You're listening to Roundtable.
I'm Steve Hatherly, together today with Yushan and Guoyen.
Coming up.
The latest disruption in China's media landscape isn't coming from a major studio, but from AI.
And I guess we shouldn't be surprised by that.
But there is a new genre known as comic dramas.
Short and heavily automated is seeing unprecedented growth.
The shocking part perhaps might come from the plummeting production costs and the sheer volume studios can now pump out.
Today, we'll look at the sudden rise of this algorithmic storytelling and what it truly represents.
After that, we'll turn the microphone over to you.
Roundtable's Heart to Heart is on the way.
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And now...
Imagine a production studio, not with sprawling sets and A-list actors, but with a small team and a powerful AI tool or tools.
This is the new reality behind China's latest entertainment craze.
They're called comic dramas.
They're short, they're often dramatic, of course, and they're wildly popular, and they're being created at a pace and price that was unthinkable, maybe even just a year ago.
The industry is growing at breakneck speed, with costs plummeting as studios flood the market with dozens of new titles in the time it used to take to make just one.
So why is everyone from Gen Z to industry insiders suddenly obsessed with AI comic dramas?
Well, first of all, I guess what we have to do, Yushan, is start with what they are exactly.
I watched my first one this morning, as a matter of fact.
Which one, may I ask?
It was called The Vampire's Revenge or something like that.
Oh, The Vampire Wrath?
Yes, The Vampire Wrath.
Geez, that one is famous right now.
I'll summarize episode one for you in a little while.
But for our listeners who don't know what an AI comic drama is, please tell us.
It's well, just think of them as a short animation series that blend the visual style of web comics or a 3D animation with a fast-paced performance, bite-sized um storytelling or narration like a mini drama, but in um say, in a comic format.
I actually personal uh, personally um watched one just over the past weekend and i was absolutely drawn by the story is kind of a cliche.
What was, what was yours about?
It's about very beautiful chinese mermaids dressed up in traditional chinese garments, the hanfu, and the whole the full attires, and The story is mainly on how this mermaid girl was kind of framed to death.
And after being reborn, she calculated each steps she make and just avenged her old lovers and become the winner of the story.
The story of the mermaid's revenge.
I know, right?
But it's displayed in a comic style through that video and with a very kind of cute and lovely voice.
I would assume the voice comes from AI too as a narrator for the whole story.
There are 12 episodes in general and each episode runs about two to five minutes and it's also...
Of course, it's highly bingeable and often end on cliffhangers released on short video platforms.
Mine was watched on Baidu, but they are also very popular on other social media platforms like Douyin or Kuaishou, where viewers swipe through one episode after another and they just couldn't stop.
You just keep going and going and going and going.
There's usually quite a few different forms too, right?
And by the way, when we say comic dramas, We don't mean comedy.
No.
We mean like comic book style.
So when you look at the animation, I'm not sure if they're all animated or not.
I assume they must be if they're done in a comic book style.
But imagine, if you've not seen one before, imagine you open a comic book and it comes to life.
That's basically what you're looking at on the screen.
And that's what makes it such a cool concept.
And so popular, I think, with people of all ages now, because I grew up reading some comic books as well.
So to be able to have it just in front of you in very short, digestible lengths, it's kind of a genius idea, I think.
And with that voice guiding you throughout the whole reading, if not watching process, it even makes you feel more emergeable, if that's a word.
Like you get immediately immersive into the dialogue, or rather the storytelling.
You get a more immersive feeling.
Can I just quickly comment that, with AI nowadays, with the fast development of this technology, the graphics, the figures are so well designed.
Sometimes, when we generate AI pictures, it's either losing an arm for one figure, or some figure has six fingers.
But for the one that I watched, The Mermaid Revenge, that one was designed perfectly.
Yeah and, like I said, they look like pages of a comic book that have perfectly come alive, which is why these are really popular.
What are some of the numbers to prove how popular these actually are?
Well, I think the numbers have indicated the popularity of this comic work in China.
According to data from Ocean Engine, it's a digital marketing service platform.
Between April and July this year, AI comic dramas saw a a compound growth of 92 in views and over 100 in likes on Douyin platform.
And during the same period, over 3000 new comic dramas were released, a 60-100 increase compared to previous supply.
Yeah, so you're seeing double the likes, double the growth.
A 600% increase in the actual number of dramas released.
And I mentioned that in the opening, didn't I?
That the sheer number that the studios are pumping out now 3000 in that period of time, in just a few months.
The market is being flooded.
That is for sure.
And the market is expected to keep growing to past 20 billion yuan.
That's almost $3 billion.
Because the number of companies not just the number of dramas, but the number of companies in the space is expanding exponentially as well.
You could be looking at tens of thousands of players creating these comic book dramas, which is really kind of fun.
I mean, you're not going to be short of choice here.
If you're a fan of these types of series.
And one more statistic before we move on.
As of June of this year, there were almost 700 million people in China that were watching these micro short dramas.
And that was about 70% of all Internet users.
So, I mean, nearly everyone is watching these things.
And overseas-wise.
I think this is a good place to bring up your morning exploration of The Vampire's Wrath, which is a vampire-themed short animation made by Chinese Online that was launched on the overseas platform called Serial Plus and got strong engagement for international viewers.
I wouldn't be surprised at all.
After all, the...
What was it called?
The TV series, the TV drama Vampire Diary went so popular worldwide for so long.
So I would guess this theme is very, say, popular.
Yeah.
I mean, that website, if you go there, I don't know how to say it.
Serial or surreal?
Surreal.
Is it surreal?
I'm not sure.
Anyway, the response to the vampire's wrath was extremely positive in North America.
So that's the one that I watched this morning.
What was it about?
Well, I only watched episode one, and it was about John and Rachel.
Now, from what I could tell, John and Rachel were a couple and they were hunting for treasure in a cave, and the cave was protected by demons.
And then Rachel...
She kicked John into the demon infested lava, ending John's existence.
And she said, ha ha ha.
And off she goes, I guess, to collect the treasure by herself.
Now, fast forward to a little bit later.
John is reborn as a vampire king.
Maybe they seem to very much respect him in the demon caves.
And his goal is to seek revenge on Rachel.
I will be watching episode two after the show.
That's all I can tell you for now.
But I was, you know, looking at some of the other titles on surreal or or serial plus, and there's a lot of different stuff on there.
There's, um, CEO's baby surprise.
I don't know what that's about.
Um, his brother, my lover, that sounds spicy.
Um, so there's tons of stuff if you're interested in, in checking that out.
Um, but you can find the vampire's wrath on there as well.
Um, Proof that it is successful though, overseas.
And that's a big deal, right?
Because these are popular here in China.
But when there can be a success achieved overseas, then that just inspires more growth from within the industry.
It's all about generating impacts.
And impacts creates more opportunities for advertisement, for attracting bigger businesses.
There are also very positive market feedback in general.
In China.
Some of those very interestingly translated names would be fantasy, the empress reborn or I Can Rewind Time.
They all pulled very impressive say records for I Can Rewind Time.
It pulled in over 5 million yuan, or more than 700000 US dollars in payments previously from douyin, the one platform alone.
So this is like huge um billboard, i'll say, to attract um advertisement to or further investment onto making this bigger than just one channel show alone.
I mean um the amount of time that it takes to make one of these dramas.
Now it's almost Reduced.
Well, it's definitely reduced.
And in the amount of time it takes me to speak this sentence, for example, one drama can now be completed.
It's about 10 seconds that they can pump one out.
So...
You're looking at maybe some studios putting out 30 full shows a month.
Maybe sometimes a little less, maybe sometimes a little bit more.
Which means that the revenue is huge while the cost is low.
And AI improves efficiency while cut costs.
And before drawing one character might take a while.
Now AI can generate one in, like you said, in 10 seconds.
And some studios can turn out 30 full shows a month.
And in meme style comic dramas, one animator can make six minutes of content in a single day.
Oh my gosh, I love that.
And that's much less production cost compared to over 1 million yuan budgets of real actor short dramas.
And industry insider.
These are the analysis from some industry insiders.
Short ai comic dramas are ideal for test first approaches.
Producers can create a short pilot series, gauge audience reaction, then continue to adjust future episodes, and this reduces risk and accelerates international rollouts.
Yeah, because they can do all of their research in a much shorter time and they know, and then with that feedback they know what will be successful And perhaps what won't be successful, so they can make their adjustments almost on the go.
Any difficulties here?
I mean, it just sounds like it's win, win, win, win, win.
Well, there are difficulties indeed.
But let's say first of all, there's the defining visual style and maintaining consistency.
That's causing some difficulties here.
That's because, unlike traditional animes, where style is kind of linked to individual artists or studios AI generated comic drama productions they don't really have a natural signature or say, a professional or a standardized one as per now, and this makes it hard for audiences to just recognize or categorize styles in general and for studios to establish their own distinctive brand.
So far.
I would say, for any emerging industry, young and new as this one, this is a inevitable state that they have to face.
Yeah, i guess i i didn't know where you were going with that when you said um, having a distinctive style.
But with, you know, thousands of new companies coming out and right, you know, they're able to create characters in 10 seconds um, and the market being flooded the way that it is.
Yeah, how does a company stand out so that they can be recognized as distinct and different from their competitors?
Right now we see a lot of individual production creators or just individual bloggers working on this, especially with what you mentioned earlier, the meme style kind of comic drama.
I see that all over WeChat.
Oh, is it all over?
I'm a fan of the cat memes franchise, but it's all individual making.
So when is it going to be so well organized?
It still remains a...
Tune in again tomorrow to Roundtable for the recap of The Vampire's Wrath, Episode 2.
For now, you're listening to Roundtable.
And coming up next, you've heard our voices all day long today, and now it's time to hear yours.
Heart to Heart is on the way.
You ask.
We answer.
Roundtable.
Heart to Heart.
It is time for roundtables heart to heart and today I'm happy to say we have a voice note from Vera.
Hello guys, this is Vera.
Today I want to tell you guys a story about my husband.
So he majored in environmental resources during both his undergraduate and graduate studies.
But his field was very hands-on and required a lot of lab work.
However, he has been working for three years and his job is kind of like an office job.
He works at an environmental protection technology company.
Basically, when a chemical company wants to start a project, they send technicians to inspect the site.
Then my husband's job is to write a project report based on the inspection results.
This report has to be submitted to the Environmental Protection Department for approval before the chemical company can proceed with the project.
But the tricky part is that every project involves different areas of chemical engineering.
So my husband has to dive deep into each one to make sure the report isn't just a fall of fluff.
Which isn't that easy, right?
It's very specific.
You will spend a long time trying to figure out what's going on in the chemical reaction and use formal words to illustrate it, while multitasking other projects too.
The common phenomenon like for my husband is after going through the chemical procedure with the help of AI and not knowing anything.
It's just very stressful.
And then he sees his other colleagues doing well on their job, feels like himself an idiot.
But in the past, whenever he finished a report, he'd print it out, achieve it and feel some sense of accomplishment.
But lately, with the downturn in almost every industry, including his, things have gotten tougher.
He's taken a pay cut and his workload has increased a lot.
He's feeling just pretty down.
He thinks his job is just too difficult and the industry is not stable.
He's also worried that he can't take good care of me.
So my question is i think a lot of young people are going through the similar struggles, just like my husband's, and i wanted to ask you guys how do you find motivation during tough times and keep moving forward for young generations in these days?
Thank you.
Thank you, Vera, for sharing your story with us.
Very sweet of you to reach out to get some advice on maybe, how to help your hubby, how to make him feel better too.
What do you think, Yushan, in this particular spot?
Well, first of all, Vera, thank you very much for sharing this story of your husband with us.
It just sounds like both of you are just going through a really challenging time.
And of course, I would understand that, as part of my family, members also work in this in a similar mode that switching from hands on lab work to highly specialized or professionalized office reporting can be stressful, and is absolutely normal for you or him to acknowledge that, especially when each project's, like you said, requires him to dive into certain areas that he's not necessarily so familiar with.
So feeling overwhelmed at this point is normal.
And it doesn't mean that he's failing or that he is losing this job or any kind.
It's just a part of the process.
Or rather, like many very positive posts will say that it's it means that you're growing.
It means that you are facing obstacles.
You're feeling that you are having these challenges that you have to go through.
It means you're growing.
Who's growing?
Vera's growing or Vera's husband?
The husband.
Meaning that he is having this phase of his career.
That's kind of tough, but afterwards he definitely gets that sense of achievement, like Vera said.
And my personal question for you, or rather your husband here, would be what do you want from this job?
And what do you want for you?
See, this is the very question I received from my therapist just last Sunday afternoon, because I
Even though in a case that's very different from Vera's husband, I had the very same confusion of just how I should navigate through this situation time when multitasking is not my thing but I'm forced to get used to it, and also in a mixture of a lot of other things.
So that's the first thing my therapist asked me.
You describe all of these cases that you're working on.
What do you want from this?
Where are your position?
Where do you see the self in all this?
So it has meaning when people say that young people are navigating their life.
Because see yourself as a sailor before you are promoted to a first mate of the ship or even the captain, do your chores, learn from hardships and mistakes and realize that you're growing and only try to make changes to the condition or to the situation when you're a first mate, let's say when you have the the, the very say, power or authority to make a change to the working habit or condition that you don't like.
So, as for now, just be a sailor and realize what you truly want from what you're doing will be my advice.
Before the show.
Uh, yushan asked me steve, how much time you're gonna spend on heart to heart?
I said oh, i don't know, maybe five six, seven minutes.
Yushan said i think we need some time for this.
I said okay, so i put in a couple of more minutes.
And now i know why because that was a wonderful answer, goyim.
What about you?
Well, absolutely.
I think I can relate to this condition.
And many people feel overwhelmed these days as workloads increase without any change in position or pay.
But her husband did take a pay cut and then his workload increased.
Yeah.
And you know, I've been through something quite similar to you.
And years ago, my job was simple.
I was a radio journalist.
And I just needed to focus on telling good stories, writing stories editing reporting, interviewing.
But things changed dramatically since when I started to do social media studio.
And I have to, everything changes suddenly.
I have to.
I was still reporting and also appearing on cam, but I started to.
I have to a lot of things like I'm juggling over a dozen of issues like planning project and negotiating media collaboration with other teams and media outlets, as well as writing summary reports to showcase my job, to highlight the best work.
I feel really pressure, but after a while, I feel that I grow through this pressure.
I learn how to negotiate, how to seek collaboration and how to pull in resources to make these ideas into real projects.
That is great advice from two therapists here in the studio, Vera.
Hopefully that helps.
Please join us again on Roundtable next time.
