What Happened to China’s Animation Industry?
Cultivated as a part of the government’s “Cool Japan” strategy, anime was introduced to the wider world as part of Japan’s fun artistic culture. Three decades later, it is now recognised worldwide, and so influential that recent Hollywood phenom Puss in Boots: The Last Wish has revelled in its anime influences. Just compare this mashup of sequences from Puss in Boots and Attack on Titan.
While often ignorantly referred to as “Asian cartoons”; the grouping does indicate that anime has become attached to western notions of East Asia as a whole. So how true is that perception? Despite being global power, why haven’t we heard anything about China’s animation industry?
The History
It may surprise some to learn about China’s rich animation history, and its burgeoning industry that is attempting to emerge onto the world stage. Despite being largely overlooked, the origin of China’s animation industry shares many parallels with Japan’s.
Donghua (meaning Moving Picture) has been around since the early 1920s. Beginning only a few years after the first Japanese animation, its first real steps were taken in 1939, when Chinese animation pioneers Wan Guchan and Wan Laiming saw Disney’s Snow White. Inspired, they set out to replicate it’s technicality and craft, and two years later under Japanese Occupation in 1941, they released Asia’s first feature length animated movie, Princess Iron Fan.
This movie had far reaching effects. It in turn inspired the Japanese Navy to commission Japan’s first feature length movie, Momotaro’s Divine Sea Warriors (1945), and also motivated the “Father of Manga”, Osamu Tezuka, to pursue drawing Manga as a career. Osamu would be responsible for the creation of Astro Boy, laying a foundation for the modern anime industry.
Three years later, in 1966, Mao’s infamous Cultural Revolution would call for the destruction of many cultural elements of ancient China. Much like Princess Iron Fan, China’s early animations were based on the Journey to the West and other Chinese mythology, leading the animation industry to be ruthlessly targeted by the Red Guard. Many animators were sent to the countryside to work as farmers or make propaganda under strict government restrictions, crushing any innovation and stagnating the industry.
Even after the Cultural Revolution, Chinese animation struggled. It needed to compete with far superior anime that had begun to be imported from Japan. The downward spiral was exacerbated by brain drain, as many animators left to Japan for better pay and conditions. Anime dominated the airwaves until 2005, when the Chinese government finally restricted the amount of foreign shows allowed on Chinese television. These regulations eased pressures on Chinese studios to make animations that had to be commercially viable, and encouraged a newfound focus on creativity.
This leads us to the modern day, where Donghua has settled as industry that is sustainable and capable of creating works that can stand alongside the best from Japan and Hollywood. So why is it that much of the world is still unaware of it?
Current Perceptions
The primary reason that anime is the de-facto when one thinks of non-western animations is because it was the first style of animation to reach a widespread audience and share distinctly different stories. Similar to Hollywood’s influence on foreign movies, the head start allowed it to establish itself as the premier source of animated entertainment outside of Hollywood, setting the standard to beat for Asian animations.
An example of this influence would be the Isekai trend; a trope wherein the protagonist is transported to a different, fantastical world similar to Portal Fantasies. Anime’s cultural pollination has meant that this trope has trickled into media coming out of China and Korea.
Another advantage of being the first to be established is that anime has many dedicated communities and structures surrounding it that allow it to be easily accessed. There are groups of fans who voluntarily subtitle episodes and translate them for other fans, as well as specific websites to review and rate animes. Without a committed foreign fan base, the accessibility of anything less than the most popular Donghuas is quite poor.
The onus then falls to China’s animation industry to distinguish itself and on this front, China have been struggling.
One only has to look at distributors of anime such as Crunchyroll or Netflix to see this failing. Chinese animations are labelled under Anime on most platforms, and it is only recently that Donghua’s were re-categorised under the “Chinese TV” tag on Netflix. While helpful in bringing new fans who may not have willingly watched Donghuas before, the grouping does highlight that Donghua have not yet found their footing.
A great example of the imitation anime China was producing is Quanzhi Fashi (Full Time Magister). It was the first Chinese series to receive attention outside of China and make waves in the anime sphere.
Relying upon the Isekai template, the series doesn’t deviate from it much, leading to a predictable and overdone story. Furthermore, the visuals mimic the style of Anime, albeit with noticeably poorer animations. These traits only re-emphasised the stigma of “Made in China” and the idea that Donghua were inferior copies of Anime. The success of Quanzhi Fashi, however, was mainly because it wasn’t “bad”. It was a serviceable action series that didn’t excel anywhere but also committed no egregious wrongs. The general reception was lukewarm, but it meant that China was capable of producing Donghua on the level of an “average” anime.
Chinese animation, however, has the potential for much more, and we can use Quanzhi Fashi to find two fronts on which Donghua’s can distinguish themselves.
Story and Culture
Story is an element that can make the most meaningful difference in allowing Chinese animation to distinguish itself, as a representation of China’s rich culture and history. Stories derived from these ideas are uniquely Chinese, and drawing from that well is what began the renaissance of Chinese Animation in 2015.
Monkey King: Hero is Back.
Monkey King: Hero is Back struck a chord in China on its release, subverting the iconic character of Sun Wukong. It updated the iconic figure’s visuals with 3D CGI and explored a new story, one that approached his character in an unseen way. Wukong, the valiant hero that millions of people had grown up admiring, became a grumpy, selfish shell of his former self. Unable to use his powers and rejecting the call of the hero, he is forced to help a boy who still idolises him, and must confront what he has become. This gritty reimagining of a beloved cultural icon resounded in modern China, making $153 Million USD during its run, and becoming the highest grossing animated movie in China up till that point.
Quanzhi Gaoshou (The King’s Avatar)
The first piece of Chinese animated media that truly carved its own unique niche is 2017’s Quanzhi Gaoshou. Based on a webnovel of the same name, this Donghua follows a professional gamer who is ousted from his champion team and attempts to rebuild from working at an internet cafe. It’s action sequences are comparable with those from action animes, and while it wasn’t at the level of high budget series such as Attack on Titan or Jujutsu Kaisen, it was good enough to hold its own; the comparison an achievement in its own right.
The strength of this series, however, is in its story. While there are animes that involve games and gaming, the majority end up as Isekais and Isekai derivatives, such as Sword Art Online, Log Horizon and even a progenitor of the Isekai trope, .Hack//Sign. The King’s Avatar is notable because it was the first to involve the premise of the lives and experiences of professional gamers. The balance between the in-game fantasy action, the external squad politics, and the tension inherent to a competitive livelihood imbues the series with a unique setting ripe with intertwining narratives.
This multilayered plot is what brought widespread attention to this series Famous anime reviewers such as Gigguk from the Trash Taste podcast praising the innovative plot for capturing an element of modern culture that had been overlooked in media at that point.
What The King’s Avatar did was twofold: it proved that Donghuas could be comparable to the average seasonal anime on a technical level, but also that they didn’t just have to focus on older stories to be successful. They could explore facets of modern Chinese society.
Nezha
Returning to the idea of the old mythology, the 2019 film Nezha showed how the Chinese animation industry had matured. It refined the concept first employed by Monkey King: Hero is Back; revisit classic tales and characters and carve contemporary ideas from them.
This movie took the familiar mythological character of Nezha and combined him with elements from the classic story Feng Sheng Yang Yi (Investiture of the Gods). Initially, the visuals were poorly received by the public. The first two trailers were mocked for the ugly character designs of the titular character. The director Yu Yang later explained that he picked the ugliest versions deliberately, confident that Nezha’s story and character would win them back. This confidence was not misplaced, as despite the polarizing aesthetic, the themes and story of the movie captured public attention.
Nezha is a child birthed from the demon half of a magic crystal, a condition that also curses him to die in three years’ time. His adoptive parents, however, lie to him and raise him to believe that he is a demon hunter born from the Spirit half of the crystal. In his attempts to hunt demons, he constantly causes chaos in town, making him a paraiah to the other villagers. His true nature, however, is revealed by his foil, the real Spirit half of the crystal, and Nezha is forced to confront the fate of his birthright.
Yu Yang distinctly wanted to express the theme that “You control your own destiny”. Nezha’s struggle against the machinations that fate and his fellow villagers had forced on him was a massive hit in China, echoing sentiments about increased societal pressures and the nihilistic resignation to the status quo that has become widespread in Chinese society.
With current generations entering a world of little agency, huge economic disparity, and societal expectations clashing with practical realities, people gravitated towards the film. Nezha became the all-time highest grossing animated movie in China to date.
The Visuals and the Aesthetic
Visuals are another major component where Donghua’s can distinguish themselves. Historically, early animated movies in the 1960 had a unique style based off traditional ink wash paintings, with the technique aptly called “ink wash animation”.
This technique, however, was extremely time consuming and had begun to die out by the 1970s . While the ink wash aesthetic is distinct and arguably conveys greater artistry, a different style has become dominant in modern Chinese animation; the 3D CGI animation that currently makes up the large majority of modern output.
3D animation simply beats the traditional animation in terms of workflow and entry skill, able to be cheaper and taught to staff faster. Its prevalence is mostly in the mass of Wuxia and Xianxia series being pushed as commercial endeavours. While the momentum shifts away from the iconic traditional style, the 3D style may be a boon for China’s animation industry in future. When refined, the style is a visual spectacle and as Hollywood has embraced 3D animation, and this is a front where China can step to the industry titans.
Qin’s Moon
Wuxia and Xianxia has always been a large part of Chinese literature and culture. Wuxia, being a genre of Chinese martial art fiction and Xianxia being a more fantasy inspired extrapolation of Wuxia, featuring outlandish martial arts that often stray into superpowers.
Qin’s Moon was one of the earliest adaptions of Xianxia into animation, and the first to use the 3D animations that is now industry standard. Season 1 was released in 2007, almost two decades ago, and is still being released. The studio that produced it has gone on to do bigger name Xianxia series like Doulu Dalu (Soul Land), one of the biggest Xianxia franchises in China. The significance of Qin’s Moon is the fact that it was the first to adopt 3D animations and set the tone for the future of Wuxia and Xianxia Donghuas, which make up the majority of the current Donghua market.
Big Fish and Begonia
The domestic success of the aforementioned Monkey King was compounded upon the following year with the release of Big Fish and Begonia in 2016. It featured an anime-esque aesthetic, but distinguished itself through excellent animation and visuals. Combining hand drawn animation with CGI, the movie immediately generated both media and international buzz and drew comparisons to the revered Studio Ghibli.
The plot drew inspiration from a variety of Chinese fables and the Zhuangzi, an ancient Taoist text, which while lesser known than the Journey to the West, still appealed to a widespread audience. This popularity allows Big Fish to be an effective vehicle in disseminating traditional Chinese culture to a contemporary audience. For example, the featuring of a Tulou (the round house that the main character lives in and is anachronistically used in Mulan) helped reignite domestic interest in real Tulous as cultural artifacts, and could do similarly to foreign audiences.
This film marked the first major shift in the zeitgeist surrounding Chinese animation as it ran out of funding in 2009 despite interested investors. The fearful sentiment about the commercial viability of a Chinese animated movie meant that while interested, investors remained reluctant to commit. However, the favourable reception to a online demo and the success of Monkey King: Hero is Back proved that China had a market for animated movies, and Big Fish and Begonia finally received the funding it needed to be finished.
Big Fish was the first movie to really show the potential of Chinese animation to the world. It was picked up in 2018 by Funimation (now Crunchyroll) and Lionsgate for international distribution, and won the Chicago Independent Film Critic Circle Awards’ award for Best Animated Film.
Baishe (White Snake)
2019’s White Snake marks a milestone in the visuals of Donghua. It was the first to elevate 3D animation to a level that was universally acknowledged as beautiful.
The 3D aesthetic is definitely a polarising one, especially in the early years. A common complaint of new Donghua watchers was that it would look unnatural, most likely because of inexperienced animators on a tight schedule. Its strength lay in its dynamic action sequences, but outside of that it would dip into the uncanny valley. While this complaint was mostly directed towards Donghuas, animes that also attempted 3D animation such as Beserk (2016) drew similar criticisms.
White Snake, however, was universally praised for its visuals. The CGI was elegant and expressive, highlighting the characters and beautiful environment, as well as the action sequences. In fact, the main criticism of this Donghua was its story. Based on the ancient tale, Legend of the White Snake, it was unfortunately executed poorly. It’s characters were undercooked and the motivations thin. The popularity enjoyed by the movie was built on the quality of its animations alone, marking the point in the industry where the animators were skilled enough to bring 3D animation to its full potential.
The Standouts
Shiguang Dailiren (Link Click)
This series is a phenomenal example of what is possible from the current state of the industry. It possessed a gorgeous style that takes anime inspired character designs but merges them with a distinctly more watercolour, hand drawn look that seems to take cues from ink wash animation. Paired with the delicate incorporation 3D elements, its distinct look is striking and rapidly become the style for modern 2D Donghuas.
The standout aspect however, is how the series employed the ingenious conceit of an unconventional method of time travel to focusing on very human and grounded stories in the hustle and bustle of modern Chinese life. This allowed the series to explore grand personal stories in a fresh and impactful way.
The plot surrounds two boys, one who can enter a photo, and one who has omnipotence surrounding a photo. Together they fulfill customer requests that range from settling old regrets to hunting a kidnapper. These adventures serve as the backdrop to explore many issues that resounate with a contemporary audience. Throughout the series they touch on many themes, including workplace stress, the breakdown of a friendship and grief. As the story progresses, the series shifts into a tense thriller, yet never loses a step. It’ ability to shift genres while balancing narrative elements make it a marvel to experience, one that is guaranteed to move audiences. With season 2 releasing later this year, this series is a must watch.
Mo Dao Zu Shi (Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation)
The face of modern Xianxia. A cultural phenom in China, the original webnovel spawned a Donghua, live action TV drama, Drama CDs, and a huge international fan base. The immense success of Mo Dao can be attributed to its near perfection of the Xianxia formula. It avoids the traditional pitfalls of Xianxia, such as flat main characters, expansive stories that often spiral out of control and overt power fantasies. The characters are distinct and immensely likable, the setting simple yet rife with tensions and the story is both beautiful and tragic.
The character designs are distinctly Chinese, and the animation quality is on par with the best that Japan has to offer. The fight scenes are gorgeous and smooth, and the use of CGI is liberal yet unobstructive.
While there are plenty of good looking anime that come out each season, what elevates Mo Dao over them is the tight, interlocked narrative and characters. The intrigue of the setting and the chemistry of the characters give the story a great narrative pulse that gives weight to each fight while maintaining narrative momentum between fights. There are some changes to the structure of the narrative between the Donghua and the novel but they were concessions made to smoothen the viewing experience and don’t detract from the show at all.
The music of the series is also impeccable, possessing a soundtrack of traditional Chinese instruments that conjure up images of cloudy mountaintops and sprawling temples. Strikes of the zither accentuate every fight; a severely underrated instrument that is guaranteed to make an impression on people.
Mo Dao Zu Shi shows why Xianxia’s have remained beloved since the 1930s, nailing almost every facet of the genre. The series is available to watch for free on Youtube and finished airing its third and final season in 2021. This series comes with a high recommendation. A perfect introduction into the Xianxia genre, it deconstructs common tropes and concepts into a better form and combines Action, Fantasy and Romance in a way unseen in most action anime and Donghua.
Wu Shan Wu Xing (Fog Hill of the Five Elements)
This Donghua is notable because it is the only series placed in this section on the strength of one thing alone: the animation. This series is extremely stylistic, drawing heavily from the ink wash aesthetic. Beginning as a passion project by the director Lin Hun, it’s reminiscent of 2009’s Award wining film The Secret of Kells. Both are beautifully animated, however Wu Shan Wu Xing has not yet managed to break into the mainstream.
There are currently three episodes out, but these three episodes took three years to make. Lin Hun founded a studio to work on this series, and animated these three episodes with only nine people: three interns and six full time staff. Lin Hun himself is listed many times in the credits, doing everything from scriptwriting to singing the opening theme.
This series has two weaknesses. First, the non-fight scenes are often undeveloped and the plot is intriguing but sparse, having only three episodes to develop. The highlight, however, is the phenomenal fight sequences, and these fights will immediately make up for any shortcomings that this Donghua might have.
It is difficult to express how fluid and how dynamic they are, on par and even surpassing the highest budget action animes such as season one of One Punch Man and Demon Slayer. The saturated colors and the high octane camera movements are reminiscent of the flashiest fights from Project K, but the gorgeous style of Wu Shan Wu Xing pushes it above the competiton. The creative composition and choreography keep the action of this Donghua constantly jaw dropping. An analogy would be, as if watching old school Jackie Chan after a lifetime of Hollywood action. Both are technically competent, but the way that Jackie choreographs his action has an ebb and flow to keeps things creative and the action “real”. There is no pausing to say move names, no quipping and no cuts to character reactions, just pure action.
The studio put out the first three episodes to garner interest and expand their team, and the next few episodes are slated to be released late in 2023. This show should be watched just on merit of the animation team alone. While it may be a slight slog to get through part of the episode to reach said action scenes, they are absolutely worth the wait. With only three episodes currently out and 26 minutes an episode, it’s barely an hour out of your day for three years of their work, and well worth it.
To those who only want to see the action, the fights are available on Youtube but I would highly encourage watching to support the creators.
The Future
Chinese animation right now is a mixed bag. For each series mentioned above, there are five uninspired Wuxia/Xianxia series being released. In terms of output, China’s studios are now matured enough that they can release original shows that can compete with some of the best shows coming out of Japan.
The pitfall now is Donghua’s consistency. A lot of new Donghuas do either art or story great but leave the other aspect middling. Things are optimistic though. The history of the industry has shown that it is on the right track. New creative endeavors are becoming more frequent, such as the upcoming Donghua called To Be Hero X.
This show is going to be another landmark in the Chinese animation landscape. It attempts to combine the two styles of 2D and 3D animation. With four reputable studios working together, there is immense hype surrounding it, and the trailer looks like it just might live up to the expectation. It’s suave, stylish and introduces a lot of intriguing visual ideas. If To Be Hero X is a success, it will be a capstone in the Chinese animation industry and a Donghua defining show. Then maybe, just maybe, it’ll get its own category on Netflix.