Let try something....Different: A look at Studio Gainax.

Name: Studio Gainax 

Founded: 1980

Now for anyone that has watched anime for a few years, the chances are very high you have seen a Studio Gainax anime. It not because of the volume of shows they put out but more the quality, hype, and uniqueness to thier Titles that make this statement true. Compared to other industry giants such as Production I.G., Madhouse studio, and Sunrise which have a 30-40 series range, Gainax just this year hit 20 series.

In the beginning, Gainax was originally called Daicon Films, and started by making a animated short for a conventions. The short had a young girl fighting several iconic characters, such as godzilla, gundams, and the space battleship yamato. The short did not make a big splash, and was poorly animated, but it showed a scope most people were not used to. In 1983, two years later, Gainax made another short for the convention, this time cleaning up the animation and raising the quality. It followed the same girl but known she was a woman, it also increased the scope by pitting her against icons like, Darth Vader, Aslan, Spiderman, Voltran, a Klingon Warship, Xenomorphs, and several others. This short made a splash, and caught the eyes of many passing by, giving much needed attention to the new animation studio.

In 1985 Daicon Films changed its name to Studio Gainax, taking the Tottori word for giant and adding a "X" to the name. Their first commercial entity, Royal Space Force: The wings of Honneamise, didn't do well commercially but received many positive reviews. The next year, 1988, Gainax released a 6 episode series called Gunbuster. The series proved to be a commercial success, and put the company on a more solid platform to create more series, still the company had not done anything that brought it to the top.

On October 4th, 1995 everything changed for Studio Gainax, as they set out to release what would later be one of the most acclaimed series of all time.

Neon Genesis Evangelion, or EVA for short, Became a figurehead for anime in the 90's. With its moving soundtrack, dark Mecha deconstruction, social and cultural topics, and Story it was a huge commercial success. The series not only succeeded in japan but was well received over sea's and in foreign markets. The show sparked debates, and the final two episodes left a highly polarized crowd, many claiming it was "too deep" while others took the series with stride. Even if you avoided anime in the 90's if you like sci-fi you saw or at least heard of this series.

With this the studio had placed its name in anime and geek culture, but this was a bittersweet event, as Studio Gainax was audited for tax evasion. 

Gainax proceded to make several smaller caliber series up into the late 90's, then in the year 2000 they dusted off the box of creative magic they used for EVA, and spawned FLCL. Showing how much fun Anime could be just to watch, they had again made a series that was a commercial and critic success. Studio Gainax continued doing co-production projects with several other companys on titles like Cowboy Bebop the movie and This ugly yet beautiful world. In 2004, to Celebrate their 20th anniversary, released a sequel to Gunbuster titled Diebuster.

Then on April 1st 2007, Gainax made a series to beat all of their prior series, a series that would be seen in pop culture world wide, a series that would have its hands in politics, a series that would be an inspiration to series long after. This series would be labeled by many as the pinnacle of Gainax, and be a measure of what exactly "Scope" meant. That series is Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann.

Gurren Lagann Pushed the limits on many Cliches for it action genre, having intense transformation scenes, and over the top action at times. It broke several rules as well, such as killing of a main character early on, only to have that character be the driving force behind almost everyone else's character evolution. Gurren Lagann also set the standard for scope, increasing in scale every episode, until they came to a point where they characters were actually throwing full galaxies as weapons. At one point the Gurren mech has been seen as a construct, created by the green lantern. The series is also quoted and included in many other series. A british radio station once asked fans to make a redesign the british flag, the winner was a design with peices of the Gurren lagann logo. 

In 2010 Studio Gainax made yet another successful series, aimed at western audiences, that series being Panty and Stocking with Garterbelt. In 2011 a large portion of Studio gainax left to make Studio Trigger, taking key members from the teams that worked on FLCL, Gurren Lagann, and Panty and Stocking with Garterbelt. This aside Gainax precedes to make new series, but has yet to make another critically acclaimed series since the split. 

Despite the split, it can be said that Studio Gainax has made some of the most influential and Different series seen, in their short run as a company so far. We hope to see more great works come from them, and until then we as fans will continue to watch their previous series. 

your's is the company that will pierce the heavens