Studio Trigger

• 1. Introduction

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  Studio Trigger, a Japanese animation studio, asked the public for money on the 8th of July 2013. The request was for $150,000, enough to pay for a second episode of a short film called Little Witch Academia. Fans met that target in under five hours. By the time the campaign closed on Kickstarter, it had raised $625,518. The studio was less than two years old. How does a company so new earn that kind of loyalty so fast? Who founded it, and what had they left behind? And what kinds of stories has it chosen to tell since, from original fantasies to worlds borrowed from games, novels and manga?

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• 2. Gainax Inheritance

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  Gurren Lagann reached audiences in 2007, and its loud, exaggerated visual humor made Hiroyuki Imaishi a name to watch. That success led directly to the founding of Studio Trigger. On the 22nd of August 2011, Imaishi and Masahiko Ōtsuka established the company shortly after both left Gainax, where they had worked. The studio's name and official website were revealed in October 2011. Many observers came to see Trigger as a successor to Gainax, and the look of Gurren Lagann shaped much of its early identity. The first animation Trigger released was made for a video game, Project X Zone. Later that year the studio joined two others, Sanzigen and Ordet, to form a holding company called Ultra Super Pictures. Sanzigen would eventually supply the computer animation for one of Trigger's feature films.

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• 3. Original Stories

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  Kill la Kill aired from October 2013 to March 2014 on MBS, and it was Trigger's first original television series. Imaishi directed all 24 episodes. The Little Witch Academia short film had come first, a 30-minute work directed by Yoh Yoshinari and produced for Anime Mirai 2013. Its sequel, The Enchanted Parade, followed in 2015 and ran 55 minutes. Yoshinari then directed a 25-episode television series of Little Witch Academia in 2017, released on Netflix. In 2016 the studio put out two more original series. Space Patrol Luluco, directed by Imaishi, ran 13 episodes on AT-X. Kiznaiver, directed by Hiroshi Kobayashi, ran 12 episodes on BS11. Trigger also joined CloverWorks and A-1 Pictures on Darling in the Franxx in 2018, a 24-episode co-production directed by Atsushi Nishigori. Imaishi directed the 115-minute film Promare in 2019. A year later came BNA: Brand New Animal, a 12-episode series from Yoshinari carrying the +Ultra label.

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• 4. Borrowed Worlds

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  A 12-episode series called SSSS.Gridman, directed by Akira Amemiya, aired on WOWOW in 2018. It was based on Gridman the Hyper Agent, a tokusatsu series from Tsuburaya Productions. SSSS.Dynazenon followed in 2021, also 12 episodes, and served as the studio's project for its 10th anniversary. The two series then met in the 118-minute film Gridman Universe in 2023. Other sources were far from the studio's own. In 2014, Ōtsuka served as chief director of When Supernatural Battles Became Commonplace, a 12-episode adaptation of a light novel by Kōta Nozomi. In 2021, Imaishi directed the episode "The Twins" for Star Wars: Visions Volume 1, while Ōtsuka directed "The Elder". Lucasfilm co-produced the anthology, which streamed on Disney+. Ōtsuka returned for Volume 3 in 2025 with "The Smuggler". Imaishi also directed the 10-episode Cyberpunk: Edgerunners in 2022, based on the video game Cyberpunk 2077. CD Projekt, which published that game, co-produced it for Netflix. A sequel is planned under director Kai Ikarashi, with no date announced. Delicious in Dungeon, adapted from a manga by Ryoko Kui and directed by Yoshihiro Miyajima, began airing on Tokyo MX in 2024.

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• 5. Experiments Online

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  Inferno Cop ran for 13 installments between 2012 and 2013, directed by Amemiya and released free on YouTube. Turning Girls followed in 2013 with seven installments on the same platform, directed by Ōtsuka and Ren Shimorenjaku. In 2015, Trigger contributed four shorts to the series Japan Animator Expo. Amemiya directed Electronic Superhuman Gridman: Boys Invent Great Hero, an early nod to the Gridman franchise. Imaishi directed Sex & Violence with Machspeed. Yasuhiro Yoshiura directed Power Plant No. 33 and Bureau of Proto Society, and Studio Rikka co-produced both. Also in 2015, Amemiya directed Ninja Slayer From Animation, a 26-episode adaptation of a novel series by Bradley Bond and Philip "Ninj@" Morzez. Unlike the others, it was released on Niconico. More recently, The Lenticulars, another original work from Amemiya, began on YouTube in 2025 with at least eight installments.

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• 6. Fans And Revivals

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  A Patreon page opened in 2018, giving supporters a direct way to fund projects and merchandise. As of February 2025 it offered two tiers, at US$1 and US$5 a month. More than 6000 members had joined, and the page raised over US$3,000 each month. In 2023 the studio announced it had acquired the rights to two works from its own lineage, Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt and Gurren Lagann. Alongside a planned follow-up to the first, it announced a North American re-screening of both Gurren Lagann movies. That follow-up arrived in 2025 as New Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt, a 13-episode revival directed by Imaishi. It aired across Tokyo MX, AT-X and BS NTV, and Amazon Prime Video released it. Its source was the original series made by Gainax, the studio Imaishi had left in 2011.

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