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Answerman - Why Are There So Many Chinese Anime Co-Productions These Days?

I would not have problem with these if it wasn't because of the fact that not many of them have been very good, which is problem for people that want good entertainment, but great for China, because they love their Spectacle and not much else, which is why the are going to be 12 more Transformers movies.

But this spring's licensing war for China is absolutely savage. Many websites are willing to pay ridiculous amount of fees in order to get exclusive streaming rights. For example, Saekano Flat, which was acquired by Iqyi, they spend 5.7 times more compare to their competitors in order to get the rights (they released the info on the social media), many even wonder can they recover the investment.

Certainly seems like a matter of time, but it's strange that despite doing a lot of contract work for both Americans and Japanese and having successful domestic manhwa and other potential sources for stories, South Korea domestic animation industry has been relatively unsuccessful in original productions. So you never know.

I remember liking Chinese Ghost Story back in the day but I haven't seen any of the newer stuff, though apparently I'm not really missing out on much. CGS is totally worth watching just to hear Scott McNeil sing btw.

Not quite. For some decades India has been making some awful (by western standards at least) flicks and europe has been making for far longer award wining feature films; by your logic they should already be in a direct fight with hollywood for your saturday night movie ticket. Add on top of it that plot is heavily regulated by the chinese government and you get the same formula the USSR had for their movie industry, never heard of it? Exactly!

Watching Your Name had a trailer of a Space Monkey series that my friend pointed out was by a SK studio. So if they were able to push that here any other industry will get there eventually.

Of course, the primary reason why people don't see more of their work more often, I think, is that the animators insist on only working with investors that would give them absolute creative control. Still, they're rather active on the Internet and their work would have definite foreign and domestic appeal, it's just that their conditions mean that they won't work with the Chinese government any time soon. Last I heard about them they were working on a feature film adaptation of Kung Fu Cooking Girls and had a short film ready for Annecy 2017.

... since this still doesn't refute my point, which remains:
they may be slowly but surely learning how to do this better?
If you're saying they are not, cannot and will never improve, then I disagree.

There's also the issue in Chinese culture itself, which encourages imitation and looks down on innovation. It stems partially from Confucianism (which shuns innovation and even progress) and partially from a shame directed at people who take risks that don't pay off, causing most people in China to settle for safe bets.

Certainly seems like a matter of time, but it's strange that despite doing a lot of contract work for both Americans and Japanese and having successful domestic manhwa and other potential sources for stories, South Korea domestic animation industry has been relatively unsuccessful in original productions. So you never know.

If by improving you mean china will eventually have its own animation industry for local consumption, yeah, that was also my point. If by improving you mean that in some foreseeable future china will compete as an equal with the japanese anime industry, then no, we do not agree at all.

Depends on what you mean as an equal.

Gina Szanboti wrote:

... since this still doesn't refute my point, which remains: they may be slowly but surely learning how to do this better? If you're saying they are not, cannot and will never improve, then I disagree.

If by improving you mean china will eventually have its own animation industry for local consumption, yeah, that was also my point.

leafy sea dragon wrote:

Depends on what you mean as an equal.

Shelf Space. If you could look at streaming websites in america or asia a decade from now, I do not see half of the top ten anime shows of the season being chinese or chinese co-productions. TBT I do not see even one of those ten being made by the chinese.

I have no doubt there are some very talented storytellers in China. A population that big has to have at least a few.

There's also the issue in Chinese culture itself, which encourages imitation and looks down on innovation. It stems partially from Confucianism (which shuns innovation and even progress) and partially from a shame directed at people who take risks that don't pay off, causing most people in China to settle for safe bets. (I heard an interview on the radio with a businessman who does a lot of work with Chinese partners. He said that it can be tough to find Chinese labor for companies that have a less-than-spotless success record, as they want guaranteed success.) Sounds like Wolf Smoke Studio is an exception to this belief though.

Zhang Yimou (The Great Wall) and Chen Kaige are some of them, even if their most recent movies aren't as well received as their earlier ones.To live and Farewell my concubine, which are some of their most critically acclaimed movies, were banned in China.

Technically speaking, it's more a problem in East Asian cultures in general, not just China, hence why Japan, Korea, Vietnam, etc, has lots of pagodas and imitated in some degree their language as well.

The Cultural Revolution also exacerbated the problem by exiling or executing most of the creative talent China once had and now they are trying to solve the problem.

Wouldn't that be simply a result of geographical proximity, regarding pagodas and language? I mean, there are similar-looking castles and mansions all over Europe, and European languages are mostly Romantic and Germanic, nearly all of which use modified Roman alphabets. China being a HUGE imperial influence in east Asia would reinforce that.

But you have a good point about the Cultural Revolution. The Chinese government is about control, control, and more control, more so than most other regimes. The biggest hindrance, and I think I mentioned this earlier, is aspiring and talented writers and directors unable to watch masterpieces from elsewhere in the world, and so they don't have a good foundation to make movies from. All the giants today stand on the shoulders of their predecessors, but the Chinese don't really have any predecessors and have to learn everything from scratch.