According to the Global and China Animation Industry Report, 2019-2025, the value of China’s animation industry grew from 88.2 billion yuan (US$12.8 billion) in 2013 to 174.7 billion yuan in 2018. It is expected to have surpassed 200 billion yuan in 2019 and is forecast to reach 375 billion yuan by 2025.
These numbers would probably have been a shock to industry watchers in China even a decade ago. Back then, China’s animation industry was hobbled by a lack of consumer interest and of local talent.
Until very recently, Chinese consumers and producers viewed cartoons as exclusively for children. Abroad, Chinese cartoons were often dismissed as shoddy facsimiles of more established animation styles from America, Japan or Europe. But that has changed. Animation has found a huge audience of adults and children, Chinese animation has improved in leaps and bounds, and online streaming platforms are an efficient and lucrative means of getting cartoons to consumers.
Li Haoling, founder of Haoliners Animation, which has produced around 50 animated TV series and films since it was formed in 2013, told the Post that the emergence of online outlets such as short-video platform Bilibili that carry animation had provided a huge boost to the Chinese animation industry.
“Unlike before, when animations were only shown on TV, online platforms draw in lots of viewers. [Some] platforms also provide capital support. Bilibili, which is the largest animation-oriented online platform [in China], has financially supported the production of six of our animation works. That means the industry is providing more money for animation productions than ever before.”
Many point to Nezha as the definitive turning point in Chinese animation. The epic animated fantasy film based on a Chinese folk deity was released in 2019 and exceeded expectations. At a time when animation was still considered something for children, the film became a cultural phenomenon in China.Baicong Li is the executive director and executive producer of UUCMM, a Shanghai-based animation studio. He says that the progression from young audiences to their parents was inevitable.
“Children have always loved animation so their parents take them to the cinema or they watch cartoons on TV together. That way, more and more adults accidentally find out they quite like animation. Maybe the storylines drag them back to their childhood or the happiness in cartoons make them feel more relaxed, and gives them a break from everyday pressure,” he says.
In the past, no one paid attention to Chinese animation at all. Now, things are better. But we are still behind the Japanese
Still, both technically and in terms of audience size, China lags behind the animation powerhouses United States and Japan, though that is not for a lack of history with the medium.
China’s first home-grown cartoons were made in the first quarter of the 20th century by the Wan Brothers under the auspices of the Great Wall Film Company.
Some of the Wan Brothers’ feature-length cartoons, such as 1964’s Uproar in Heaven, are still considered masterpieces. But the Cultural Revolution that began two years after its release effectively brought Chinese animated film production to a halt, and the industry struggled to recover as Japan and the US experienced a golden age in feature film and television animation.
Finally, it seems China is starting to pick up where it left off, with feature-length films such as Nezha and shorter cartoons distributed mainly through online streaming platforms. Take, for example, the extremely popular animated fantasy show Mo Dao Zu Shi (Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation), whose lush animation wouldn’t seem out of place in a Japanese production.
Still, Chinese creative skills and production know-how still have some catching up to do to animators in Japan and the US. While much has been made of co-productions for live-action films between China and Hollywood – only some of which have been a success – many see animation co-productions as a golden opportunity for all markets.
Jacques Stroweis is a visual effects supervisor on one such project, the animated feature film and Sino-US co-production The First Super Hero, based on the Chinese legend of the Monkey King. The film was written by The Zondag brothers, Disney veterans Ralph and Dick Zondag, and is being produced by the European China Pictures Group based in Yiwu, eastern China.
Cartoon co-productions are especially attractive for Western companies, as they offer big box office returns and are not subject to the burdensome Chinese government restrictions that can hamstring live-action films. Chinese companies still look to the West and Japan for their greater technical sophistication and established production standards.
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“In the past, no one paid attention to Chinese animation at all. Now, things are better. But we are still behind the Japanese,” says Li Haoling.
“Many people said they want to be a Chinese version of Disney. I think there will be long road ahead for this. A Chinese version of Studio Ghibli is more likely than establishing a Disney-like behemoth involving lots of aspects and synergy among the various creative industries.” Studio Ghibli, under the leadership of Hayao Miyazaki, has been responsible for a string of widely loved animated films over the past three decades.Li adds: “Creating an animation brand takes a long time, from making comics to animation to developing spin-off products [like toys]. Japan has lots more patience in this regard than China, where we are under pressure to deliver quick returns.”
Stroweis says: “There are too many small to medium-sized animation development companies [that] cannot deal with the workload demanded by increased quality standards. Nezha had to use 60 animation vendors to make its deadlines!
“Western filmmakers have been at the game longer. So obviously, they have things set in place. Westerners tend to bring improved process control, which is needed in China. Chinese filmmakers are often more intuitive and improvisational and they will tend to make many changes.”
One of the long-standing problems afflicting the animation market in China is that it is mostly supplied by overseas animations … We need cartoons about Chinese living, stories that are rooted in Chinese culture
He adds: “I believe that in the future, Chinese animation will rely more and more on their local workforce. They will enjoy collaboration with a few foreign top creative and technical partners. But at the moment, the local talent pool is still limited and hence there is still a need for training and guidance.”
That said, according to Stroweis, things are changing for the better, and changing rapidly. Structural changes, including a consolidation among animation companies, are under way in China.
Improving technology, a generation of creative people raised on Japanese and Western animation, and a boom in visual effects jobs — especially in the video games sector — mean there is a greater number of increasingly sophisticated Chinese animators entering the workforce. On top of that, he says, “Many visual effects companies have created their own training schools and have started branching into animation.”
Bilibili, for example, has developed a comprehensive production chain to nurture Chinese animation brands. A spokesman for the company said that “since 2017, we have invested in nearly 30 professional animation teams in China who produce or co-produce over 90 works.”
Chinese animators and cartoon production companies have access to something that no Western company can claim: China’s rich cultural capital.
“China can draw on their extremely rich and ancient historical works, its myths and own visual style,” says Stroweis.
The Bilibili spokesman said: “One of the long-standing problems afflicting the animation market in China is that it is mostly supplied by overseas animations. This cannot satisfy local mainstream consumers, as overseas works are made to target the consumers in their own countries. We need cartoons about Chinese living, stories that are rooted in Chinese culture.”
Chinese animators may have got off to a slow start, but they have 4,000 years of stories to tell.
