[kipukun]

Gainax's financial troubles are well documented in an interview with Hideaki Anno, where he detailed how the company was pretty dysfunctional from the start. The company's president was arrested for tax fraud in 1999, for example. This has been a long time coming.

[p_l]

Ask not why GAINAX bankrupted, ask how the hell it survived so long.

Memes about GAINAX running out of money to finish series go all the way back to Gunbuster, which was their fourth production, and second under the name GAINAX.

The second production, Daikon IV, survives thanks to piracy because they didn't license them music used :V

[GuB-42]

My favorite "no budget" moment was in Kare Kano, a lesser known Gainax adaptation of the shoujo manga of the same name.

The second half as a whole is clearly made on the cheap, but episode 19 is special, it is all paper cutouts on a stick, most likely from the storyboard, on top of recycled backgrounds.

[jandrese]

Gunbuster ran out of money to pay colorists by the end of the series, which was only 4 episodes. Evangelion also clearly ran out of budget by the end of the series, and that was after some blatant cost saving scenes repeatedly appearing in the show, like very very long elevator rides where nobody moves and the only action is a floor counter ticking down, or watching the counter on a Walkman slowly tick by. Almost taunting the audience with the counters on the obvious padding scenes.