(Originally posted on Cohost on June 7th, 2024)
With Gainax officially announcing their bankruptcy, I'm sure people will be writing retrospectives about their huge impact on anime and talk about Evangelion or whatever, and I'm totally fine with all that. If you held a gun to my head and made me pick my all time favorite anime, it would probably be FLCL. But when I personally saw the news, the first thing that came to mind was a running joke/sad truth long ciruculated among my anime friends in the GLORIO crew: the last gasp of Gainax's creative energy is an anime hardly anyone watched, Stella Women's Academy, High School Division Class C3, or C3-bu if you will.
I say "running joke/sad truth" not because C3-bu is bad, but because it's absurd. It's essentially like any other cute girls' club anime until it takes a pretty bizarre twist in the middle of the series. Even 10+ years later I'd rather not spoil it, I'll just say it's the last time I shook my fist at the screen yelling GAAAINAAAAAXXX!!!. It certainly doesn't hold up against any other Gainax classic, in fact I would not even say it is the best anime about a high school girls' airsoft club released between 2013 and 2014, but at the time it felt promising. Sadly, after years of Gainax's well documented problems, it's not surprising our "joke" turned out to be true.
Anyway, C3-bu is a fun show and still available to watch on HIDIVE, so pour one out for Gainax and check it out after you rewatch FLCL for the millionth time.