The official website of Color Inc. was updated on November 11, with a report from Hideaki Anno, CEO, that the bankruptcy liquidation of Gainax Inc. has been completed. The company ceased to exist as a corporation, bringing an end to its history of less than 42 years, and he expressed his thoughts on the company’s past in a lengthy statement. Photo] No longer associated with Gainax… “Eva” Ayanami Rei life-size figure Gainax was established in 1984 and had been involved in animation production and the production and sale of game software, but reported bankruptcy in June 2024. The company was blessed with several hit productions, including “Neon Genesis Evangelion” (the copyright of which is currently held by Color Co., Ltd.), but since around 2012, the management team has been engaged in the management of restaurants with poor prospects, the establishment of unplanned CG companies, high-cost unsecured loans to individual management executives, lost orders for invested works, etc. However, the company’s economic situation began to deteriorate due to the management of the company, which seemed to have privatized the company,” the reason was revealed. Under such circumstances, the official website of COLOR stated, “As stated in the Official Gazette on December 10, 2025, the bankruptcy liquidation of GAINAX Corporation, which was an animation production studio, has been completed, and the company has ceased to exist as a corporation, ending its less than 42-year history. As a shareholder of GAINAX for more than 20 years since its establishment, it is a regrettable end, but I accept it quietly,” he explained. First of all, we would like to express our gratitude and respect to all the related companies who, following the arrest of then President and CEO Tomohiro Maki in 2019, worked with us for nearly six years free of charge on the restructuring and later liquidation of GAINAX,” he said. We would like to express our gratitude and respect to all the related companies who have worked so hard to make this project a success. Once again, we would like to express our gratitude. Thank you very much. I would like to take this opportunity to mention a new disappointment,” he said. However, I would like to take this opportunity to mention a new disappointment: the transfer of rights and materials that lacked legitimacy under the former management. In response, we filed a civil suit against the management at that time, and a settlement was reached on January 20, 2023, in which we accepted the plaintiff’s claim and accepted the defendant’s apology,” he said. In addition, “when Gainax changed to a new management structure, a close examination of contract documents and e-mails related to transactions was conducted in order to grasp the critical management situation and to prevent the dissipation of rights and materials, and we, as the largest creditor, cooperated in the investigation. In the process, we witnessed the insincerity of Gainax regarding repayment of the loan and the lack of respect for the company’s works and staff regarding the management of the company and the preservation of the production materials. Specifically, I witnessed various false responses by Yoshinobu Asao, the former representative of Fukushima GAINAX, Hiroyuki Yamaga, and Yasuhiro Takeda, whom I had considered friends since my university days, to me and my company, instructions from then President Yamaga to his employees not to leave the house while he was in hospital, hostile remarks about my company, and schemes to unfairly evade repayment of the loan. I am saddened beyond anger to learn of the various false responses, the hostile language used by then-President Yamaga to Gainax employees about his hospitalization, and his scheming to unfairly evade repayment of the loan,” he said. I am deeply saddened to learn once again that we will never be able to return to our old relationship with them. The reason we agreed to the settlement is because we did not want to spend any more of our time on them. Finally, I would like to express my sincere appreciation to the former management team, who left behind many of the duties and creditors they should have fulfilled, and who, without taking responsibility, abandoned the historic animation studio known as GAINAX, while gaining the understanding of all related companies, prevented the dissipation of rights and materials, and took over the company. I would like to thank Mr. Yasuhiro Kamimura, the last representative director of GAINAX and my friend since my university days, for seeing the company through to its end. In closing, I would like to say, “Thank you, Kamimura, and thank you for your hard work. Thank you, Kamimura, and thank you for your hard work.
