[EVA] Evangelion Kaibunsho

[Carl Gustav Horn]

I apologize, as this sounds quite arrogant, but I don't need  
Wikipedia--the Japanese version or otherwise--to interpret Gainax's  
history to me. I've been writing on and researching the studio and  
its works since 1988. If I didn't have genuine reason to regard it as  
full of misleading half-truths, I wouldn't have responded as strongly  
to the "Kaibunsho" as I have. I am an editor by profession, and the  
criticisms I make of it are those I would were it an article  
submitted for publication.

—C.

On Sep 19, 2006, at 7:04 PM, M wrote:

>> To say that he drifted in and out of the company makes it sound  
>> like Gainax had regular board meetings in suits and ties of the  
>> sort they lampooned in OTAKU NO VIDEO. Again, Gainax has rarely  
>> been what you would call a organized company, but more a group of  
>> friends collaborating on projects.
>
> Most accounts over here have him "drifting in and out" with spotty  
> participation and not really getting serious about anything until  
> Nadia.  The exception to this might be Gunbuster, but that has a  
> slightly different backstory as noted below.
>
>
>> Even Bandai snubbed them based on the past results of the huge  
>> failure of "Wings of Honneamise (Royal Space Force)". (laugh)
>>
>> It's a laugh, all right. First of all, Bandai is proud, and was  
>> proud, of Honneamise. We've seen they've named their recent DVD  
>> label after it, but even two years before this "Kaibunsho,"  
>> Shigeru Watanabe, president of Bandai Visual, spoke proudly at a  
>> press conference in San Francisco (to promote MEMORIES) of how  
>> Honneamise had in fact eventually turned a profit for Bandai, and  
>> of his long-standing belief in the film.
>
> I like Honneamise.  A lot.  I even have one of possibly the only  
> surviving copies of the original e-konte storyboards that was used  
> as an animators' reference.
>
> However, that it -eventually- turned a profit does not change the  
> fact that the film was initially a financial failure which caused a  
> number of problems.  To quote from the Japanese Wikipedia page for  
> Gainax:
>
> "Gainax was established in 1984 as the parent company for the  
> production of 'Royal Space Force - Wings of Honneamise'."  <snip>  
> "The original plan was to disband [Gainax] simultaneously with  
> completion of 'Royal Space Force - Wings of Honneamise', but the  
> poor theater results put them in the red, and the company was  
> forced to continue operation as a subcontractor for anime  
> productions.  To improve profits, the company also began to plan  
> and serve as principal contractor for anime productions."
>
> Of course one of these productions was Gunbuster, but as mentioned  
> above there is some backstory here as well:
>
>
>> Secondly, even if the statement about Honneamise were true, you  
>> will nowhere find in the translated portion of this "Kaibunsho"  
>> the name GUNBUSTER or AIM FOR THE TOP!, the Gainax OAV series  
>> Bandai financed immediately after the "huge failure" of  
>> HONNEAMISE, and which was an unqualified success in rentals and  
>> sales. GUNBUSTER, of course, not NADIA, was Anno's directorial debut.
>
> Gunbuster was financed(!?) by Bandai for different reasons.
> Quoting from the Japanese Wikipedia page for Gunbuster/Toppu wo  
> Nerae!:
>
> "To begin with, this work was created to pay back the debts  
> resulting from the poor theater showing of Gainax's first anime  
> production 'Royal Space Force - Wings of Honneamise'. (Gainax was  
> originally intended as an organization to produce only 'Royal Space  
> Force' and then disband.)" <snip> "In this manner, [Gunbuster] was  
> a business success, but this time in the opposite manner of 'Royal  
> Space Force', it was also criticized for battle uniforms designed  
> for excessive exposure, strangely jiggling breasts, an unnaturally  
> large number of female nude scenes, and so on."
>
> Basically, Gainax "learned" from the poor reaction to Honneamise's  
> bland style, and embraced fan service based on the truism that "sex  
> sells".  This, together with other adult-oriented projects and  
> their hit-and-miss business record during that period, made a lot  
> of "respectable" sponsors apprehensive, including Bandai.
>
>
>> It therefore seems highly unlikely to me that Bandai would simply  
>> snub Gainax either for artistic or commercial reasons. It is  
>> Gainax who was reluctant to work with Bandai, not because they  
>> don't respect them, but because they wanted to keep a greater  
>> ownership of their work.
>
> Well, I know independently of the Kaibunsho that Gainax did have to  
> shop Eva around for quite a while before anyone would pick it up,  
> so I hardly think it was then snubbing bandai.  Also, Bandai was  
> not present at the series' start, and only showed up after it was  
> more or less confirmed to be a hit.
>
> "M"
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