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Femboy Films Cancels DAICON III Fan Restoration As GAINAX Launches Own Restoration Effort

A month ago, fan restoration group Femboy Films, who had been working on restoring 8mm prints of the DAICON III film, announced on Twitter that they had to cancel the scheduled upload of their restoration of DAICON III OPENING ANIMATION, as GAINAX has reached out to them and "respectfully requested" them to not publish the work.

Last Friday, Femboy Films released a statement detailing the reason why: GAINAX has already launched their own restoration effort, and plans to release the remastered films themselves.

The statement clarifies that the restoration project's cancellation was not due to "any kind of threat or intimidation from GAINAX or DAICON FILM", and that the decision was made out of respect for GAINAX's wishes to handle their own restoration.

"The person we have been in contact with is, in fact, one of the original founding members of the studio, and an individual from DAICON FILM who actually worked on DAICON III themselves so long ago, which is why we took their request so seriously," the statement further reads.

In conjunction with Femboy Films' cancellation of their project, the Twitter account @FilmDaicon launched in July. Femboy Films confirmed with GAINAX and DAICON FILM that this account will be the official account for updates related to the official restoration project.

DAICON III is the first of a series of two animated short films created by DAICON FILM for the 1981 and 1983 Nihon SF Taikai (Japan Science Fiction Conventions). Daicon Film would later go on to become Gainax. While Gainax and Femboy Films did not state which original staff member is leading the restoration effort, the first film was created by Neon Genesis Evangelion director Hideaki Anno, Mahoromatic - Automatic Maiden director Hiroyuki Yamaga and character designer and illustrator Takami Akai. Anno penned an OP-ED in 2019 detailing his falling out with Gainax and disagreements over IP.

Source: Femboy Films Twitter