Gonzo Set to Fire 75% of Employees
- Categories: Anime, News
- Date: Feb 13, 2009 12:36 JST
- Tags: Business, Downsizing, GDH, Gonzo, Production Controversy, Strike Witches
Financially troubled anime studio Gonzo is set to undergo massive restructuring, sacking 100 of its 130 employees, rather than the smaller numbers announced earlier, with parent company GDH mandating a return to profitability within 5 years.
However, they set the time frame for these sackings to “within 5 years”, perhaps indicating they are set after all on moving towards a heavily outsourced production style, rather than simply shedding employees as a matter of urgency (which it admittedly is).
All this comes after parent GDH’s call for 50 sacrificial lambs (from its own workforce) to volunteer for the block only resulted in 36 volunteers; this seems unconnected however, as the plan laid out at the start was for a drastic restructuring of how Gonzo produces anime, whereas GDH is committed to lighter cuts.
The precise details of their production plans are not known; they are said to be looking at more “casual” anime, as well as halving output overall though it seems unlikely this will affect the hit loli anime Strike Witches.
There are also suggestions of them producing more prurient works, if that is meaningful considering the content of Strike Witches…
Via AnimeAnime.
It looks as though there will be some franchises and licences going cheaply quite soon if their backers get cold feet after continued poor performance…
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Sad to hear this, even though I couldn't car less about Gonzo. Even if they made some crappy anime, they did a lot of good anime as well. Last Exile and Vandread are both awesome to watch.....
I thought things were looking up for Gonzo with breakouts like TToD and Strike Witches.
If anything, I thought some revenues would come out of their free online distribution services.
I mean: They are just stupid!
fire & losing about 90% of their employees (and the good ones were among these, Im sure! Only the crap knows they are too bad for other studios, so they stay) is a great idea for speed-up their superkill.
They should earn the needed money about merchandising (like SW stuffs, the Sanya bodypillow made an impact to every preorder-shop) and seriously improve their Anime-Quality and not just "Ow, let's reducing our expenditure and fire more people!"
Their whole marketing departement should get fired for chosing constantly the wrong choices!
All that's left now are 30 crappy animators who are able to make this great animation-quality like Linebarrels of Iron...
I'll prefer to bury Strike Witches now, than seeing Gonzo to produce a season 2 with the quality of LoI....
There's still hope to jump studios with SW.
The End of Gonzo is near.
DIE GONZO DIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAJIAEPOJJPOEAJPOAJPORSJFJSPOOPJFS
Dyslexia made me read the title as "Gonzo to Set Fire to 75% of Employees.
gonzo have some good anime series but my favorite is strike witches. for god sakes, i dont care if its another studio or gonzo i just want a good second season of strike witches (with more yuri) :D
those who want the same please keep commenting about this in the articles of strike witches.
thanks
I beg them not to cancel the black lagoon ovas I'd buy all the DVD'S or blue ray's to see it all unfold with fabiola's mini maid rampage, what they need to cash in again is more basilisk or maybe seto no hanayome the show was underrated I loved it
LOL
I wonder what is next studio. The economic gloom is casting shadow even on anime industry. Even all cheapskates digital downloaders buy original now to save the industry, it is all too late.
GONZO or BONZO the Clown?
That's what u got for making Blassreiter
Blassreiter was actually good, you know.
dont lie
it faild on levels never seen befour ugh i have a lothing for most new Animes latly the go to soon to relying on CG elments when they could just draw the damn thing
now that i think of it cg animation is like silicone boobs, nothing like the real thing, not to mention those awful scars!
i agree, everytime i se a cool anime and a cg element enters i totally loose interest, lately i had the chance to se old animes i always wanted to see and the quality they had just blew me away!
worse when they Try and gel it to the actual animation.. makes it so obivuse i dont mind it when they use cg or computer system to aid in the flow or controle even some smaller elments but when its a core point its just horrible as they just contrast so badly its not even worth watching
Please, Gonzo, for the love of all that is holy, stay together long enough to give me a second season of Strike Witches.
they had it coming...........
taking good shows/titles and killing the endings with their anime renditions
the only thing that i liked from gonzo was full metal panic and strike witches
Well, imo; the last good anime GONZO did was Basilisk.. The worst is none other than Rosario+Vampire, i can't believe they actually made a second season despite how suck it was..
Try Sunabouzu.
"Two little kids all alone in the desert? Let's sell them on the slave market!" Sunabouzu is epic! (epic win, that is)
Thats like everyone lol
WHATS GONNA HAPPEN TO DRUAGA?!?! I hope the quality won't be diminished (further)... ;_; (please.. god.. nooooouuu)
it wasnt that good in the first place
Just a matter of time until Strike Witches gets handed over to a better studio. I still can't fathom why Fumikane didn't stick with J.C. Staff.
Maybe they'll make better anime once they pull out the weeds in there mess of a garden
Sadly, most of the higher up dead wood will still be there, so don't count on it.
When I first read the title, I thought it said "Gonzo sets fire to 75% of Employees." It turns out to be far less interesting this way.
That's how I'm going to say it from now on... because I read it that way too, and like it phrased like that!
I'm glad I'm not the only one.
That's exactly what I read as well at first... Made me laugh... Then I read it again, and it wasn't quite as entertaining.
That's exactly what happened to me too. Must be all this stuff about fires in Oz recently.
I'm kinda meh towards this. Gonzo pretty much sucks so I pretty much could care less.
poor gonzo
Yeah, but more like poor people who got fired because of that. Still, I can't wait to see what will happen next with their production plans. If you look back at their past project, you can see FMP, Chrno Crusade, Last Exile, Sunabouzu and more...
indeed. I love ghost in the shell series
Lol True!
Which was done by Production I.G
Good picture expression for that.
It always brightens my day.
Agreed. Very fitting.
NANIIIIIIIII?!?!?!?!
Lol, best pic to explain the situation. Luchini your still my fav witch.
That's what you get from too much mascot censors!
Hell yea! Must kill those annoying fukken bats..
hey i have an idea
Have all the fired employees start working for KyoAni, then they might have enough additional workers to start Haruhi season 2!
God no. From what I've seen from Gonzo, they would just bring down KyoAni's quality.
But who could resist a pantsless Yuki?
I don't want any unnecessary fanservice on my KyoAni series.
Good point, as long as Yuki was drawn well.
wait wait... are you saying that Haruhi became popular because of something else?
I lol'd, then I cried when I realized how true it was.
Gonzo is capable of making good stuff...Strike Witches was drawn pretty well for example. Where I think they fail is how greedy they got with some series...Rosario+Vampire for example was just awful. I'm surprised anyone bought the DVDs since I think the show lost its fan base after bats + bears > pantsu.
However, not surprise it came to this. Lionbarrels of Iron is complete crap.
Seconded. GONZO is one of the best studios in Japan. They just happened to get a hold of an SJ Advance being screwed over by a committee who changed it from great to pantsu-based fail (but somewhat watchable fail) and they agreed to animate it. Then, they get the cliched mecha series "Linefailers" of Iron. Unfortunately, their tries to correct the ship coincide with a rogue wave called worldwide recession coming from the blind side. GONZO will recover, as long as they don't get anymore crap anime ideas.
Bottom pickings is bottom pickings.
They should know better....
I hope that Gonzo gets through their crisis and still be able to make good animes. Sure they have created a lot of bad animes but they've also created a lot of good animes. Gankutsuou, for example, is a masterpiece and is loads better than most new animes out there.
The staff that did the good Gonzo anime are LONG gone
I guess all that praying to pagan gods payed off. That's what they get for ruining a wonderfull manga. (Bokurano & Rosario + Vampire)
Wait! You're saying Bokurano (Anime) can get better than it already is?
...the director that did Bokurano clearly stated he hated the manga.... think he changed the story a bit to fit his tastes.
In that case I'm relieved. My taste certainly matches his. Thus, I would probably hate the manga too.
No....the manga is definitely better. The manga is more emotional, when the kids die you actually feel more connected to them.
You kidding? Or are you being serious? Cause if you are, then read the manga, and it will blow you away like the anime never could.
And in that case I'm rather confused. The Anime blew me away and I'm not so sure if it will be a good thing, if the manga would blow me any further.
Well, not that I would going and read such a manga anyway. I only read Kodomo no Jikan and Sayonara Sensei. Something were the story isn't that relevant.
Wow...
While Gonzo aren't my fav studio, they are one of the major players and have created some enjoyable series over the years.
To be read such news is quite depressing, especially so many staff getting the shaft.
More likley than not this will just mean they'll end up only focusing on one series at a time.
Hopefully they don't go down the route of hentai or shonen and simply try to make shows like they did in the past like Last Exile.
Gonzo made many awesome anime series in the past like Last Exiles, Yukikaze, Blue Sub 6 , RxJ and so on.... But their a majority of their recent offerings are just horrible to say the least.
I'm just hoping they stay together to see Shangri-La till the end....it might just be the anime to salvage them
i read your comment as "SHAFT getting so many GONZO staff"...
nvm.
will be awesome if that is true, though.
"they are said to be looking at more “casual” anime,"
does that mean they'll stop with crappy fanservice ? or does that mean they'll add more of this crap ?
it means they fired all the quality controle people.. nose dive detected....
usaly that means less series at a mid level or less as they cant afford for high level animeation threw out..
I read Gonzo sets fire to...and then I was like "what?" and then I read it again. Then it made much more sense. lol.
But seriously, that's almost everyone. Are they actually going to be able to stay in business with just 30 employees?
Why did I read that as Gonzo to Set Fire 75% of its employees? I was disappointed when I reread the title correctly...
Holy crap that magical ritual i did a few months ago when i got mad at Gonzo for censoring R+VII actually worked...
Now only if that ritual i did to crash all the DoTa players on WC3 would work >___>|
Its a bit worrying how many of you want to see gonzo employees burn literally, And any anime studio downsizing this much is a bad thing.
While that is certainly true, Gonzo asked, no.. forced their (few?) fans to become like this. I don't know since when it became a really bad insult to say "It's a Gonzo.", but it was then, when the downfall started.
Gonzo is really struggling with the crisis...
Dang, I was expecting Lucchini-chan but not bad news.