Gonzo

History

Founding

In 1992, Shouji Murahama, a producer who had left Gainax, together with director Mahiro Maeda, screenwriter Hiroshi Yamaguchi, and filmmaker Shinji Higuchi, started Gonzo as a creator's office in Shinjuku, Tokyo. On September 11 of that same year, Shouji Murahama would establish Gonzo Inc. The company's name was suggested by Shinji Higuchi taken from American journalist Hunter S. Thompson's nickname, "Gonzo". He later learned that it also meant "idiot" in Italian.

In 1994, with the release of the PlayStation and Sega Saturn, Gonzo began shifting its focus on digital animation. In 1996, the studio produced the animated sequences for the video game Lunar: Silver Star Story Complete. Seeking to demonstrate its ability to produce complete, self-contained narrative works, Gonzo produced its first anime production, the OVA Blue Submarine No. 6 in 1998.

Formation of the GDH Group

In May 1999, Gonzo was reorganized as a joint-stock company and changed its name to Gonzo K.K.

In February 2000, Shinichiro Ishikawa, a former Boston Consulting Group employee and representative director of Digimation, joined the company, and the holding company Gonzo Digimation Holdings was established. Gonzo and Digimation became wholly owned subsidiaries of the holding company, establishing the group's management structure. This formed the GDH Group, with Gonzo serving not only as the name of the studio but also as the brand name of the group as a whole.

In April 2002, Gonzo and Digimation merged and changed the company name to Gonzo Digimation. In July 2004, the company was renamed GONZO K.K., while Gonzo Digimation Holdings was renamed GDH. In November of the same year, GDH was listed on the Mothers Tokyo Stock Exchange.

Since 2000, Gonzo ventured into television anime production, and the 2005 television anime Black Cat was their first work based on a manga serialized on Weekly Shonen Jump, a genre that had previously been associated with works aimed at niche audiences.

In 2006, Gonzo released its first theatrical film, Origin: Spirits of the Past. The year also marked the company's 15th anniversary, for which it planned several projects, including an anime adaptation of Tow Ubukata's Mardock Scramble. However, the project was canceled later that year amid production difficulties. Another 15th-anniversary project, Afro Samurai, was produced for the American market and premiered on Spike TV in 2007. The series sold approximately 400,000 copies in the United States and was followed by Afro Samurai: Resurrection and video game adaptations.

On April 2008, Gonzo becomes the first anime studio to simulcast anime internationally, licensing The Tower of Druaga: The Aegis of Uruk and Blassreiter to Crunchyroll.

Group restructuring

In the late 2000s, the company fell into financial difficulties due to the collapse of the DVD boom.

In September 2008, the company conducted a third-party allotment of new shares to Iwakaze Fund, an investment limited partnership managed and operated by Iwakaze Capital, making Iwakaze Fund the largest shareholder.

On April 1, 2009, as part of efforts to improve the financial condition of the GDH Group, Gonzo was absorbed into its parent company, GDH, which changed its corporate name to Gonzo K.K. As a result, Gonzo, the corporation originally established in 1992, ceased to exist. On June 3 of the same year, the company's accounting auditor, BA Tokyo Audit Corporation, issued a disclaimer of opinion on its financial statements for the fiscal year ended March 2009, citing the possibility of difficulties in securing funds to repay its debts and uncertainty over the achievement of its restructuring plan. On June 29, the decision was made to delist the company from the Mother's Toyko Stock Exchange and the company was delisted on July 30. Around the same time, the group's financial difficulties led to the reorganization and sale of its digital production divisions and group companies, as well as the separation of its production studios into independent companies.

Following Shangri-La and Saki in 2009, Gonzo primarily worked on promotional videos for video games and provided animation production services for other companies. In 2010, the company had no television anime or original video animation projects as the primary production studio. After the two aforementioned series ended, Gonzo went approximately one year and ten months without a production in which it served as the primary studio. In 2011, the company announced teo new productions, marking its return to producing anime, Nyanpire and Last Exile: Fam, the Silver Wing.

In July, 2016, ADK announced a tender offer for Gonzo shares with the aim of making it a consolidated subsidiary. As a result, ADK acquired 197,347 shares (ownership ratio of 84.01%). On December 27 of the same year, ADK announced that it had engaged in inappropriate accounting practices in previous fiscal years. An investigation report was published on January 10, 2017. In response, on February 6, of the same year, it submitted amended securities reports for the 13th to 17th fiscal years to the Kanto Local Finance Bureau.

Financial issues

The studio had a financial problem in their closing account in the 2008–2009 term and stated its deficit was estimated over US$30 million. The Tokyo Stock Exchange announced that on July 30, 2009, Gonzo would be delisted from the exchange. This delisting is the conclusion of a notification made to investors in March 2008 that the studio's financial liabilities exceeded its total financial assets. Since Gonzo was unable to reverse this, paperwork for delisting was filed at the end of June.

The studio is still able to operate, and its parent company GDH has absorbed it in an effort to consolidate management. The combined company now simply refers to itself as Gonzo. By April 2009, the merger was complete.

As part of the restructuring, GDH also sold the Gonzo Rosso game development subsidiary, GDH Capital financing subsidiary, and remaining shares of Tablier Communications initially acquired in March 2006. Gonzo Rosso K.K. was sold to Chushou service kikou kabushikigaisha (division of Incubator Bank of Japan, Limited) on March 31, 2009.

Since this deficit, Gonzo has started to post better earnings due to the release of titles such as Rosario + Vampire to western online streaming services such as Netflix. The marketing of these products to western audiences has returned Gonzo to financial stability, and Gonzo posted higher than expected profit margins in the April–September 2012 period.

Works

Games

1996: Lunar: Silver Star Story Complete (PlayStation / Sega Saturn) – contributed anime sequences

1997: Silhouette Mirage – contributed anime sequences

1997: Grandia – contributed animation support

1998: Lunar 2: Eternal Blue Complete (PlayStation / Sega Saturn) – contributed anime sequences

1998: Radiant Silvergun – contributed anime sequences

1999: The King of Fighters: Dream Match 1999 (Sega Dreamcast) – contributed anime intro sequence

1999: Genso Suikogaiden Volume 1: Swordsman of Harmonia contributed intro FMV and character stills

2001: Genso Suikogaiden Volume 2: Duel at Crystal Valley – contributed intro FMV and character stills

2001: SkyGunner – contributed anime sequences

2002: Suikoden III – contributed intro FMV

2003: Zone of the Enders: The 2nd Runner – contributed anime sequences

2008: Phantasy Star 0 – contributed anime sequences

2009: BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger – contributed anime sequences in home version

2009: Summon Night X: Tears Crown – contributed anime sequences

2010: Super Street Fighter IV – contributed anime ending sequences

Music videos

2004: "Breaking the Habit" by Linkin Park

2007: "Freedom" by Blood Stain Child

2008: "Forsaken" by Dream Theater

Shorts

2013: The Midnight Animals

Manga

2001: Vandread

2002: Vandread (Vandread Special Stage)

2003: Kiddy Grade (Kiddy Grade Versus)

2003: Kiddy Grade (Kiddy Grade Reverse)

2004: Bakuretsu Tenshi (Angel's Adolescence)

2005: Gankutsuou

2005: Speed Grapher

2007: Romeo x Juliet

2007: Red Garden

2007: Getsumen to Heiki Miina

2008: Blassreiter – Genetic

International distribution

Many of Gonzo's titles were licensed for North American distribution by Geneon, ADV Films, and Funimation Entertainment. ADV Films UK branch was the UK distributor for Gonzo titles licensed by ADV, with the exception of Gantz, as it was licensed by MVM Films. Gad Guard, Hellsing, and Last Exile, which were titles originally licensed by Geneon, were also licensed by ADV Films UK, although they're no longer licensed since the company's closure. MVM Films was the UK licensee for the majority of Gonzo titles licensed by Funimation in the US, with the exception of Afro Samurai, which was initially distributed directly in the UK by GDH and later by Manga Entertainment UK who also licensed Strike Witches (season 1), Origin: Spirits of the Past, and recently Last Exile and Hellsing. Welcome to the N.H.K., Pumpkin Scissors, and Red Garden, which were originally licensed by ADV Films UK, were re-licensed by MVM Films.

In June 2006, it signed a long-term output deal with the anime television network, Animax, which saw Animax broadcasting all of Gonzo's anime titles across all of its networks around the world, including Japan, Asia, the Indian subcontinent, and Latin America and from November 2007 on Southern Africa's DSTV satellite network. As of 2008 they decided to stream some of their airing anime on video sites such as: YouTube, Crunchyroll, and BOST. Gonzo's precarious financial situation at the time, as well as their history of experimentation with digital technologies, arguably lead them to be the first anime company to license their content of Crunchyroll, then largely known for their anime piracy.