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Gainax, the animation powerhouse which has spawned massive hits such as "Neon Genesis Evangelion,""Nadia:The Secret of Blue Water," "Kare Kano," "FLCL" and "Gurren Lagann" among others, has confirmed plans to open a studio and in-house museum in the town of Miharu, Fukushima. Specifically, the company will move into a refurbished school building that was closed two years ago.
Founded in 1984, Gainax‘s current corporate headquarters are located in Tokyo’s Koganei City (the same place as Studio Ghibli’s headquarters). The company is well-known both domestically and internationally for its line of often avant-garde hits, and its name is often taken as synonymous with "Evangelion," the legendary 1995 TV anime series directed by studio co-founder Hideaki Anno.
The latest news reports from Gainax state that the company plans to open a new regional animation and video game production studio in the town of Miharu, Fukushima (a bit east of the major city of Koriyama), which will supposedly be up and running by this April. In addition to the production studio, the location will also house a small museum dedicated to famous characters born from Gainax, as well as hosting lectures relating to anime production that will be open to the general public.
The site of the new production studio will be the former building of Miharu’s Sakura Junior High School, which was one of three local schools incorporated into a larger city junior high school in 2013.
According to Gainax, this new undertaking is being done in an effort to counteract the financial damage caused by the Great East Japan Earthquake and nuclear incident of March 2011. The administration hopes that the presence of a new studio will also bring tourists back to the region and dispel some of the negative publicity surrounding Fukushima ever since the 2011 disasters. Perhaps their mission can best be summed up in the following quote: “Now, we want to express stories to the next generation that can only be made in this time, in this place [Fukushima].”
While there’s no word yet on any new projects that will be produced at the Fukushima location, we’ll be sure to keep you in the loop if we hear anything.
Sources: NHK News Web, Gainax Net
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© Japan Today
6 Comments
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sillygirl
You will build it but will they come? Sorry there is still a stigma attached.
nath
What is this Stigma you speak off?
Great news from Daikon/Gainax Animation Studio.
CrisGerSan
I am glad to hear of this news for the region. but.....it would help if your news writers were more educated about anime history. Evangelion is, tho well known, not among any list of classic anime by a long shot, it had a decent start to the series but the director basically freaked out and just about killed the entire series by an absurd and bizarre last episode which demeaned and corrupted some of the main characters in a form of on screen suicide by writer.... it is still unknown why he did that, but since that disaster, the studio has tried again and again to rehabilitate the disaster by issuing remake movies that try to lessen the damage. It has not worked and it remains one of the epic failures in anime history. There are many far better studios, and better series by far as well.
As for Nadia, Gianax actually lost 80 million yen on the project, and ended up with no rights at all due to internal struggles in the company, it was a disaster that was followed by a failed movie based on the story, they were only able to repay the advance on the movie with the proceeds from Evangelion.
I hope that you will feature stories about some of the much better anime work and much better studios, but thanks for the story. I do hope it helps the region.
nath
Add in that Gainax also got hefty fines and back taxes after hiding millions USD of income after Evangelion.
Still today I like their animation for Daikon III and Daikon IV event opening animariom with the opening of 'Densha Otoko'.
Long history and they did produce a lot of cult anime.
SuperDonQuixote
@CrisGerSan A lot of personal feelings masquerading as a history lesson there...
lostrune2
Unfortunately, most of the talent from old Gainax have already left the studio. Gainax now is just a shell of its former self.
Manic depression
They never had the rights in the first place - they were merely doing work-for-hire for NHK (and they came to hate working for NHK).