Nov 28 2008
GDH Offers Retirement to Gonzo Employees
Originally my blog post today was going to be about the epic games of Munchkin that I played yesterday and how, though I was defeated in both games, my heroic exploits, deeds and random curses gave the victor a fight for his mighty crown. But instead, I wanted to talk about the news today that GDH is offering a retirement package to 50 of its employees in an effort to cut down costs. Now, I’m no more informed about Gonzo than any other fan out there. I’m not an expert in the realm of Japanese production companies so a lot of what I say here will be speculative or at worst, meandering.
Anyways, Gonzo is one of the Japanese production companies that I grew familiar with the fastest. It wasn’t their animation that made me familiar with them at first though, it was their reputation. In a lot of the circles that I wandered around in, Gonzo was always a production company that was generally talked about with the most consistent praise. With that in mind, I started to pay a little more attention to which titles they did and found that their reputation was well earned.
Chrno Crusade, Gravion, Kaleido Star, Red Garden, Samurai 7; the two things that all of these series have in common is that they are all Gonzo series and they all have incredibly well done animation. The stories in some of them are more questionable than others but we’ll save that for another time. Gonzo almost always produces beautifully animated series and so fans who appreciate a great visual to accompany their story can usually feel confident with a Gonzo animated series.
With recent hard times hitting the studio, GDH became the corporate parent of the company and set about trying to fix things. There were layoffs and resignations; the production order for next year was cut in half down to four series for the year and now they are offering retirement bonuses to 25% of the workforce. I have no idea how bad Gonzo was before this but I’m starting to get an idea now.
I don’t have a real opinion on what GDH is currently doing for the company. From what I can see, this is a desperate attempt to get the company back into the black as quickly as possible. I do like that it is a real attempt though and that someone is fighting for Gonzo to stick around for awhile longer. Every production company closes its doors at some point but to see Gonzo close theirs would be heart breaking for fans.
