Early Gonzo funeral
Gonzo seems almost dead recently so I can pretend they’re already dead and post about their history!
Sales of the first volume DVD for Gonzo anime:
12,318 Strike Witches LE vol.1
11,906 Vandread vol.1
*8,486 Last Exile vol.1
*8,029 Vandread the second stage vol.1
*7,456 Rosario to Vampire vol.1
*7,403 Gatekeepers vol.1
*6,996 Saki vol.1
*6,992 Kiddy Grade vol.1
*6,376 Hellsing vol.1
*5,990 Saishuu heiki kanojo vol.1
*5,558 Fullmetal Panic! vol.1
*4,332 Crono Crusade vol.1
*3,998 Black Cat vol.1
*3,821 Seto no hanayome vol.1
*3,773 Tower of Druaga ~the Aegis of URUK~ vol.1
*3,538 Witchblade
*3,074 Choujyuushin Gravion Zwei vol.1
*2,732 Gankutsuou vol.1
*2,722 GANTZ vol.1
*1,978 Kaze no Stigma vol.1
*1,802 Gad Guard vol.1
*1,668 Choujyuushin Gravion vol.1
*1,542 SAMURAI7 vol.1
*1,508 Samurai Girl Real Bout Highschool vol.1
*1,374 Getsumentoheiki Mina
*1,278 Blassreiter vol.1
The list only counts the sales of anime that got ranked in the top 100 oricon sales rankings, there are a number of other Gonzo anime like Shangri-la with sales below 1,000 that did not make into the top 100 so their sales numbers are not known.
Gonzo’s shares were once worth over 600,000 yen (US$6,618) a share in 2006 but has dropped to below 1,000 yen (US$11) in 2009 before they got delisted. Chart via advfn
2006/01/16 - 635,000 - Giniro no kami no Agito
2006/04/04 - 456,000 - Witchblade, Glass Fleet
2006/07/03 - 365,000 - Brave Story, NHK ni youkoso!
2006/10/23 - 179,000 - Pumpkin Scissors, Red Garden
2007/01/22 - 122,000 - Afro Samurai, Getsumentoheiki Mina
2007/03/26 - *85,800 - KG movie, R x J, Seto, Stigma, Bokurano
2007/10/11 - *74,000 - Dragonaut
2008/01/09 - *53,800 - Rosario to vampire
2008/03/25 - *44,550 - Tower of Druaga, Blassreiter, S.A
2008/07/01 - *23,300 - Strike Witches
2008/07/22 - *17,300
2008/07/29 - *15,140
2008/08/19 - **6,800
2008/10/10 - **4,990 - Linebarrel
2009/05/29 - **2,470 - Saki, Shangri-la
2009/06/07 - **1,630
2009/07/29 - ***,630 - Delisted from Tokyo Stock Exchange
Here is where I ran out of stuff to say. That wasn’t much of a funeral.
Also the Gonzo Style Online store is selling stuff like Black Cat vol.7 LE DVD set at 15 yen (US$0.16) each for their closing down sale.
Ref: 【GDH】GONZO Part21【ｺﾞﾝｿﾞ】 + α
September 12th, 2009 at 1:04 pm
RIP
You may be missed.
September 12th, 2009 at 1:12 pm
Go to hell.
You won’t be missed.
September 12th, 2009 at 1:14 pm
So basically, 2006 was marked by their shitty theatrical releases, they were in denial in 2007 and just kept producing stuff the Elevens don’t want to watch, and 2008 we can call the year GONZO got the right idea but was too late to do anything about it. Just out of interest, if any industryfag is present, what caused the huge share increase in 2005?
September 12th, 2009 at 2:57 pm
I’d pay them to publicly burn those Black Cat LE DVDs.
September 12th, 2009 at 3:00 pm
God seto no hanayome is like one of the funniest animes i ever seen,why are the selling numbers so low.
September 12th, 2009 at 3:20 pm
Gonzo junk bonds have got to be the greatest be-all-end-all otaku artifact to have right now. Anyone have the number of someone working on the Nikkei?
September 12th, 2009 at 4:08 pm
They seem to make much better anime on the verge of bankrupcy than they did when they flourished.
@Miha: my guess is the boom of the American market. This year’s Gendai shikaku bunka kenkyū has its main feature on GDH; might be a nice resource to check out for industry insider stories.
September 12th, 2009 at 4:24 pm
Weird, I assumed that Saki would have done much better.
Shame no one bought Miina, since that’s actually a great show!
lol Blassreiter
September 12th, 2009 at 4:31 pm
NO THEY CANT DIE WE NEED STRIKE WITCHES SECOND SEASON !!!
September 12th, 2009 at 6:06 pm
lol gontzo
Who cares, just go away.
September 12th, 2009 at 6:30 pm
Hahaha Dragonaut didn’t sell enough to even get onto the list.
September 12th, 2009 at 9:24 pm
What wah said about Saki. ;_;
September 12th, 2009 at 9:30 pm
What about the second season of Strike Witches?
September 12th, 2009 at 10:15 pm
Good riddance lol
September 12th, 2009 at 10:54 pm
I liked Blassreiter, though.
September 13th, 2009 at 12:27 am
RUAH!
September 13th, 2009 at 1:13 am
OMG, who gonna make Strike Witch ss2 T_T
RIP, i don;t like them but must say, they did a great job on Saki, Strike Witch and Seto T_T
September 13th, 2009 at 1:26 am
No Gonzo, don’t die! Release Strike witches 2 please. T_T
September 13th, 2009 at 5:22 am
is it only me who like Shangri-La?
September 13th, 2009 at 6:17 am
Yes Gonzo! Release Strike Witches 2 to the other studios!
September 13th, 2009 at 6:21 am
Gonzo? more like GONEzo amirite?
September 13th, 2009 at 9:42 am
Good riddance. They were a stain on the anime industry. Now if only SHAFT would go under.
September 13th, 2009 at 10:03 am
Dragon what?
September 13th, 2009 at 10:19 am
Feels good man.
Although they had pretty good shows with Gankutsuou and NHK!. Wait, no they didn’t.
September 13th, 2009 at 12:16 pm
Why is everyone so cruel to Gonzo.
K, here’s a subjective list, but let’s imagine a world without the following animations:
Lunar Silver Star Story
Lunar Eternal Blue (they were doing video game animations back then)
Blue Submarine #6 (birth of their trademark crap CG + brainfuck plot twists)
Yukikaze
Hellsing (1st season)
Saishuu heiki kanojo
Last Exile
Full Metal Panic (1st season)
Vandread (multiple seasons)
Gankutsuoh
Romeo x Juliet
Welcome to NHK
Chrono Crusade
Pumpkin Scissors
Red Garden
Gantz
Samurai7
Speedgrapher
Black Cat
Notice I didn’t list much of their moe shows. That’s right they were trying to appeal to foreigners, with mixed results.
Maybe they should have just made Strike Witches, Strike Witches, and, um, Strike Witches, then they wouldn’t be in this mess.
I bet if it was Kyoani you would all be raging. Pretending to have exactly the same tastes as the Japanese and sticking to pre-pubescent girls from visual novels and 4komas.
I applaud Gonzo for daring to push the boundaries of anime at all. RIP indeed.
September 13th, 2009 at 12:33 pm
Can`t comprehend how Gonzo haters are thinking. I feel they only think it`s cool to be one of Gonzo-bashers, without having own opinion. Surely there is some very good anime among those titles listed. Okay, Gonzo had their low quality period, but you can always pick the good ones. I do.
September 13th, 2009 at 1:04 pm
Booger many of the stuff listed there probobly would have found other animation studios, only a handfull there is there original work Like Last Exile & Vandred, granted both of theese is really good and Last Exile is one of my faw animes out there.
Latly they haven’t done much good stuff but I would still be sad to see it shut down.
September 13th, 2009 at 2:47 pm
Maybe you guys should watch Vandread again. It sucks. Hard. Your memories are embellishing it. I mean hell I had to sit through that crap because everyone who watched it x years ago praise it. It’s just like really bad fanfiction, except minus the fan.
On another note gonzo has produced decent stuff and I also think they don’t deserve this kind of bashing.
September 13th, 2009 at 5:19 pm
“On another note gonzo has produced decent stuff and I also think they don’t deserve this kind of bashing.”
I agree.
Not all of Gonzo was so horrible as many seem to see them as. In my view, at least. I find it sad that the studio may be closing. Sure, they may have made poor decisions and maybe harmed some of their shows, but please, must we be extreme?
People are treating them like they were one of the worst animation studios to have ever existed, which I guess some have the opinion of, but were they that bad? Though the ruthless hatred towards them would be more shocking if we were not discussing anime, which is an industry that lately seems to be built on “cookie-cutting” and following mainstream interests, rather than diversity and trying new things. Sure, today there are unique shows, here and there, but even by looking at Gonzo’s list of productions you can see variety, and, in my opinion, they were not all awful.
They could be seen as that they pushed the bounds and risks of profit for the sake of originality and diversity, rather than appealing to the mass-produced tastes of the moe-obsessed and/or other more popular consumers, except until recently with Strike Witches, etc. Sure, maybe all their stuff was not stupendous enough and/or suiting to your tastes, but one can admire some of their shows.
Red Garden, especially, I thought was great. Though it was back in 2006-2007, the art, music, story, originality, and uniqueness of it all I really I thought was something special, and I think even that is an understatement. It is a shame it was so underappreciated, but I suppose that may make it more charming.
It’s my opinion, but I agree and don’t think either that they deserve this amount of bashing.
September 13th, 2009 at 5:34 pm
I’ve stated this before and I’ll state it again, Gate Keepers. Here’s a plan to save Gonzo, they try to get some financial backing to produce SW2 which will hopefully bring in the revenue to create another Gate Keepers series. All that’s left is the novel which is better then GK and GK21 combined, if all goes well then Saki’s second season would be on the horizon.
…Unfortunately life isn’t so generous.
September 13th, 2009 at 8:17 pm
I’d love to see Kyoani gone under. Man they are so fagging up the animation industry since they are the forerunner of this bullshit moe craze Japanese animation seems to be stuck in. Japan needs more directors like Satoshi Kon and Makoto Shinkai.
September 13th, 2009 at 9:46 pm
@Koji
Kyoani is the cancer killing moe.
September 14th, 2009 at 1:32 am
To be honest, I think the moe craze predated KyoAni (though they did play their part)
Also, I’d prefer to see more aBe Yoshito. And when I say that, I don’t mean more Lain/Texhnolyze stuff (like what the upcoming Despera looks like), but more NieA/Haibane Renmei (which is what got me into Haruhi in the first place)
September 14th, 2009 at 7:21 am
As anime is an industry, often that unfortunately may mean producing what is profitable, regardless of art and/or originality. You could say it is similar to corporate book publishers and record labels, printing work which seem like money-makers, instead of considering the art.
Moe is profitable, and people are eating up. It is a bit of a sticky situation, because it may be that many of these studios are afraid of trying new things at the risk of losing money to just keep their studios open, since they rely so much on advertising and merchandise.
And moe + merchandise = “cha-ching”.
There are many factors involved in this, but I do think that moe has possibly erupted from being a characteristic of certain manga and anime to a driving force in the industry, and that is not helping diversity. It also seems to be encouraging elitism, which is not surprising. Like it’s “cool” and an “in-crowd” thing to do to be obsessed and drawn into the moe phenomenon, since it is so popular. This also could influence the fear and unwillingness of much of the industry to try new things, and the lack of interest when they do.
September 14th, 2009 at 8:20 am
I believe Vandread age well in my point of view. I still watch it and still think it was one of the best animes’ out there. The only thing that looks weird about it now is the “CG” but not to the point that it kills what made the show great, the characters/story.
September 14th, 2009 at 9:28 am
I’ll miss GONZO, but I’ve only bought/seen…
Last Exile
Crono Crusade
Gankutsuou
Hellsing
(also have GANTZ to watch eventually…)
And enjoyed all of those shows! Not my favorites but very enjoyable…
OH? They did the Lunar animations as well? Even better.
(although… WHY WASN’T THERE A LUNAR ANIME! Agh…)
September 14th, 2009 at 11:10 am
Although im still kinda angry at the endings of Blassreiter and Gantz it makes me sad to see the possibility of a second Pumpkin Scissors season demolished =/
Also no more Fullmetal Panic? =(
Its true that Gonzo´s recent shows all were pretty low budget but its still sad to see them burn to the ground.
September 14th, 2009 at 7:53 pm
their only best original animation they did was Vandread. Look at the sales of the dvd.
September 16th, 2009 at 8:24 pm
bye Gonzo,
They also did Full Metal Panic season 1 ,but Kyoani took it.
December 15th, 2009 at 10:58 pm
Well, 2010 Vandread is turning 10 years old. They should call “ALL IN” on a 3rd season
December 15th, 2009 at 11:01 pm
by the way… NO THEY CAN’T DIE, WE NEED VANDREAD THIRD SEASON!
December 28th, 2009 at 12:19 pm
Well, good riddance, their version of Hellsing was a gigantic sagging fail.