Children play video driving games at the CCG Expo. Photo: Cai Xianmin
By Huang Xi
The 6th China International Cartoon and Game Fair (also known as the CCG Expo) closed on Monday and the big winners turned out to be Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf, The Story of Hongmao and Lantu, The Mad Monk, Kung Fu Bunny and Tadpoles' Mummy. This was the first time the organizing committee presented awards for animation.
The five-day event was fun for youngsters in the city, a special treat for their summer vacation, and it attracted hundreds of thousands of visitors.
But underneath the exciting and boisterous films, games and cosplay performances, this year's event cast a critical eye on the Chinese animation industry, an industry that is trying its level best to stand out from the legions of international cartoons.
The art of storytelling
China has a 5,000-year history of heroes and villains, myths and magic, and benevolent emperors and despots, but domestic animators seem to concentrate on animals (like Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf, and The Story of Hongmao and Lantu) or adapting old cartoons (such as Tadpoles' Mummy).
Meanwhile some of the industry's foreign counterparts are capitalizing on Chinese history with animated films like Mulan and Kung Fu Panda.
The lack of innovation and storytelling has hindered the development of the Chinese animation industry for decades even with modern technology involved in animation, production and broadcasting.
Mark Osborne, the director of Kung Fu Panda, said that China should learn from Hollywood when it comes to storytelling and that storytelling is the basis for the success of the box office smash Kung Fu Panda.
This rule has proved true for cartoon prosperity in the Western world as well as countries such as Japan where the business of animation is a gold mine.
Gundam, a Japanese animated series about robots, has had more than 600 episodes since it first aired in 1979.
The cartoon is an early coming-of-age tale that has impressed Japanese and in-ternational audiences for over 30 years, and still offers fresh ideas every season.
Setting an example
There have been some attempts to use fresh ideas in Chinese cartoons. Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf tells the story of a group of goats and two wolves and was broadcast on more than 50 television channels nationwide, with ratings reaching 17.3 percent.
With over 500 episodes, this series is considered one of the longest running cartoon series in China and is popular with children and adults.
Hoping for further potential business opportunities for the cartoon, the Shanghai Media Group (SMG) acquired the rights and produced two animated films in 2009 and 2010.
The box office for each surpassed 100 million yuan ($14.76 million) making itself a legend in the industry.
Birth of an industry
This is far from enough for SMG.
Learning from the business models in the West like The Walt Disney Company, one of the leading animation, filmmaking and entertainment companies in the world, SMG has concentrated its sales: on air, online and on the ground.
As well as screenings and distribution, products from Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf, such as toys and novelties, are another major source of profit, generating long-term economic return.
As well as SMG, many companies are looking to grab their pieces of what they hope will be a booming market.
The opening of the Shanghai Animation and Comics Museum in Zhangjiang High- Tech Park has created another animation haven in the city.
Zhangjiang has a high-tech label, but it has been striving to turn itself into a creative, cultural and technological giant, especially after being named the "National Online Games and Animation Industry Base" by the General Administration of Press and Publication.
Another animation cradle in the city is the Shanghai Animation Film Studio, which is famous for generating cartoon characters such as the Calabash Brothers, Avantis, Sanmao, Sloppy King, Black Cat and Shuke and Beita since 1950.
The studio has become an innovation center for animated films and has set up an extensive distribution system.
Many of the homemade animated films at Shanghai Animation Film Studio have been successfully promoted in foreign countries that are not always keen on the Chinese mainstream.
With the booming industry, the government has also made a series of policies benefiting its development.
According to the Ministry of Finance, there is no industry in China that enjoys such preferential tax policies.
"The Ministry of Culture sponsored this year's event, showing its concern for the development of the animation industry," said Zeng Yi, the public relations manager of Toonmax Media, a subsidiary of SMG and the organizer of the CCG Expo.
