Some time ago, the animated movie "Evangelion New Theater Edition: The End" was officially finalized, and the Japanese release time was set for June 27, 2020. For fans of the Evangelion (EVA) series, the 8-year wait for a final result is undoubtedly great news.
One thing to say, the plot of the previous part is almost forgotten
Before that, however, The Animation Production Company GAINAX, evangelion's old owner, was involved in a scandal: President Tomohiro Izumaki was arrested on suspicion of indecency.
When the man was arrested, some media outlets adopted headlines such as "Arrested president of EVA production company GAINAX." This is certainly not a good thing for EVA, and people who love it have protested. One of the most weighty speeches came from animation supervisor Hideaki Anno.
Today, Hideaki Anno posted a special statement on the diamonds online website. Among them, there is not only strong dissatisfaction with the hot behavior of the report headline rubbing "EVA", but also many dissatisfaction and criticism of the former company GAINAX - in his own view, a company that has created countless excellent works and has great prospects has completely collapsed.
Hideaki Anno published an article opposing the association of GAINAX with EVA
<h3>"This guy has nothing to do with EVA."</h3>
Perhaps very angry at the heat of "EVA", Hideaki Anno directly stated in the article that the people arrested in the GAINAX incident "have nothing to do with EVA".
Anno said the media put "EVA" on the title just to attract attention. In fact, the arrested people only joined GAINAX a few years ago and never participated in the production of EVA. Moreover, in the current GAINAX, the old employees involved in the production of "EVA" have long gone clean, and there is no one left.
Since 2006, the company that produced the new theatrical version of EVA has been replaced by Khara, and the owner is Hideaki Anno himself. The reason why Anno protested for "EVA" was partly for the sake of feathers and did not want the new theatrical version to be affected by the scandal; on the other hand, it should also be for himself - if the news is full of "the president of the company that made EVA" has been arrested", people who do not know the truth are likely to suspect him...
However, in Anno's view, it is inevitable that something will happen to GAINAX.
Viewers who know anything about Japanese animation should have seen the introduction of GAINAX in many materials and articles. Initially, it was just a few otaku who loved SF and engaged in fandom animation organized together, and then transformed from a small team into a formal animation company. Starting from "Wang Li Cosmic Army", members such as Hiroyuki Yamaga, Hideaki Anno, Yoshiyuki Sadamoto, Takami Akai, Akishi Murahama, and Masahiro Maeda have gradually become familiar to the industry and audiences, and the reputation of works such as "Leaping to the Peak" and "The Mystery of sapphire" is also quite high.
"Wang Li Cosmic Army" is the "debut" work of GAINAX
But since its inception, deficits and mismanagement have been accompanied by GAINSAX. The theatrical version of "Wang Li Cosmic Army" failed at the box office, and in order to make up for the deficit, "Leap to the Peak" was produced. Although "Leap to the Top" was well received, the company's deficit did not improve due to the excessive investment... In the DIAMONDS online article, Hideaki Anno said that he did not plan to do EVA at GAINAX at the beginning, and finally did it on the face of the family.
In 1995, EVA was a great success. Its style, plot, characters, performances, music, and influence on subsequent works and even the animation industry are still being discussed today. However, in fact, GAINAX was only responsible for the animation of "EVA" and did not invest in the project, so they only received the part of the royalties that Hideaki Anno was responsible for, and did not make much money from the animation. What really made them money was selling CDs, giraffes, and games, but that was later.
There are many "EVA" spin-off games in various genres, and GAINAX has also made money
In any case, "EVA" made GAIMAX a lot of money, and this is the bane that Hideaki Anno thinks they will have an accident. Money comes too quickly, many people simply don't know how to spend it, and failed projects abound. Worse still, no one reflects on what went wrong when they fail — there's money anyway, so no one cares.
Other parts of the company also make money under the name of "EVA", and the management is extravagant and wasteful. At the same time, the front-line workers who had initially worked hard to produce animation did not receive feedback. Problems have long been obscured under the profits of EVA. In 1999, takeshi Sawamura resigned because of tax evasion, and Hiroyuki Yamaga succeeded him as president. Hideaki Anno also joined the company's board of directors at this time.
But the situation in GAINAX has not improved. As the popularity of "EVA" gradually declined, the company's operating problems were once again exposed. Hideaki Anno said he made a lot of comments to management at the time, but none of them were taken into account. In 2006, Hideaki Anno resigned from GAINAX and founded Khara. The first batch of producers of EVA, Kazumaru Tsuruma and Moshayuki, also transferred to Khara shortly after.
<h3>The attribution of EVA and the dilemma of GAINAX</h3>
Hideaki Anno took away from GAINAX in addition to the producer, as well as part of the copyright to EVA. According to Anno's article, since 2006, the commercial licensing of EVA has belonged to Khara, while GAINAX is also responsible for copyright management and peripheral merchandise production. Simply put, although EVA no longer belongs to GAINAX, Khara (that is, Hideaki Anno) still authorizes them to do copyright management and peripheral development, and the two sides continue to operate the cash cow of EVA together.
But GAINAX's poor ability to operate has made the cooperation between the two sides also precarious. Anno revealed in the article that since 2008, GAINAX has paid Khara less and less copyright income. Just a year ago (2007), GAINAX finally launched the hit work "Tianyuan Breakthrough" after "EVA", which to some extent alleviated the days of eating only on "EVA".
In 2011, Hiroyuki Imagishi, Masahiko Otsuka and others in the main creative team of "Tengen Breakthrough" founded the Trigger company single-handedly, and a group of employees left from GAINAX, some followed Imaishi Yoko to Trigger, some invested in Khara in Anno, and some simply retired.
"Tianyuan Breakthrough" is a popular animation produced by GAINAX in 2007, and the main creative team has all left
In 2012, GAINAX began defaulting on royalties. In 2014, GAINAX also asked Anno to "raise 100 million yen for them in 3 days" or go bankrupt. Out of affection for his old owner and old friend, Anno paid the money, but he did not approve of the other party's behavior.
In addition to "EVA", Several other works that Anno has supervised, such as "Leap to the Top", "The Mystery of Sapphire", "FLCL", etc., are still copyrighted in GAINAX. In 2014, Khara wanted to buy back the rights to these films from GAINAX, and the terms and price of the acquisition were almost negotiated. But one day, GAINAX suddenly increased the price by 6 times, and did not give any reasonable reason, Khara did not accept, and the matter ended up.
In 2015, the rights to these 3 works were sold by GAINAX to other companies. Hideaki Anno said he only learned about it after the fact. In addition, there are several works that he did not participate in the production of, the copyright of which was also sold by GAINAX to other companies without the knowledge of the producer.
From the perspective of copyright transactions, if the copyright of the work is still in the hands of GAINAX, then it does have the right to buy and sell, and even the producer has no right to intervene in it. Of course, this is only from a legal point of view, and it is reasonable to sell the copyright without saying a word, and not saying a word to the producer, which is really not good.
But then the problem may be even bigger.
Since 2014, a variety of companies with the title of "GAINAX" have emerged in Japan.
In May 2014, "Yonago GANAX Corporation" was founded in Tottori Prefecture, in November 2015, "Fukushima GAINAX Co., Ltd." was founded in Fukushima, in April 2016, "Limited Company GAINAX WEST" was founded in Hyogo Prefecture, and in July of the same year, "Niigata GANAX" was founded in Niigata Prefecture. At the beginning, they were nominally subsidiaries of GAINAX, but then either declared independence or sold all their shares to others, but they still maintained the name of "GAINAX", which seemed to be related to GAINAX and EVA.
Also in April 2016, Hideaki Anno discovered that GAINAX's royalties and repayments to Khara had suddenly stopped. He contacted the other party but did not receive a reply. He suspected that GAINAX had even sold its own "signboard."
<h3>Pull out the radish and bring out the mud</h3>
These companies, which bear the guise of GAINAX and have no relationship with GAINAX, worry Hideaki Anno a lot. In fact, it is difficult to say what the current GANAX "ontology" is in. In October 2019, Hiroyuki Yamaga also quietly left the chairman position and was replaced by Jihiro Akira. At the time of the alleged indecent incident, this volume was also the president of GAINAX International, a company that actually focused on cultivating voice actors, and had nothing to do with GAINAX's business direction, except for "GAINAX" in its name.
Press photo of Tsubasa when he was arrested, he only took the position of president of GAINAX in October 2019
Suspect Ji Hiroshi harassed underage girls who targeted voice actors. Some people speculate that these teenage girls are attracted to the aura of "GAINAX" and "EVA", but accidentally walk into the training class of "GAINAX International". According to the survey, the company's "new voice actors, animation singer recruitment" conditions do not have any sound data, on the contrary, there are full body photos, chest above the photo, three circumferences and other needs - although the new talent training does have to go through the process of "from scratch", but such recruitment conditions still make many people suspect that the purpose is not pure.
GAINAX International's "Newcomer Recruitment" qualification, the logo in the upper left corner is still known as GAINAX
Hideaki Anno also mentioned in the article that GAINAX seems to have sold the name "GAINAX" overseas. A foreign company once asked him if he would animate them if they bought local "GAINAX".
Compared to this, Hideaki Anno is more worried about the whereabouts of the works previously managed by GAINAX. According to Anno's article, he applied for the seizure of GAINAX's claims in August 2016 on the grounds of "preventing the loss of valuable information", which was implemented in the same month. In September, Anno took GAINAX to court again, this time to recover loans (including the 100 million yen in 2014). During the course of the lawsuit, Anno discovered that a large amount of important materials involving other producers had been sold to Fukushima GAINAX (now renamed GAINA Co., Ltd.).
<h3>epilogue</h3>
From Hideaki Anno's articles and other investigations, it may be possible to draw a regrettable conclusion: THE GAINS THAT ONCE PRODUCED EXCELLENT ANIMATION SUCH AS THE TV VERSION OF "EVA" IS GONE.
At the end of the article, Anno writes: "The managers at that time did not want to take corresponding responsibility for themselves, their employees, their producers, their works, and society. "These people are not just the operators of a company, but also the friends he has had since he was a student.
"The most regrettable thing is that we can never go back to the same relationship as we used to be."