Animation Studio EKACHI EPILKA Files for Bankruptcy
According to information verified through the commercial registry of Japan, the animation studio EKACHI EPILKA (株式会社エカチエピルカ) commenced bankruptcy proceedings on July 31, 2025. The studio is best known for producing the first season of Demon Lord, Retry! and the short-form television works Crossing Time, 180 Byou de Kimi no Mimi wo Shiawase ni Dekiruka?, and My Life After Waking Up as a Dummy Head Microphone.
Yuuji Nakatsuka (中塚裕治), a producer formerly with IMAGIN, NAZ, and Passione, served as president and CEO. Kaori Nakatsuka (中塚香) served as a company director.
EKACHI EPILKA was founded in March 2017 and headquartered in Sapporo, Hokkaido Prefecture. The company initially took on small sub-contracting work before producing Crossing Time as its first production in 2018. In 2019, the studio produced Demon Lord, Retry!, which remains as the company's first and only full-length (20-minute) television production. The company was also involved with other productions as a gross (full) outsourcing studio, producing episodes of series like Z/X Ignition (2019, Passione), Gleipnir (2020, PINE JAM), and Higurashi: When They Cry - Gou (2021, Passione).
The studio was part of a 2024 controversy involving leaked files from a North Korean server that showed production materials related to EKACHI EPILKA, specifically Dahlia in Bloom (in which the company was a sub-contracting studio) and an unnamed work, which garnered questions regarding overseas outsourcing that may have then further outsourced work to North Korea.
The last three years of the company's history primarily focused on gross outsourcing and sub-contracting work. In 2025, the studio handled the main production work of I'm a Noble on the Brink of Ruin, So I Might as Well Try Mastering Magic (Studio DEEN & Marvy Jack). EKACHI EPILKA also seemingly took on uncredited outsourcing work in producing half of the episodes for Please Put Them On, Takamine-san! (LIDEN FILMS), where studio president Nakatsuka was credited as co-production desk for every even-numbered episode with few-to-no common LIDEN FILMS staff members.
