The Notenki Memoirs: Studio Gainax & The Men Who Created Evangelion

A tell-all account of Studio Gainax, the creators of the classic anime Neon Genesis Evangelion. Yasuhiro Takeda, a member of the Gainax company since its inception, talks about everything from the untold stories of Eva to the Gainax tax evasion scandal that plagued its production. Including a series of stunning revelations, this history of Gainax is a must-read for any serious anime fan. "Yasuhiro Takeda reveals the secrets of a world-famous anime production studio in this tell-all account of the horrors and hopes that accompanied GAINAX's rise to fame. From beginners' luck to the edge of defeat, this journey through the life and mind of one witness sheds light on the production of _Neon Genesis Evangelion_ and what it takes to make a runaway anime hit." [_Notenki Memoirs_ is a short autobiography by a founder of Gainax who became active as a fan and in the anime/manga industry in the late 1970s; it describes the student fan club scene around SF conventions, the creation of the famous Daicon video shorts, the founding of Gainax, its subsequent successes & travails (although with less emphasis on _Neon Genesis Evangelion_ than one might expect), terminating around 2001. Much of the information Takeda discusses may have appeared in English-language sources before, but in obscure or missing sources and never pulled together, and it is a valuable source for non-Japanese-speakers interested in that time period. Some of the stories Takeda tells have also been dramatized by Kazuhiko Shimamoto (who attended Osaka University of Arts at the same time) in his manga _Blue Blazes/_Aoi Honō_ (commentary/list of allusions: http://www.tv-tokyo.co.jp/aoihonoo/special/blog/index.html ), which was adapted into a 2014 Japanese live-action TV show with cameos by anime/manga industry figures; Shimamoto wrote about several events which are described in _Notenki Memoirs_ . See also https://www.gwern.net/docs/eva/2002-notenki-memoirs for an annotated HTML edition, which also includes clips from _Blue Blazes_. ]