Marching to Its Own toon
By admin on 2015-01-12

Chinese cartoons are set to shine on the world stage as cartoon channel Nickelodeon launches ChinaToon, a one-hour segment showcasing original Chinese animations.

Debuting July 5, on Nickelodeon Asia, it will premiere two acclaimed animation series, Creative Power Entertaining's Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf and Zhejiang Zhongnan Group Animation Video's Magic Wonderland. They will broadcast to 13 territories across Asia.

The two shows will air every Saturday at 1 pm, with reruns on Fridays at 2 pm. An audience of more than 242 million households is expected to watch.

In another sign of progress, in March, 46 Chinese cartoon companies, led by the Ministry of Culture, attended the Tokyo International Anime Fair (TAF). It was not the first visit, but it was the most significant.

At the fair, the China stage was decorated with red Chinese clouds and was connected to 26 stands by red carpets, attracting significant attention.

China's exhibition area was the biggest at the fair and attracted the most attention, said Song Qihui, from the Ministry of Culture.

Many believe it is the right time for Chinese cartoons to take center stage.

"Chinese animation is gaining immense popularity and critical recognition internationally," says Indra Suharjono, executive vice-president and managing director for MTV Networks South East Asia and Greater China.

"ChinaToon will be the vehicle to bring this unique genre to a wider audience. We are proud to introduce ChinaToon and its exciting lineup of Chinese animation programs as new members to Nickelodeon's family of top-rated programs that kids of all ages in Asia love."

The global economic recession has helped Chinese animations attract attention, according to Chinese cartoonist Chen Weidong.

"Japan's largest manga publishing company, Kodansha, lost a lot of money last year and there was a general decrease in comic book publishing. However, the industry in China is growing. At TAF we were frequently asked how come our cartoon industry was growing so fast," Chen says.

Mei Yan, managing director of MTV Networks China and chief representative of Viacom Asia in China says China-produced cartoons are world class: "It's important to provide a springboard to launch them into the international marketplace."

"In just a few years, both the quantity and quality of domestic animation has improved greatly," says Jin Delong, deputy editor-in-chief of the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television.

An example of this improvement is Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf, created by Creative Power Entertaining, for audiences aged from 4 to 9. In the year 3131, goats prosper on the green grassland. Pleasant Goat is the smartest goat in the village and always outwits his nemesis, Gray Wolf.

The series has fans in the Chinese mainland and Taiwan, spawning a successful touring musical, and feature film that took 60 million yuan ($8.78 million) at the box office,

In contrast, Doraemon Movie's Chinese box office was 20 million yuan ($2.92 million).

"Creative Power Entertaining and Zhejiang Zhongnan Group Animation Video are two excellent examples of how efforts to nurture the Chinese animation industry have led to the success in the development of locally-produced programming," MTV's Mei says.

Cartoonist Chen adds that progress is due mainly to sound government policies: "The Chinese government has actively promoted the cartoon and animation industry, while in other countries this industry is left to fend for itself."

The Ministry of Culture published a policy statement last August, saying it intended to become a big player in the industry, based on an estimated domestic market of 300 million youngsters who watch cartoons.

Xiao Yongliang, deputy dean of the School of Arts and Communication, Beijing Normal University, says the government has promoted the industry since 2006 by investing, giving tax breaks and setting up an office to coordinate efforts.

Just last weekend, Beijing Municipal Bureau of Radio, Film and Television set up the three districts of Haidian, Shijingshan and Tongzhou as "Beijing Cartoon Industry Bases".

Before 2000, there were only several hundred students at two schools majoring in cartoon and animation, but in 2008 there were more than 500 academy-level institutions, with 500,000 students being trained.

Additionally, there were fewer than 100 companies in the market before 2000 employing about 50 people each, but now there are 5,000 enterprises in this business.

Even so, the Chinese animation industry does have problems. Xiao, who used to work at Blue Sky Studio, says there are no outstandingly successful Chinese cartoons.

"A successful movie should make more than 10 times its cost, and get good social feedback. Take Disney's Finding Nemo, for example. It cost less than $100 million but it made as much as $1.2 billion profit in two or three years."

Xiao adds that many locally produced cartoons are "cultural garbage.... Many companies want to make a profit as soon as possible, so they do not care about the quality. Even Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf is very rough."

"CCTV pays 1,500 yuan per minute, and that is the highest among Chinese TV, so some companies can't balance costs. They can only survive by government funding and by providing cartoon making training to the public," Xiao says.

Storytelling is the local cartoon industry's weakest point. Magic Wonderland is scheduled to be shown on Nickelodeon and is a 2008 Accolade TV Award winner targeting kids aged five to 12. Created by Zhejiang Zhongnan Group Animation Video Company (ZN Animation), it tells the story of Ocean, a beautiful girl who lives on a sun-kissed island with her grandfather and battles an evil wizard and pirates. Although it's a good story for kids, it cannot hold the interest of an adult audience.

Disney cartoons, on the other hand, set out to be "family movies", which means that adults can also enjoy the stories.

"Chinese animations are pedagogical. Why can't we just tell a good story? And there are really no cartoon movies created for adults in China, which is a pity," says Ye Shengying, a 29-year-old Japanese cartoon fan.

Many of the early Chinese cartoons that were successful were taken from ancient Chinese stories, such as A Journey to the West. "But this is not the only way forward. You can see in Disney cartoons that there are different peoples, opinions and cultures involved," Xiao says.

Another problem, Xiao says, is adopting new techniques: "At Disney, Pixar, or Dreamworks, there are special teams developing software to make cartoons, but in China, we only use foreign techniques."