Gainax Co., Ltd. (stylized as GAINAX; Japanese: 株式会社ガイナックス, Hepburn: Kabushiki-gaisha Gainakkusu) was a Japanese anime studio famous for original productions such as Neon Genesis Evangelion, Royal Space Force: The Wings of Honnêamise, Gunbuster, Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water, FLCL, Magical Shopping Arcade Abenobashi, Gurren Lagann, and Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt, which have garnered critical acclaim[2][note 2] and commercial success.

[3] In a discussion at the 2006 Tekkoshocon, Matt Greenfield claimed that Evangelion had grossed over US$2 billion;[4] Takeda reiterated in 2002 that "It sold record numbers of laserdiscs in Japan, and the DVD is still selling well today", as well as for their association with award-winning anime director and studio co-founder Hideaki Anno.

[5] From its inception, Gainax worked on stories created in-house, such as Nadia and Evangelion, but also adapted existing manga like Kare Kano, Medaka Box and Mahoromatic.

[6] The studio was formed in the early 1980s as Daicon Film by university students Hideaki Anno, Yoshiyuki Sadamoto, Hiroyuki Yamaga, Takami Akai, Toshio Okada, Yasuhiro Takeda and Shinji Higuchi.

The short film is about a girl who fights monsters, robots, and spaceships from early science fiction TV shows and films (including Ultraman, Gundam, Space Runaway Ideon, Space Battleship Yamato, Star Trek, Star Wars, and Godzilla) until she finally reaches a desert plain and pours a glass of water on a dried-out daikon radish, which immediately resurrects itself, grows into a huge spaceship, and beams her aboard.

Starting with a better animated recap of their original 1981 short, the short then moves to the girl as a grown woman, wearing a bunny suit and fighting an even wider range of science fiction creatures (including various Mobile Suits from the Gundam series, Darth Vader, a Xenomorph, a Macross Valkyrie, a Pern dragon, Aslan, a Klingon battle cruiser, Spider-Man, and a pan across a vast array of hundreds of other characters) while surfing through the sky on the sword Stormbringer.

[citation needed] Although critically acclaimed, Honneamise had a tepid commercial reaction (Gainax attempted to develop a sequel beginning in March 1992, but was unable to do it due to lack of funds).

The next release, the 1988 OVA Gunbuster, was a commercial success[10] and put Gainax on a stabler footing to produce works like Nadia and Otaku no Video.

Vision, which claimed Gainax's refusal to accept an option payment for the perpetual live-action rights to Evangelion was a breach of contract and had resulted in losing an opportunity to produce the film with a major studio.

[17] At the 2013 Tokyo Anime Fair, Gainax announced that they would be producing the film Blue Uru, with Hiroyuki Yamaga as director and screenwriter and Yoshiyuki Sadamoto as character designer.

[30] On June 7, 2024, Gainax announced that it had filed for bankruptcy on May 29 and ceased all of its operations, citing financial mismanagement decisions and substantial debt accumulation (which as of 2020 was over ¥380 million).

It collaborated with Saudi Arabian media content company ARiNAT on a three-minute anime trailer titled "Desert Knight" (Sabaku no Kishi), which debuted at the "ANI:ME" Japanese pop culture festival in Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates.