Chinese animation is booming — but don’t confuse it with anime

Funimation’s 2021 debut to donghua was when it added the series to its anime streaming service. Heaven Official’s BlessingTo its list. But the service mistakenly listed the language on the Chinese import as “Japanese.” (It’s since been corrected to “Mandarin.”) Netflix is also streaming the series — under the banner of its “anime” category. Cue confusion from curious viewers who saw previews and asked, “What anime is this from?” The most straightforward answer: “It’s anime-style, but it’s Chinese, so we call it a donghua.”

“Donghua” — much like “anime” for Japanese speakers — is simply the Chinese word for “animation.” After decades of stagnation in the animation industry, going as far back as the Cultural Revolution, China has entered what many tentatively call a rebirth in the field. It’s the result of 20 years of a Chinese identity crisis in animation, as the industry struggled to compete with the likes of Disney, Pixar, and Japan’s famed Studio Ghibli.

While donghua’s current form is heavily influenced by anime, it has its own identity. Since its inception, donghua has evolved continuously to match the culture it is from.

Chinese animation is a tradition that has existed for almost 100 years. The original donghua pieces were created in 1920s. They have since been lost. The golden and silver age of Chinese cinema brought new animation styles that were based on traditional arts, such as shadow puppetry and paper-folded stop motion.

Milestone 1 – Nezha Conquer the Dragon King

Join the Cultural Revolution. In order to become inspiring propaganda posters, the messaging and style for donghua had to change. Meanwhile, Chinese society experienced a decade of upheaval that didn’t end until 1976.

Image by Shanghai Animation Film Studio

The aftermath of such emotional and ideological times is apparent in 1979’s Nezha defeats the Dragon KingThe donghua introduced many Chinese citizens and expats as a folkloric hero. Nezha is the third noble heir to this coastal city. Chentang Guan is just a baby when he murders Ao Biing, the Eastern Dragon King’s son, because he ate children to offer rain. When the Eastern Dragon King summons his brothers to flood Chentang Guan in retaliation, Nezha’s father punishes him. Nezha commits a filial act to kill himself, to appease the Dragon King, to save Chentang Guan and to return his body back to his parents.

The Cultural Revolution inspired this adaptation of a folkloric tale. It reflects the theme of violent rebellion against oppressive authority figures. The story can be interpreted as a metaphor for either the Cultural Revolution or its conclusion, in which its political perpetrators were overthrown. No matter which interpretation you accept, though, the core message continued to evolve through decades of further adaptations of Nezha’s story.

Design and animation of Nezha defeats the Dragon KingThese scenes were seen as a return to tradition. The music played during dramatic scenes is by an old Peking opera ensemble. This was considered obsolete and untouchable art in the Cultural Revolution. The exaggerated movements, facial features, and body proportions — especially the wide shoulders of heavyset men — reflect a combination of opera and ink paintings. It’s a bit of nostalgia, informed by periods of turmoil.

Milestone 2 – Legend of Nezha

Donghua entered a phase of stagnation in the early 1990s. Animated movies like Disney’s 1989 feature The Little MermaidThis brought about the Disney Renaissance. Anime like Dragon Ball And Sailor Moon Because they were so beloved, they gained a huge international following.

China began to implement economic reforms during this period in order to maintain steady growth. However, the animation industry was still dominated by America and Japan. China was caught between the two giants and could not be competitive.

Nezha rushed back on screen, this time in 2003’s Legend of Nezha The ending theme of the donghua series that many children can still sing. It covered all the history and text of the original story. It still highlighted the idea of overthrowing despots.

Image by China International Television Corporation

These visuals combine anime and Disney looks with big-eyed characters, wide lines and well-drawn lines. Legend of Nezha Other donghua from this time were not available internationally. They were only distributed in China via diaspora enclaves if they did make it into global distribution.

During that period, donghua was largely seen as clunky, cheap animation, operating under the familiar stigma of anything labeled “made in China.” Both industry expansionists and Chinese people at large are still trying to shake off that association. It certainly didn’t help that China was seen as a source of cheap animation labor, with donghua artists prioritizing outsourced work for Japanese studios over working with local studios. The backdrops used in the anime of that era are many of them drawn in China.

In the middle of 2000s the world changed. Internet sites became popular for amateur animators who wanted to make their own animation. The outsourcing of anime work in China has trained a whole generation of animators to create this popular art form.

China introduced regulations restricting airtime to foreign films, which left plenty of space for donghua in China. The country’s economy, which had been steadily but surely growing, reached such a bullish height that the government began funding the donghua industry. Private investors were first to get involved pouring Art is more important than money.

Milestone 3: Monkey King: Hero Is Back

Image: Beijing Weiyingshidai Culture & Media, Hengdian Chinese Film Production Co., October Animation Studio, S&C Pictures, Shandong Film and Television Production Center

2015’s Monkey King: Hero Is Back It was a pivotal moment. This feature film, starring another oft-adapted folklore character, was crowdfunded — a model of investment so popular at the time, companies like Alibaba jumped in on it too.

It was not the same story as before, but an expanded version of it. Computer animation was used to update the visuals and effect, which struck a chord among the audience. As Accented Cinema, the Chinese Canadian YouTuber and film essayist, puts it: “The familiar Chinese music, the ribbons and the exaggerated proportions of gods, the stylized clouds and mountains… It’s all so familiar. The action now feels more like anime. After 20 years of soul-searching, my generation finally grew up.”

Monkey King: Hero Is BackIts production cost was halved. It had the highest grossing animated movie in China. ZootopiaAnd Kung Fu Panda 3The record was broken

Milestone 4: Big Fish & Begonia

This upward trend continued and pierced international markets. Funimation dubbed 2016’s Big Fish & Begonia, A second feature-length donghua. Big Fish & Begonia The story is fantasy-like and mythic. It focuses upon Chun, an underwater entity who appears in human form as a dolphin. Chun and an afterlife caregiver make a deal to save a drowning human from being entangled in a net. The caretaker will take the shape of a baby Dolphin.

Image: Horgos Coloroom Pictures, Beijing Enlight Media, Biantian (Beijing) Media, Studio Mir

Its existentialist themes were a popular choice. It explores balance between nature and society and personal bonds that cross them (Chun asks her grandfather for advice, who is a tree) and nature of reincarnation. This trope would be familiar to Chinese viewers as it was used in fantasy films.

Social media followers and critics praised the way these themes were presented. “It is unsurprising, but also unfair, that the film has repeatedly drawn comparisons to Studio Ghibli,” wrote one Reddit reviewer. Character designs and smooth animation draw inspiration from the Classic of Mountains and Seas — A Chinese text that is not like any other Fantastic Beasts and How to Find Them. The previews and music videos heavily featured the tulou, a region-specific Chinese home used incorrectly in 2020’s Disney movie Mulan. But what grabbed people’s attention the most on social media was the main theme, “Big Fish,” which became singer Zhou Shen’s claim to fame. This song was covered by many YouTubers in West. Zhou Shen still receives English-language comments. This could be the first time in recent times that a donghua has gained popularity in the Anglosphere.

Milestone 5 – Nezha

Nezha returned in 2019, but this time it was on Netflix. You might also like Monkey King: Hero Is Back, the new feature-length donghua reimagines the character’s story for a new generation. Nezha, a social outcast who is the only friend of Ao Bining in the original text is now Nezha. In this version, they’re both children of circumstance, whose families dictate they be enemies.

This makes it a story about fighting fate. The Nezha isn’t content to follow a straight path towards filial piety. It hit home for a generation of millennials in China — a generation whose young people are traveling internationally more than any time in history, and whose parents fret because they’re marrying years after the “acceptable” age to be single (if they marry at all). These women have chosen to be single mothers and are redefining family expectations. While globalization and economic growth offer a world of opportunities, parents still have expectations that young adults will start families. This latest donghua smash reflects the fact that social norms have changed dramatically.

Image: Chengdu Coco Cartoon/Beijing Enlight Pictures

Nezha Keeps the cultural elements that make Donghua unique. The original is a funny reference that it creates by using a Peking opera group randomly placed. Nezha defeats the Dragon King. Nezha may represent the biggest change to traditional donghua. His character design departs from the round, almost cherub-like face that shows he’s a child. In this adaptation, his exaggerated facial features reflect styles drawn from the wild-eyed grimaces and generous mouth signature from a wide range of characters found in Chinese paintings and sculptures — from demons to deities like the Four Heavenly Kings to more historical figures like Bodhidharma. The trope of an ugly, socially vilified protagonist may even resemble digital “monster” characters in the West, like Shrek. It is not an imitation of both Japanese and American influence. To quote Accented Cinema’s delight in his new design: “I mean, if they wanted to copy Disney, they wouldn’t make Nezha an imp. Oh my God, he’s so ugly, I love it.”

The film’s iconography includes supernatural door guards in ancient bronze masks found in archeological digs throughout China. Nezha’s master swaggers around in exaggerated proportions and speaks Sichuan dialect — a localized choice for a film in standard Mandarin. It isn’t just about making a new identity — it’s about reconciling the new world with the one they came from.

Its cultural speciality makes the new Nezha Its characters are still popular in diaspora communities around the world, even outside China. Popular artists such as the Chinese American will be performing at Anime NYC 2021. Velinxi sold prints featuring Nezha’s new iteration with his former murder victim turned best friend, Ao Bing.

While her artwork is heavily influenced by Western and Japanese stories, with a pre-established fan base in the United States of America, she began drawing new media that was inspired by Chinese storytelling. Strike the Zither, A retelling the story Romance of the Three Kingdoms Joan He is a Chinese American author. Joan He, herself raised on media from China, has said, “Travel to the WestI was basically the one who did it. SpongeBob.”

Milestone 6 – MXTX

While donghua is reimagining old pantheons, it’s making new ones as well. Mo Xiang Tong Xiu, a Chinese author indie, wrote three books while at college. One of the most well-known is Mo Dao Zu Shi, In 2018, it was made into a Donghua Series. Then it was adapted into 2019’s The Wild Untamed, A live-action drama on YouTube and Netflix. They are many people’s introduction to each respective medium. Chinese diaspora often identify Mo Dao Zu Shi As the first stories they were able to tell outside their community. Heaven Official’s Blessing, Her third novel has been published on Funimation.

Donghua among anime and manga fans

Image: Tencent Penguin Pictures, B.C May Pictures

For casual viewers — especially fans who watch imported animation in English — it’s standard to lump donghua movies and features in with anime, especially if they are anime-Style. Mo Xiang Tong Xiu’s books, officially released in English in December 2021, are marketed as light novels under the “manga” section of Barnes & Noble; Seven Seas, the publisher that holds the license to these books, traditionally translates Japanese books. Western marketing — especially American marketing — has offered Japanese stories as the default East Asian media for so long now that they typically pitch other countries’ works under the same grouping.

Korean manga (comics), often filed in the manga area of bookstores and separated from the section that contains graphic novels from Western countries, receive the same treatment.

American impact is strong as well: American double-standard

As each Nezha adaptation, MXTX uses an ancient historical backdrop to tell themes that are ruminating in Chinese people’s minds now. The name is even a surprise. Heaven Official’s Blessing — “tiān guān cì fú” — This is still a Daoist phrase that can be found on Chinese talismans.

Donghua still exists today due to its relationship with anime. But such broad categorizations, blatant mistakes and wide-ranging categories raise questions as to whether or not people actually recognize East Asian works and their creators as distinct cultures.

This ignores American animation’s equally significant impact.

China became the world’s second-largest entertainment market in 2017; the first is the United States. They actively collaborate: Kung Fu Panda 3 (2016) and Netflix’s Surround the Moon (2020) Both films are co-productions of American and Chinese production firms, with both stories set in China. Pearl Studio is the primary producer for both films. It’s based in Shanghai, but it includes both Chinese and American DreamWorks and Disney creators.

Image courtesy of Netflix

Japan: Generations of Influence And the United States’ soft power is inevitable for any country; they are two of the biggest animation markets in the world. Japan Expo was the largest Japanese pop culture event outside its home country, prior to the epidemic. When Disney’s Coco This was In 2017, a Peruvian father/son team dubbed the movie in Quechua. Quechua was the most widely spoken Indigenous language left in South America. China isn’t an exception. Donghua’s uniqueness is due to the fact that it represents the third-country who has taken the time and resources necessary for matching the greats toe-toe.

By extension, it is a reckoning not only for that country’s domestic people, but its global diaspora as well. Chinese and their diaspora draw inspiration from fluid Japanese animation in the same way Europeans celebrate manga, anime and videogames. This Peruvian dad and son wanted to be part of the celebration. CocoChinese and diaspora communities have sought out American stories and culture to be shared with their villages and 8 million native speakers.

Donghua can be proudly credited with decades of innovation and intergenerational dialogue. Chinese people are the most diverse ethnic group on the planet and have their own unique form of animation. It deserves more than to be haphazardly lumped into the category of “anime” simply because it too comes from East Asia. It is dangerous to mix all things East Asian with other categories, art included or not.