anime. Its enjoyable but man I
| can't trust these guys. They suck you in and then leave you
| hanging too often.
|
| At least Evangelion was good I guess. Guess thats what happens
| when you have more continual income coming in for a franchise?
|
| Whats old is new again, Amazon and to a lesser extend Netflix
| are now mass producing content with this trap but at least we
| can make our voices heard. Back then in the late 90s early 00s
| we could not as easily complain to the company.
| zdw wrote:
| The entire anime industry is built on labor that is not
| compensated well, from many sources:
|
| This whole substack, but in particular:
| https://news.animenomics.com/p/nafca-anime-worker-survey-lon...
|
| NHK video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q5AR2X6R4TM
|
| From what I can tell, the production does a lot of Hollywood-
| style accounting where the production companies take most of the
| profits and most of the actual work is contracted out.
| jacoblambda wrote:
| An good video on the subject:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BDEIPa9b3OU
|
| However in this case with Gainax, the failure isn't due to
| anime production committee style accounting or anything like
| that. It's entirely because gainax hemorrhaged all their talent
| to offshoot studios and then gainax has done effectively
| nothing other than contract work out and milk IP in the ~15-20
| years since then.
| Levitz wrote:
| I think this happens when people have a dream of doing a
| specific job. As you mentioned, Hollywood does the same thing,
| as does the videogame industry in general. One could also look
| at a certain company which name starts with "T" and ends with
| "esla".
|
| In a way, the work itself turns into part of the compensation
| so people are willing to have a worse _everything else_ as long
| as they do the thing.
| kvemkon wrote:
| Previous discussion on HN: Anime is a $25B industry that pays
| its animators pennies
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39074062
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| What is the distribution bottleneck that keeps artists from
| self organising?
| rightbyte wrote:
| Burning passion?
| bongodongobob wrote:
| What prevents any group of workers from self organizing?
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _What prevents any group of workers from self
| organizing?_
|
| Some combination of skill, capital and ambition. Running
| a company is hard, and a specialised skill. Just look at
| restaurants to see how unevenly distributed
| administrative skills are.
| rincebrain wrote:
| Sort of the same problem as game testers.
|
| If there are so many people willing to work for pennies
| _for the sake of working there_ that even a significant
| fraction of you organizing a stop-work won't make a dent
| other than a one-off blip if you arrange so much disruption
| it hiccups production visibly, there's only so much
| leverage to exert, since you have nothing they can't just
| source elsewhere.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _there 's only so much leverage to exert, since you
| have nothing they can't just source elsewhere_
|
| That they're making peanuts is unsurprising. That someone
| else isn't, is. My question is what value the executives
| provide. In gaming, it's distribution expertise--a random
| band of artists probably can't negotiate distribution on
| a major console.
| meesles wrote:
| Anime is much the same. Licensing into the west only
| started in earnest in the last 10-15 years, which late by
| a lot of standards. I'm sure there are still a small
| slice of folks who can ink these deals, therefore giving
| anyone a job at all.
|
| Also let's be real - most 'animators' are just tracing
| masters into different scenes. There's a small subset of
| them that are highly skilled, especially on non-original
| shows that use source material. I'd support paying true
| character artists and scene artists well, but not copy-
| pasters which seems like busy-work.
| kjs3 wrote:
| Oh, man...spot on. We have a friend who was a senior game
| tester on a Very Big Francise(tm). He regularly worked
| twice as long every week than I did, made a fraction of
| the scratch and always said he did it because he loved
| the gaming biz. OK...I'm down with that...but maybe all
| of those stress-related health issues might be telling
| you something. Then he packed up everything and moved
| north because some assclown ex-ball player conned a ton
| of people into letting him cosplay being a game studio
| owner and our friend was one of many who got left holding
| the bag when that inevitably took a dump. He's still
| trying to fully recover. Definitely put the industry on
| the Nope list for me.
| rickdicker wrote:
| Just based on my own experience and knowledge of the
| animation industry, it seems to be more of a risk-
| aversion/lack-of-imagination problem. It is true that
| getting onto major streaming platforms requires insider
| knowledge/connections, but there sure are a lot of people
| using free platforms that anyone can upload to, like
| YouTube.
| slillibri wrote:
| Not the entire industry. Kyoto Animation, for example, pays its
| animators a salary rather than the piece rate many houses do.
| Sadly, they are the exception not the rule.
| segasaturn wrote:
| When you look at the end credits for a lot of anime series,
| you'll see many Thai, Vietnamese and Cambodian names credited
| for animation. Most animation that doesn't come from a
| "prestige" studio like Kyoto, Ghibli etc. is outsourced to
| Southeast Asia.
| segasaturn wrote:
| The Gainax of the 1990s was not the Gainax of the last decade.
| Gainax died in the Great Recession and became a hollowed out
| shell of a studio that only existed to collect royalties on their
| past work. So this is not a major loss.
| nottorp wrote:
| > Its business conditions began to deteriorate around 2012, due
| to careless management by executives, and the company lost its
| anime production capabilities following an exodus of its creative
| staff.
|
| I'm not an expert in anime but the article basically says it
| started to die in 2012-2014 or however long it took for the
| artists to leave, right?
| kipukun wrote:
| Gainax's financial troubles are well documented in an interview
| with Hideaki Anno, where he detailed how the company was pretty
| dysfunctional from the start. The company's president was
| arrested for tax fraud in 1999, for example. This has been a
| long time coming.
| p_l wrote:
| Ask not why GAINAX bankrupted, ask how the hell it survived
| so long.
|
| Memes about GAINAX running out of money to finish series go
| all the way back to Gunbuster, which was their fourth
| production, and second under the name GAINAX.
|
| The second production, Daikon IV, survives thanks to piracy
| because they didn't license them music used :V
| jandrese wrote:
| Gunbuster ran out of money to pay colorists by the end of
| the series, which was only 4 episodes. Evangelion also
| clearly ran out of budget by the end of the series, and
| that was after some blatant cost saving scenes repeatedly
| appearing in the show, like very very long elevator rides
| where nobody moves and the only action is a floor counter
| ticking down, or watching the counter on a Walkman slowly
| tick by. Almost taunting the audience with the counters on
| the obvious padding scenes.
| p_l wrote:
| The funny thing is, the studio claims last episode of
| Gunbuster was done black&white on purpose - in fact, that
| black&white was more expensive the way they did it than
| otherwise.
|
| Unfortunately I suspect that outside of the people
| directly involved we won't ever hear properly. The
| rumours flew around since early 1990s, and there _is_ the
| part that Gunbuster was originally supposed to be a TV
| series (AFAIK), and as result the plot was extremely
| compressed into those 6 episodes that we got ultimately.
|
| And it's not like the studio was not known otherwise for
| wild swings even when they didn't run out of money...
| (anyone remembers how Mahoromatic ended?)
| justsomehnguy wrote:
| I think it's true (at least partially), you transfer the
| outline to a cel and then colour it, any issues are
| covered by the paint.
|
| With B&W you need to transfer the shading and you can't
| just (literally) fill the gaps with a colour.
| GuB-42 wrote:
| My favorite "no budget" moment was in Kare Kano, a lesser
| known Gainax adaptation of the shoujo manga of the same
| name.
|
| The second half as a whole is clearly made on the cheap,
| but episode 19 is special, it is all paper cutouts on a
| stick, most likely from the storyboard, on top of recycled
| backgrounds.
| jcl wrote:
| My favorite was toward the end of the Evangelion series,
| where they generated flashback footage by shooting the
| _backs_ of earlier cels.
| dvncan wrote:
| "Its business conditions began to deteriorate around 2012, due to
| careless management by executives, and the company lost its anime
| production capabilities following an exodus of its creative
| staff."
|
| no creative, no business
| looperhacks wrote:
| Let's face it, Gainax was only an empty shell of its former
| glory. Most of the "important" people left for Khara and Trigger
| and Gainax has done nothing of importance for more than ten years
| or so?
|
| Also, financial troubles is probably the most Gainax thing
| possible
| PaulHoule wrote:
| _Evangelion_ is almost 30 years old. The fact that they can 't
| name a newer hit anime for them is the problem. I don't know
| about the economics but from a creative standpoint the anime
| industry seems quite healthy having recently produced a lot of
| great shows like _Sousou no Frieren_ , _Oshi no Ko_ , and
| _Konosuba Season 3_ in the last year or so.
| dragontamer wrote:
| Ranking of Kings is the underrated gem people need to go and
| watch. And is my pick for best anime of the last 5ish years.
|
| Its a bit of a shonen, but hitting shonen tropes isn't
| necessarily a bad thing. And Ranking of Kings does it in a
| relatively fresh way, and absolutely nails the "Brothers
| Grimm" style to fairy-tale magic and lore. (Yes, kid-friendly
| on the surface, but then deep blood-magic involving the
| grinding of bones and drinking of blood to infuse deep
| magicks into the story and lore). Bonus points that the
| battle scenes are done by the venerated Studio Wit.
|
| -------
|
| With regards to Gainax: their last big hit was Gurren Lagaan
| in 2007 IMO. But even Evangelion 3.0 + 1.0 was Studio Khara,
| not Gainax.
|
| You're not wrong, but Gurren Lagaan is a great work, even if
| all those particular animators left Gainax shortly afterwards
| and started Studio Trigger. Most people consider Gurren
| Lagaan to be Studio Trigger for some reason but remember that
| group was still technically employed by Gainax when Gurren
| Lagaan came out.
| PaulHoule wrote:
| On one level I liked _Gurren Lagann_ but on another level
| it seemed frequently stupid to me and not covering any
| ground that wasn't covered in other anime (I think _Martian
| Successor Nadesico_ ) ten years before. But it was a real
| success for Gainax but the authors of article don't mention
| it.
| jmcgough wrote:
| Yeah, that was Imaishi though who left to found Trigger -
| since then has directed Kill la Kill, Cyberpunk
| Edgerunners, some other great but lesser known stuff like
| Promare
| labster wrote:
| Most fiction doesn't cover ground that hasn't been
| covered elsewhere, just like ice skaters rarely come up
| with new tricks -- it's all about grade of execution for
| both. _TTGL_ is mainly dumb when its characters are dumb,
| which is often because they literally grew up in Plato's
| Cave.
| soundnote wrote:
| Part of the fun of TTGL is that normally you'd stumble
| onto
|
| "Our friends' hopes and dreams are etched into its body,
| transforming the infinite darkness into light! Unmatched
| in Heaven and Earth, one machine equal to the gods!"
| "SUPER GALAXY GURREN LAGANN!" "We're gonna show you the
| power... of the human race."
|
| and be like "ehh, that's kinda silly".
|
| After 20+ episodes? Your brain is sufficiently gooey that
| you just go "wooow..."
| bossyTeacher wrote:
| I second RoR. It is really original which is really rare in
| the overcrowded and generic shounen world
| jon_richards wrote:
| > that group was still technically employed by Gainax when
| Gurren Lagaan came out
|
| Huh, TIL.
|
| Gurren Lagaan is surprisingly meta. One of the big problems
| with the fight-focused anime formula is that they
| constantly one-up themselves, eventually power spiraling to
| unsustainable levels. So Gurren Lagaan's plot revolves
| around an energy literally called "spiral power" and how
| unsustainable it is.
| etiam wrote:
| One of those so called 'nitpicks', but Lagaan is the
| successful Indian cricket musical drama from 2001, the
| mecha would ususally be transcribed Lagann.
|
| Thanks for the tips and thoughtful comments.
| dimmke wrote:
| Yes but Evangelion is so massive and popular it'd be enough
| to sustain a studio. Gainax does not have the rights to NGE
| though. They only produced the original series back in the
| 90s.
|
| Hideaki Anno literally setup a brand new studio specifically
| to do the rebuild films:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khara_(studio)
| PaulHoule wrote:
| Doesn't have the staying power of _Gundam_ which has
| survived postmodernism by producing spin-off shows about
| people who build Gundam models. (Gee I gotta build that
| Haro I have sitting around...)
| shagie wrote:
| Adam Savage did a build on Tested back in the lockdown
| period...
|
| Adam Savage's First Gundam Build--RX-78-2 Perfect Grade
| Unleashed! https://youtu.be/xfmD1yYqP6k
|
| There's also another channel that is in the "I wish I had
| the time / talent / inspiration to do those things..."
| Two Expensive Models, One Epic Diorama!
| https://youtu.be/q7vCFKRHloE
|
| The Gundam model build shows up in my YouTube feed
| occasionally despite me not looking for them.
| fendy3002 wrote:
| Gundam is usually a recycled stories (teenager ride an
| ace robot to war) with new toys.
|
| How can Evangelion recycle their stories? Nobody want to
| see depressed, horny teenager forced to ride a robot so
| everyone can be turned into orange paste every two years.
| jeffwask wrote:
| It's always felt like a stretch them trying to turn this
| story into a franchise. It's like a Death Note franchise
| it just doesn't make sense.
| PaulHoule wrote:
| Exactly, _Evangelion_ is about the end of the world which
| can only end once. That may make it poignant but it doesn
| 't have the staying power of _Gundam_ or _Macross_ or
| _Pretty Cure_ where they can keep telling variations of
| the same story in different places and times
| indefinitely. (Funny to think how they weren 't sure if
| they'd finish the first season of _Futari Wa Pretty Cure_
| so their budget for writing and direction was zero for a
| few episodes in the middle that were mostly
| incomprehensible scenes of people being corrupted, turned
| into monsters, and walking around doing things Kung Fu
| masters would do in _Dragonball Z_ until suddenly the
| show started making sense again... And of course they
| went on to make another 20+ seasons)
| com2kid wrote:
| > Exactly, Evangelion is about the end of the world which
| can only end once. That may make it poignant but it
| doesn't have the staying power of Gundam or Macross or
| Pretty Cure where they can keep telling variations of the
| same story in different places and times indefinitely
|
| Various Gundam series take place across different
| universes, there is no reason a series based on "the
| world is ending" can't do the same thing - share thematic
| elements across different sets of characters.
|
| Heck you could even make each series explore a different
| element of the human psyche.
|
| IMHO the real issue is Evangelion is such a mind fuck
| that finding ways to reach that level of WTF is hard, and
| also the cultural zeitgeist moves on, and I doubt if
| Evangelion was related today it'd have the same impact.
| Kind of like how a lot of cyberpunk stuff is still
| around, but it has to be somewhat re-invented for each
| decade, because while some of the themes of the original
| 1980s stuff is still relevant, you can't just cut and
| paste, today's youth feels a different sense of
| hopelessness than what was felt in the 80s!
|
| Same thing with 1990s material, super edgy goth cyberpunk
| vampires don't hit the same in 2024 as they did in 1994.
|
| So finding writing staff that can keep up with making
| Really Good Stuff decade after decade, and who also want
| to do rehashes of the same material, may prove hard.
|
| But still, a series of Evangelion universes all focused
| on different types of trauma would be interesting to see!
| serf wrote:
| >Various Gundam series take place across different
| universes, there is no reason a series based on "the
| world is ending" can't do the same thing - share thematic
| elements across different sets of characters.
|
| NGE has done that plenty. The early works, dating sim
| games, plastic models, fan fiction, manga, etc have all
| had 'alternate universe' entries -- which suits the
| series just fine since that concept is explored even in
| the original series via Shinji's 'instrumentality
| scenes'.
| NickC25 wrote:
| Gundam (MSG, in particular) is sort of about the world
| ending. Colony drop killing billions right off the bat.
|
| Yeah the other spin-offs not related to the UC storyline
| are definitely more in the "angsty ace pilot teen with
| completely-overpowered-weapon-as-a-plot-device" category
| but there's so many of them, who's counting at that
| point?
|
| While the mecha are all cool as heck, definitely felt the
| OG series and the spinoffs (008th MS Team, 0079: Stardust
| Memory, Zeta Gundam etc) are the best because they tell
| different aspects of a larger story.
|
| [?] Gundam was quite cool though, neat story.
| serf wrote:
| NGE isn't really about the world ending, it's about the
| forced ending of humanity as we know it; we're even left
| to see what the world looks like post-humanity in EoE.
| Shank wrote:
| Eva is pretty sustainable, just not for Gainax. Studio
| Khara has been selling Eva merchandise and related
| materials through brands like Radio EVA for a while.
|
| Gainax just kind of doesn't have any of the IP anymore,
| for various reasons.
| GuB-42 wrote:
| > Studio Khara has been selling Eva merchandise.
|
| Including a partnership with ASUS ROG which led to the
| infamous "Evangenlion" motherboard.
| gavmor wrote:
| Which aspects of postmodernism threaten which aspects of
| the _Gundam_ franchise? Or are you just alluding to the
| dominance of _digital_ goods over _physical_ hobbies such
| as model-building? I 'll admit, I don't know where the
| money comes from. Is it really 80:20 merchandising:media?
| lmm wrote:
| I think their point is simply that a Gundam series about
| building model Gundams is a very postmodern thing (and,
| perhaps, that the rise of postmodernism has made it
| harder for a 100% unironic Gundam series to succeed).
| dimmke wrote:
| When I say it could sustain a studio, I just mean revenue
| from merchandise sales etc... It's such a popular IP
| there's an entire theme park devoted to it.
|
| I'd say NGE is absolutely more popular than Gundam. I
| think there's a perfect "target age" to get into NGE, and
| that age is 13-15 and new generations discover it.
| Quentin Tarantino once said the same thing about a lot of
| his old movies.
| dimmke wrote:
| To attempt to put _some_ metrics to this, NGE is in the
| mid 40s of the top 50 most popular anime list on MAL:
| https://myanimelist.net/topanime.php?type=bypopularity
|
| No Gundam series is in the top 50.
|
| It's also the _oldest_ anime in that top 50 list, which I
| think is really indicative of how popular it is. The only
| other one that 's even from the 90s is Cowboy Bepop.
| aidenn0 wrote:
| OT, but: I really don't understand why _Death Note_ is so
| popular. It was an above average first season that went
| downhill super fast. I gave up on it the first episode
| after the recap episode (26 if Wikipedia is right), and
| nothing in my conversations with other people have led me
| to believe the last dozen or so episodes would change my
| opinion on it.
| PurpleRamen wrote:
| Gundam lives from the model-sales. The anime is just
| advertisement and justification for a new collection of
| models.
| agumonkey wrote:
| Also creates a difficult precedent to beat.
| PurpleRamen wrote:
| If a massive hit like evangelion is your benchmark, then
| everything will fail in comparison. Gainix had many good
| productions even after NGE, but if management sucks, then
| success will not help. And they haven't released anything new
| for nearly a decade now.
|
| > I don't know about the economics but from a creative
| standpoint the anime industry seems quite healthy having
| recently produced a lot of great shows like Sousou no
| Frieren, Oshi no Ko, and Konosuba Season 3 in the last year
| or so.
|
| Anime is dying, permanently, since decades. It's a very
| unhealthy exploitive industry, similar to the infamous
| Hollywood-accounting. And I guess with AI this will only
| become worse. But most productions are not anime-originals
| anyway, they usually originate from books or manga, and the
| creative animation work is rather small and generic at the
| end.
| creamyhorror wrote:
| Alongside their general mismanagement under their President
| Yamaga[1] e.g. giving their management unsecured loans of
| company funds[2], they've been doing random crap like tomato
| farming.[3] They wouldn't have lasted so long without Hideaki
| Anno's ( _Eva_ ) support for old times' sake.[1] They've been a
| deadbeat since 2012; it's just been a long downhill road to the
| inevitable end.
|
| [1] https://evankaiser.medium.com/hideaki-anno-on-gainax-
| taintin...
|
| [2] (Japanese only)
| https://www.oricon.co.jp/news/2330666/photo/1/
|
| [3]
| https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/interest/2016-04-12/gainax-...
| pknomad wrote:
| It's also not surprising. Anime studios rarely make money off
| their work. The only exceptions that I can think of are KyoAni
| and A1 since they have IP ownership, or have financial backing
| from a bigger company like Sony, respectively.
| michaelt wrote:
| Yeah the fact the reporter decided Gainax's headline
| achievement was an anime from 1995 kinda says it all.
| jcranmer wrote:
| Not necessarily. Studio Ghibli's headline achievement would
| likely be considered to be Spirited Away (although I prefer
| Princess Mononoke), which is nearly as old, but they've still
| put out some solid work since then.
|
| As dragontamer pointed out, Gainax has also produced Gurren
| Lagann in 2007, which is definitely a pretty big hit, even if
| it wasn't the phenomenal success of Evangelion.
| throw4847285 wrote:
| It's all been downhill since Daicon IV!!!
| radicalbyte wrote:
| Gurren Lagann is rated #1 series of all time by many anime
| fan, myself included. It's a masterpiece, although the
| cultural impact isn't of the same level as Evangelion.
| bee_rider wrote:
| That's Ghibli though. The company that somehow can do
| Disney style mass appeal and contemplative art films, often
| at the same time.
|
| Gainax makes fantastic, often quite out there, shows that
| play with anime tropes. Their addressable market is people
| who are already at least somewhat anime fans.
| karmasimida wrote:
| I mean that anime is Evagelion, it is like using Star Wars to
| showcase Lucasfilm, there is most accurate representation of
| the studio's accomplishment, as well as assets (used to be).
| astrobe_ wrote:
| When I look at the credits of popular animes, very often I see
| what looks like Korean names, as if most of the animation has
| been outsourced. Could it be related?
| jmcgough wrote:
| American animated shows have been outsourcing to Korea since
| at least the 90s
| jbm wrote:
| Definitely before that; The Transformers had a lot of their
| work done in their 3rd season by Korean Studios and that
| was 86.
| xg15 wrote:
| I guess Gainax finally got its own Gainax Ending.
| timetraveller26 wrote:
| Darng I came late to make that joke.
|
| For the curious:
| https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/GainaxEnding
| harimau777 wrote:
| I'm not an expert in this area, but a friend who is into anime
| said that the company that the rights to these series are being
| sold to is owned/operated by the same guy that made many of them.
| So he felt that in this case we were lucky that this is almost
| "Gainax went bankrupt and sold their properties to Gainax".
|
| Again, I'm not an expert so I can't verify, but this seems like
| one case where maybe things are ending up alright.
| fareesh wrote:
| one might say they achieved instrumentality
| slillibri wrote:
| As a side note, the small worlds museum (from the article image)
| is pretty cool. I spent a couple of hours there on a rainy day in
| Tokyo. I assume they are going to keep the Tokyo-3 part of the
| exhibit after this.
| morkalork wrote:
| No more gainax bounce?
| karmasimida wrote:
| As for Evagelion series, most of the creatives and copyright
| itself have moved into khara.
|
| GAINAX had been in the vegetative state for many years now.
| schaefer wrote:
| End of Evangelion, indeed.
| LarsDu88 wrote:
| I remember watching the final episode of Evangelion several years
| ago. A few minutes into it, it's as if they simply ran out of
| animation budget and it went full slide show. And that was their
| greatest success.
| 123yawaworht456 wrote:
| just in case you don't know, there's an actual ending.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_End_of_Evangelion
| 79a6ed87 wrote:
| Maybe an unpopular opinion, but I prefer the original ending
| timetraveller26 wrote:
| We probably are in the minority, but I do appreciate the
| uniqueness of that ending, it feels like the interior of a
| chaotic psyche.
| aidenn0 wrote:
| I only liked the original ending after _End of Evangelion_
| helped explained WTF was going on. I watched the last two
| episodes like 6 times and couldn 't figure it out.
| neilv wrote:
| > _Its business conditions began to deteriorate around 2012, due
| to careless management by executives,_
|
| Is blunt writing like this typical of journalism within Japan,
| for Japanese audiences?
| lmm wrote:
| Japan Times is written by Americans for Americans.
| irusensei wrote:
| Evangelion this TTGL that. We are never getting another P&S G are
| we?
| Trellmor wrote:
| Studio Trigger is working on new P&S G project.
|
| https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2022-07-02/studio-trig...
| albl wrote:
| Trigger has a new project in the works, it was announced last
| year:
|
| https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2023-07-01/trigger-unv...
| wwilim wrote:
| It all comes tumbling down, tumbling down, tumbling down...
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