Founding Member Of Studio Gainax Talks The Controversy Of The Anime Studio Closure
Image Source: IGN
The famous anime studio Gainax has officially closed due to bankruptcy as of December 10, 2025. Founding member and Neon Genesis Evangelion creator Hideaki Anno shared a public letter detailing the company’s messy history. The company was founded in 1984 in Mushahino, Tokyo, and brought fresh scripts to the anime scene with Neon Genesis Evangelion, Gunbuster, FCLC, Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water, and Gurren Lagan. Employees from the company went on to found Studio Trigger and Khara. Unfortunately, not everything at Gainax was above board. The former CEO, Tomohiro Maki, was arrested in 2019 for sexually assaulting a young voice actress.
Furthermore, the company was found guilty of mishandling rights transfers and withholding royalties. This led to Khara filing suit against the company and winning. Anno’s letter revealed that representatives from the company were falsifying statements. He wrote, “Specifically, upon learning about the various false statements made by former Fukushima Gainax representative Yoshinobu Asao, Hiroyuki Yamaga, and Yasuhiro Takeda, whom I considered friends since college, toward my company and myself, including instructions from then-President Yamaga to Gainax employees to pretend he was hospitalized, statements that viewed our company as hostile, and schemes to unfairly avoid repayment, I have gone beyond anger to sadness.”
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Image Source: IGN
Anno also thanked President Yasuhiro Kamimura “who, despite the fact that the previous management team had abandoned the historic anime studio Gainax without taking responsibility for its many responsibilities and creditors, managed to prevent the rights and materials from being lost and inherit them with the understanding of all parties involved, faced creditors sincerely, and did his best to the end, witnessing the studio’s demise.” The company’s closure is a sad blow to the anime community and the new CEO who inherited all the problems created by the prior administration.
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Source(s): Dexerto, Cartoon Brew
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