13 - Genre Networks and Anime Studios

Summary

This chapter takes a studio-centered approach to examining the relationship between the genre of science fiction (sci-fi) and anime production, using the animation studio Gainax as a case study. While Gainax became internationally celebrated in the mid 1990s through the creation of the smash hit Neon Genesis Evangelion (Shinseiki Evangelion, 1995–96), the studio’s growth during the “first anime boom” of the 1980s was much more precarious. Before its foundation, Gainax relied on the collective activities of sci-fi institutions for promotional marketing and professional labor. The studio’s pre-history and survival is an inflection point between the institutions of broad sci-fi fans and creators in the 1970s, and anime and manga otaku, or superfans, in the 1980s. Considering the historical precarity of Gainax, this chapter is framed around the frenzied organizations that comprised Gainax before it was established as GAINAX: the licensing store General Products and the production company Daicon Film. By analyzing Gainax’s business origins before it became incorporated as a studio, some of the ways in which the anime industry integrated sci-fi institutions become visible.