This summer, Chinese animated films and series have surged in popularity, with several becoming box office sensations.
Online video platforms.
They are in on the action as well, as they are now offering a diverse range of animated works, and they're locked in a fierce battle for content supremacy.
So what are the standout successes?
We'll learn about those and we'll also talk about what's behind their achievements.
We are live from Beijing.
This is Roundtable.
My name is Steve.
We thank you very much for being with us today.
And for the show, I'm joined by Niu Honglin and Yushan.
First on the program.
This summer has been fantastic for Chinese animated films and series, as they are gaining great popularity and even becoming box office smashes.
Different online video platforms, they're getting in on the action too.
They're providing various types of animation works and engaging in a fierce content battle.
So what are these successful works?
We're going to talk about those and we'll also learn about the secrets behind their success and maybe touch a bit upon the impact, what we might see in the future development of Chinese animated works.
I must admit, I'm a little behind on this topic.
I haven't seen a lot of Chinese animated films.
But Yushan, you've been to one just this summer, right?
You are a fan.
Would you say you're a fan?
Yeah, I would say I am totally the fan of the newly blockbuster hitting animation film called Nobody, which in Chinese is 浪浪山的小妖怪.
It's made by Shanghai Animation Film Studio and it's already become a major sleeper hit this summer and it's kind of expected to be.
Um actually, it wasn't expected expected to be such a hit at the very beginning, in on august the second, when it first released, but by the end of this last month, in august 29th, it has already generated a box office revenue at over 135 billion yuan, that's roughly 189 million us dollars.
So this correct me if I'm wrong.
I watched the trailer this morning.
This is the story of Journey to the West told from a different point of view.
Yeah.
Right.
So it's told from the point of view of a group of characters who pretend to be the heroes.
They mask themselves or put themselves in costumes and then try to convince everybody that they are the actual heroes, when in fact they are not.
Yeah, that's, well, that's perfectly worded.
Maybe I'm not as behind as I thought I was.
And the main part, rather the highlight of them being the quote-unquote imposter of the real Journey to the West squad is that, even though they're just nobody, they're like small 妖怪, as in small, little unknown Chinese monsters that comes from animals, and they try to be someone that they look up to or they try to achieve their own dream.
Throughout that journey, of which many of the normal viewers were working professionals who got attracted by the theme, was expecting to see like a fun cartoon or fun animation movie, but ended up crying, like me and my friend did in the movie theater, was one of the reasons that uh young, what do you think about this?
One of the reasons that they didn't predict it to be a huge success is because the film was done in 2d, not 3d.
A lot of animated films most, are done in 3d animation these days, and when i was watching the trailer, i was looking at the screen, thinking something's different.
What is different about?
Oh, it's two, it's two-dimensional.
That's why.
Is that one of the reasons, i wonder because uh, for the reason that they didn't think it was going to be a hit.
I would assume that's part of the reasons, on top of the fact that if you know the Chinese name of the movie, it's basically the direct translation would be Little Monsters in the Lang Lang Mountain, which is not really a kind of revealing of what the story is about.
You would not assume it's something major, something big.
You would even not assume it's something big.
To be more precise, for the adult instead of just the kids.
So, but I kind of get it nowadays for a good story to be told in no matter animation or animated way, or real actor kind of way, or AI assisted kind of way.
It doesn't really matter as long as it's a good story.
And now we see more and more good stories in Chinese animation films.
That might be the thing.
I was looking it up.
After I realized that this movie was in 2d, I was curious oh does, are we still seeing Hollywood as Disney or Pixar still making 2d movies?
Not really.
The last one that Disney made was the princess and the frog, was 2009, but after that, I guess, no more 2d movies, so it's gone full 3d.
You know, the first um 3d movie from uh Disney, by the way side note, Toy Story.
Yeah, yeah.
Huge success.
But 2D stories are still getting big hit as long as it's, again, a good story.
For instance on another Chinese animated movie, The Legend of Hei Tu.
It is set in a world where humans, goblins and deities coexist.
And this is also a story that is not that attractive to adults if you just listen to the plot instead of watching the movie.
I'll be the judge of that.
Go on, tell me.
Okay, so the film follows a cat spirit.
The cat spirit name is Luo Xiaohei.
I'm already attracted.
Because it's a cat.
Right.
And he lives peacefully in human form alongside Master Wu Xian when the Monster Hall assigns him a mission after a branch hall comes under attack.
Luo partners with senior disciple to investigate a series of mysterious events.
Hmm.
It sounds like a simple story.
Well, it sounds like a simple story, but it sounds already something that you wouldn't typically see coming out of Hollywood, like a cat living in human form.
Right.
But that's super unique and something really attractive for And also.
Since its debut on July 18th, the film has generated a box office revenue of 483 million yuan, that is, almost 70 million US dollars, as of August 29th.
87 on Douban, which is a movie review platform, and the thing is, I've watched the short, the animated version of the short TV series of this, the same franchise, the same franchise, and for that series it's like five minutes per episode and And it lasted for several years to be released only around 20 episodes or something.
They are really slow, but it was a really good story.
And it has a strange taste of humor in it.
By saying strange, I mean very... It's not... Well, let me find a better word for it.
It's a classy, a very good kind of taste of humor in it.
It's...
The kind of joke that you enjoy because of the rhythm of the storytelling, instead of just the playing with words or playing with a character, fell into a dip hole.
So it's a surprise element of surprise kind of joke.
Like a little slapstick?
Yeah, it's hard to explain.
Like physical comedy?
No, it's about the tempo.
The tempo.
No, it's about the rhythm of how the story is told.
So it's a very I would assume adult kind of, in the sense that adults with a certain kind of understanding can appreciate the joke.
Is that typical?
Is there a style of Chinese comedy?
I've never thought about this before.
They say that British comedy is very dry, right?
Not a lot of facial expressions.
If you're not familiar with the culture or the language.
It's even hard to know if they're making a joke sometimes.
Very sarcastic, right?
American humor tends to be more on the physical side, so you can see them physically moving their bodies and creating humor.
Think Jim Carrey from his earlier days.
How would you describe Chinese comedy?
Is it a mix of those two or completely different?
More on the how you place the language a lot of the times, and for, specifically for this case, the legend of hey, I also watched say a short clips of the behind the scene voice-overing magic, where all the magic happens.
Because I would say that yes, Hong Lin, the jokes were well written in a way that is also well carried out by those voiceover artists.
Because, for example, the Hei, which is a cat spirit, as we mentioned in his earlier period, when he's just appearing as a human boy-ish kind of figure, there weren't many lines for him.
There's just giggling and laughs like...
Like running around and trying to beat up human.
And that was done in such a great way by the voiceover artist that...
Even just simply by seeing her trying to fight in the studio, trying to record, I can feel like there's power in her voice.
You can just laugh along with that video clip alone.
That's a pretty talented voice actor if they can inspire that level of comedy without even seeing their face.
So the comedy lies in so many different dimensions here elsewhere.
So lots of successful stories in the cinema this summer, which is great news for for these animated films.
But there are a lot of series as well animated series on some different video platforms that are finding success.
So what are these?
What are some good examples of the platforms, and maybe we can talk about some of the strategies there.
Yeah, I guess we can start with Bilibili, which is a leading short video platform that's popularly known to have a lot of these domestically made animation series is released and chased upon, I'll say because Bilibili is particularly known to have the quality first approach on the products they're releasing over the years.
And according to one recent article from one entertainment media account, the new return to Tianan chapter of animation production called A Record of a Mortal's Journey to Immortality.
Look at that.
Surpassed 100 million views in one single week.
In a week.
Yeah, and that's extending the long-term popularity of this flagship IP.
And so many of the IPs reviewed on Bilibili.
Another one called The Cage Season 2 returned after six years of the previous season.
And I remember back then when Season 1 first got out, it really raised a huge discussion.
Personally, I'm not a fan of this show.
But I know that it was really a big hit back then.
And all these years later, when they create a second season, people still come for it because it's a really nice story told.
I remember when I first joined Roundtable last year, one of the first topics that we discussed was the success of sequels.
Was that it?
And do you remember what?
Because I think I was on the show.
Really?
And I remember learning.
You know, as we were having the conversation and it just came out like, oh yeah, the first season had like 48 episodes.
What in the West?
That's unheard of.
Right.
They divided season one might have like six or seven episodes.
Season two, they might go a little longer or a first season might have 12, 13.
But if it's not a sitcom, you're not going to get up into like the 20 episode range.
With these online animations, you know, The Cage came out six years ago.
Do they do it in that style, like a 48-episode season, or is it relatively short?
I'm just wondering in one season, how much content... does a person actually get?
It doesn't really matter.
It's not the kind of principle we're going with Chinese shows.
It's more like you want to tell a relatively complete story or you want to finish a chapter of the story to a certain point.
You want people to have closure with the story you're telling, but you also want a little hook, so they would come back for the second season.
So for Chinese shows, not only animated shows, but also TV series, it doesn't really matter, or we do not have a default setting for how many episodes for a season.
Yet it also kind of depends on the nature of the story, in the sense that are you writing or are you creating an animated show or any kind of series based on an existing novel, or you're creating a whole new story and the story, the first form or the first appearance of the story, is in the form of an animated show.
So it doesn't really matter.
It's however long it takes to tell the story.
Yes.
See, Hollywood is so formulaic sometimes it seems.
Well, I would doubt, because sometimes we see there's like a quote-unquote fixed number of total episode number for some TV series.
Sometimes people just...
Simply believe that if there's a new TV series, it should be at either 38 or 48 or 50 episodes to be released.
But for animation products, I'll say just 10, 12, no more than 20.
But it's relatively less than that for TV series.
You don't expect, say, the Cage Season 2 to have 50 episodes, let's say.
Understood, understood.
All right.
So that's Bilibili.
Their approach is, pardon me, quality first.
What's another good example?
Another one would be Youku, which is also a leading, say, video platform.
And this one pushes its new guofeng or modern takes on traditional Chinese aesthetics.
Some of their leading say IP for animation products include Veiled Dreams.
I would say that this is among their more popular ones, which has tapped into the growing female audience market with a revenge-driven heroine narrative.
And by August there's another one called Tomb of Fallen Gods, that has seamlessly picked up the baiting to keep platform momentum high.
So they are trying to Kind of like emerging, tapping into new areas such as the female-oriented content, while combining that with traditional Chinese culture.
I would assume there's like historic scenes and historic costume and props design in these animation products.
And yeah, that's where Youku is going lately.
And for those of you who do not understand China's video platform or video industry that much so, we have.
Billy Believe mentioned that, but Billy Believe was famous for releasing animated related content, video game playing related content, even video game live streaming content.
So it's more like for the relatively younger demographic of the consumer, of the video consumers.
So with billy billy, is this relatively new for them to go in the animated series.
That is going to be what i'm explaining a bit later.
The idea is that billy billy was the one to go to if you want to watch some good animated products.
Okay, It's the major player.
It was the major player.
But you know that this industry is taking off when you see all the other platforms goes into the fight.
Well, by saying the fight, I mean the fight to win over more viewers.
And they each have different strategies in doing so.
Yushan has already mentioned Youku.
Youku, iQiyi, and Tencent Video.
These are also the major players in the video industry.
They are major video platforms.
They have the short ones.
They have longer ones.
They do TV series.
They even create their own TV series.
They buy the IP ones. with or IP of the other famous shows, TV shows, movies, all these things.
They do all these things.
And now they're doing animated products as well.
This sounds like the battle between Netflix and Amazon Prime and Hulu and, like for cable television program, the battle between cable and streaming site.
It sounds a little bit similar.
So Even though the sites are similar in some ways, they try to differentiate themselves a little bit so that they can create kind of an image so that viewers know where to go if they're looking for a particular type of thing.
Yes, and we already talked about Youku going to the aesthetic genre, meaning that the kind of show that you can expect on Youku would be very easy on the eyes.
The character would be pretty.
The style would be...
Almost to the extent of luxurious.
We know that Chinese costumes and Chinese figures can be with a ancient kind of aesthetics, but it's done in a way that modern day viewers can also appreciate and can say huh, that's a good picture.
I can even make a screenshot of it and let it be my desktop desktop screen, something along that line.
But at the same time, with the iQiyi, it is doing a little bit of experimentation in the sense that traditionally still, when we think about animated shows, we think about a good story done in a certain style, a kind of story that is not that complicated, in a sense that it's not out of your expectation.
But I see is certainly doing something different.
It's exploring different genre of stories.
It's taking stories of hard sci-fi to well.
By saying taking, I mean the novel might already be there and they are creating the story to a form of animated films or animated series.
And they're also trying what Chinese people would refer to as female-oriented contents.
So I think 10 years ago or 20 years ago, when I was a little girl.
Female-oriented content refers to the content that every male character would love the female character or the main female character.
It's like you empathize with the main female character.
You would think, hmm, the entire world loves me.
But that day and age has passed.
Now female viewers would even appreciate more of the content that there's no so-called significant other, or The idea is that, as a female major character, I need to be powerful.
I need to have a lot of abilities.
I need to study really hard and have the ability to save the world.
So when the taste changes a little bit, you see the content switch gears with the taste.
Yeah, we talked about this on Roundtable not so long ago about how female characters are changing and people's expectations are changing as well.
We talked about the characters in the video game industry and obviously we're seeing it in animated series as well.
So female-oriented animations is one of the changes.
What else are we seeing?
Are the big IPs, I mean, you talked about Tencent, right?
So they've got to be one of the bigger players in the game, with a lot of history there, maybe a lot of IPs as well.
Do these big IPs, do they still matter as much as they used to?
I think so.
The bigger IPs, let's say, they're still attracting more audiences.
One example I can raise is that I remember just Within, earlier this year, I think, there's a new say animation movie, not created in China, but it's a story that's coming out from the Lord of the Rings franchise and something about the Kingdom of Lohan.
Just a new animation movie made out of that.
And tons and tons of people were like crazy about it, talking about it online.
I don't think people around me watched it, but still it created such a discussion online just simply because it's one topic out of Lord of the Rings franchise.
And also here in China.
According to the Gu Duo Animation Popularity Index, the top 10 Chinese animation titles in June and July 2025 were completely dominated by heavyweight projects with long running annual Series occupying seven to eight spots.
So definitely bigger IPs do have their impact on the market.
It's just.
We're also happy to see so many different variation of genres and different say, focus on the platform are bringing out such a blossoming view of IPs, this industry.
Here it's totally reasonable.
I don't know where i see this.
It might be not that accurate, but it said that the sweet spot of the kind of content that you're familiar with plus the content that you're totally unfamiliar with would be 70 of the content that you know about with 30 of unknown or surprise.
It is the kind of ratio that makes you feel comfortable.
I read a psychological article one year, a long time ago, and it was talking about why people will go back and watch the same series that they've already watched.
Yes.
And that was the reason why is that?
There's comfort there, even in knowing what the characters are going to say?
I don't think that's what we're talking about here.
But a certain level of familiarity makes people want to come back.
But that being said, there are some hidden risks with these big IP sequels as well.
Tencent Video.
They had some pretty high hopes for a series called Renegade Immortal and it didn't go according to their plan.
Yeah, they wanted to have it be a big say breakout for this summer's animation season but instead their changes to the storyline and characters' portrayals kind of backfired on all of those expectations and sparking fan backlash.
Some viewers even started quitting the show afterwards, were even asking for refunds because they hate the adaptation.
Yeah, because for the big IPs you already have an imagination in your head and you have to make sure the creation of the animated shows are in line with the majority of the imagination in viewer or even fan's head.
But, that being said, if we are choosing between a story that is totally unknown by anybody and a story that is already tested to be a big hit, definitely the big hit one would be safer, and that is why the strategy of a lot of these platforms are to hold on to certain big IPs, making sure that we do good recreation of the stories so that the characters are loved, the plot is safe and we can gain some money with that product.
And at the same time do a little bit of an investment in the news stories and see if those are going to be a happy surprise.
I mean, for the production companies, they're really walking a tightrope, aren't they?
It's a gamble when you introduce too much too soon.
Some people don't like it, especially when you're talking about established characters or established storyline.
So it's always a gamble, I guess.
But it's obvious through all of these examples that the market is doing extremely well.
So why is it that you think that people love these so much?
Well, first of all, there's definitely the technological upgrades over the years.
Things look better now.
Also because this animation has a really high frame rate.
So a frame rate is basically how many individual images or frames are shown every second in the video.
The higher the rate gets, the smoother and more lifelike.
For action, yeah.
Especially for 2D animation movie, which already has, say, a disadvantage comparing with 3D.
So that's how they are trying to make technological advancements here.
Higher frame rate and also all the other technologies, AI, CG...
The VR, AR and modeling technology.
They all allow production team to really generate movie vividly and just draw the details to the point where visual effects feels as smooth as watching a real movie or 3D movie.
So that's definitely one point.
And a given would be that it's a good story.
A good content would be always, always drive viewers into the movie theaters.
We know about Nezha 2, the 3D animation that rewrites the story of the Chinese mythology figure Nezha.
Not only is it very successful in Chinese market, Even in overseas market.
For those who are not familiar with the background story, with all the so-called background knowledge of the story, they would be able to appreciate the story.
And since its debut on January 29th, its total box office has surpassed 154 million yuan, and that is 21 billion US dollars in the Chinese mainland.
So with a good story that not only kids can appreciate but also people that are adults, people with not that much of a background can appreciate.
That is always, always the core of creation.
One of the challenges they often talk about when...
You have art going from one culture to another culture, from one market to another market.
Is that cultural barrier right?
But sometimes what we expect to be a cultural barrier can actually be a point of attraction, right?
The types of stories that are traditional in classic tales in China like God of Honor.
That's one right.
Journey to the West, obviously, that comes up all the time.
These types of stories don't exist in Western storytelling culture, right?
But when you show that kind of story, it's so exotic and new and fresh.
These are stories you've been hearing about in China since you were born, right?
But to a Western audience, they're absolutely brand new for a lot of people anyway.
And that is totally an attraction in certain ways.
That's my point.
So you'd expect it to be a barrier, but oftentimes that can be an advantage.
And, you know, there is this hashtag in Chinese social media.
They say I want to borrow a fresh pair of eyes that hasn't seen this just yet, because I want to enjoy it one more time.
So, yes, I agree with you, Steve.
For those who haven't been able to understand the setting of the world, the kind of imagination of the world it's definitely, it can definitely be an attraction.
Well, speaking of other markets, what is going on with Chinese animation internationally speaking?
It's just a cartoon called Pleasant Goat and Big, Big Wolf.
Which I grew up watching, to be honest.
Yeah, this one landed on MTV's nickelodeon kids asia channel and broadcasting in english in 13 countries and regions in asia.
That's cool.
Nickelodeon is like um.
It's like the kids channel.
Yeah, it's all children's programming.
So, like more than a decade ago well, almost two decades ago it was popular on chinese kids channel and nowadays we see it's in english and it's in all over the world.
That's pretty cool.
And also there's the boonie bear series, another very popular Chinese franchise, which is about two bears protecting their forest home from being destroyed by a logger.
That's created by Fanta wild animation, based in Shenzhen.
And it's distributed in more than 130 countries and regions, including the U S Germany, the UK and Russia.
Well, to be honest, I wasn't expecting at least these two franchises to have such a wide global impact as something that I watched as a child.
But then when you look back at it it kind of makes sense, because they're so big of an IP domestically speaking.
And over the years they've been continuously updating their storyline and involving just different kind of genres into this you thought is kind of traditional cartoon structure.
For kids.
Yeah, for kids.
And nowadays we see I think it's the Boonie Bear series having like a sci-fi adaptation of movie just released last year and attracting both kids and their parents.
Yeah, because the parents grew up with it, I guess.
Right.
So these are all the charms of how these characters you know franchises attracting global attentions nowadays.
Get out there and check out some Chinese animation.
It's obviously very worth your time.
