A wise observer once described Gainax as two diametrically opposed
anime studios in one. Good Gainax takes chances and creates interesting stuff.
Evil Gainax does its best to ruin everything. Good Gainax made FLCL and those cool
Daicon shorts, but Evil Gainax made Mahoromatic and He is My Master. Good
Gainax made most of Royal Space Force: The Wings of Honneamise, but Evil Gainax
made that scene. Good Gainax upended the anime industry with Evangelion, and
then Evil Gainax exploited it with remakes and uncomfortable merchandise.
Where does the never-made Route 20: Galactic Airport fit into
this tangle of heroism and villainy? We’ll never have a complete answer, since Gainax
canceled the project over twenty years ago and hasn’t mentioned it since. Yet all
available evidence points toward Good
Gainax.
Route 20 apparently began life shortly after The Wings of
Honneamise hit theaters. It was the 1980s, Japan’s bubble economy was surging
to the skies, and Gainax had scored an unprecedentedly huge budget for
Honneamise. A second ambitious film seemed natural, and early magazine previews
suggested that Yoshiyuki Sadamoto and Mahiro Maeda’s Route 20 would be that
film.
