In a blog post published on Friday, Gainax president Hiroyuki Yamaga announced that, as of June 2017, the studio has begun production of its upcoming anime movie Aoki Uru (Uru in Blue).
Aoki Uru is billed as a sequel to Gainax's 1987 production Ouritsu Uchuugun: Honneamise no Tsubasa (Royal Space Force: The Wings of Honneamise), which was produced on the most expensive budget for an anime movie at the time at 800 million yen. Plans for the sequel's production had stalled in the 1990s before it was relaunched at the 2013 Tokyo International Anime Fair. Gainax also solicited investors to help fund Aoki Uru at the Cannes Film Market and at Singapore's Anime Festival Asia in 2014.
Yamaga's announcement comes after the Tokyo District Court handed its decision on Friday in a lawsuit against Gainax by director Hideaki Anno's studio Khara. The lawsuit alleges that Gainax did not repay a loan provided by Khara in August 2014, and that it has not paid royalties for Anno's works after the director left Gainax. The Tokyo District Court awarded Khara with 100 million yen (US$900,000) in its decision.
The Sankei Shimbun newspaper reports that Gainax does not plan to appeal the decision. In the blog post, Yamaga apologized for causing worry due to the lawsuit and indicates that Gainax intends to continue producing new works.
Source: Gainax, Sankei Shimbun
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Anime