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Well, that’s disappointing.

Manglobe (マングローブ), the anime studio behind such hits as Samurai Champloo, The World God Only Knows series, and this past season’s hit, GANGSTA. is kaput.


According to a report from animeanime.biz, Manglobe had started procedures for bankruptcy on the 29th after being in a state of insolvency for some time.

Apparently this was not common knowledge when the news broke yesterday evening, much to the surprise and chagrin of many contractors involved who had no idea their livelihood had just gone tits up.


An animator, Toshio Kobayashi, aka SNIPES, tweeted last night, “[Urgent] Please give me work.” Followed by the tweet, “[Breaking news] I’m unemployed.”

Hideo Komori, the director of the Hayate no Gotoku! movie tweeted, “My salary hasn’t been wired?...”


Manglobe has had a reputation for high quality anime that express individual creators’ uniqueness.


At the time of bankruptcy, the studio was working on the anime movie Genocidal Organ, the second in a series of highly anticipated anime movies based on the works of the late novelist Keikaku Itoh. Production of the movie will likely be taken over by a different company.

Genocidal Organ was scheduled for release on November 13th, but with the current situation it’s likely that the release date will be delayed.


Manglobe was founded in 2002 and took off with a bang with its first series, Samurai Champloo.

It will be missed.


Kotaku East is your slice of Asian internet culture, bringing you the latest talking points from Japan, Korea, China and beyond. Tune in every morning from 4am to 8am.

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