Originally, the productions were intended to be shot in 16mm film, but both were shot in 8 mm film instead and were completed only the morning before their debut. In order to pay off the debts of the productions, video copies of the animation were sold. Lawrence Eng declares this as the first example of
original video animation (OVA) predating
Dallos.
Daicon III In 1981, at the 20th
Nihon SF Taikai (nicknamed "Daicon III" because it was held for the third time in
Osaka), an 8 mm animation was shown. Nihon SF conventions are usually organized by university students in the vicinity of the host city, and Daicon III was also organized by university students in the vicinity of Osaka, including
Toshio Okada and
Yasuhiro Takeda. At the request of Okada and Takeda, the animation was actually produced by
Hideaki Anno,
Hiroyuki Yamaga and
Takami Akai, all of whom were students at
Osaka University of Arts at the time and would later become professionals. Anno and his team were not so enthusiastic, but Yamaga took the initiative to promote the project. Takeda explains in
Notenki Memoirs that Anno had experience in paper animation, but never worked with animation cels. Since they had no professional skills or know-how, they went to professional animation studios to learn the techniques, and in order to reduce costs, they tried to use inexpensive industrial
celluloid, which is not normally used. They were referred to Animepolis Pero, an anime hobby store chain, but they found that the cost of the cels were too expensive, so a single cel was purchased and taken to a vinyl manufacturer in east
Osaka, where they purchased a roll for 2000 yen. After cutting and preparing the vinyl cels, they discovered that the painted cels would stick together when stacked and dry paint would peel off the cels. Okada sold Daicon Film's video and goods at his science fiction goods store "General Products", and sold more than 3000 videos that cost more than 10,000 yen. The profits were used to pay for the production of the next film. Daicon Film went on to produce the 8 mm
tokusatsu films
Aikoku Sentai Dai Nippon,
Kaiketsu Noutenki, and
Kaettekita Ultraman. These films, as well as
Daicon III Opening Animation, were widely featured in the anime magazine
Animec, and Daicon Film gradually gained recognition.
Daicon IV In 1983, Nihon SF Taikai was to be held in Osaka again, and it was the fourth SF convention in Osaka overall, Daicon IV. Daicon IV Executive Committee and Daicon Film, the organizing body of Daicon IV, were practically the same organization. Originally,
Daicon IV was supposed to be fifteen minutes long, but the difficult production resulted in the cut time. The film officially credits a production crew of twelve people. Yamaga directed the production, with Anno and Akai as animation directors. Tōru Saegusa did the artwork and the animations were done with
Yoshiyuki Sadamoto,
Mahiro Maeda, and Norifumi Kiyozumi. Professional animators from the animation production company
Artland, including
Ichiro Itano,
Toshiki Hirano,
Narumi Kakinouchi, Sadami Morikawa, and Kazutaka Miyatake, also collaborated. Anno and Yamaga were invited to Tokyo by Studio Nue, a science fiction planning group that had taken notice of the quality of Daicon III's opening animation, and introduced them to Artland, which led them to join the staff of the TV animation
Super Dimension Fortress Macross that was being produced by them. Their activities in Tokyo became a stepping stone to their later professional careers. In addition, Akai's hometown friend Maeda, and Sadamoto, Maeda's senior at university, joined Daicon Film, and the core members of
Gainax came together here. The production facility for
Daicon IV was in a dedicated studio in a building called the
Hosei Kaikan that was owned by a textile union. Takeda defined it as a literal anime sweatshop, the building was shut down at 9:00 pm and a majority of the staff would be locked inside and working through the night without air conditioning. Later, in 1984, Daicon Film made a tokusatsu film called
Yamata no Orochi no Gyakushū using 16mm film, which was rare for an independent film at the time. This film was sold by
Bandai in 1985. At the end of 1984, with the project of
Royal Space Force: The Wings of Honnêamise, Daicon Film was dissolved and established as an animation production company Gainax. The process from Daicon Film to the establishment of Gainax can be seen in detail in the
Wings of Honnêamise production progress series that was exclusively serialized in the monthly magazine
Model Graphix at the time. ==Reception and release==