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TRENDING
March 25, 2024
Rise in Asian Animation Collaborations
To take advantage of the steadily growing global demand for Asian animations, media companies in China and South Korea are moving to collaborate with Japan. By Ching Wai.
Asia - Recently, animation co-productions between Asian media companies have seen a rise in response to an increase in demand. China and South Korea have the most notable growth in their animation industries, while Japan undoubtedly dominates. This rising industry is further explored during Filmart’s animation panel on 13 March, including talks of the advantages of cross-border collaboration.
Streaming services like Netflix and Crunchyroll (a leading anime streaming site) have helped to globalise demand for Asian animations - anime’s popularity on Netflix reportedly increased by over 50% in the U.S. in 2020, and Crunchyroll saw more than 2 million paid subscribers globally in that same year. The significant and growing global demand for Asian animation is in spite of the rather high barriers to entry that exist, including political, structural, legal and cultural issues.
However, these barriers to entry seem to have more effect on the investment and consumption of animations, especially within Asia. For example, a Chinese law that bans those under 16 years of age from owning a streaming account and prohibits explicit content passed in 2020. This law meant that Chinese media companies have become more cautious and reluctant to invest in animations from Japan and beyond. At the same time, potential global investors could be hindered from entering the Chinese market, despite possible high demand.
On the production side, Chinese and Korean media companies have offered access to Japanese funding. This includes government money exclusive to projects with a Japanese production partner. Such deals are evidence of a want for collaborative productions between China and South Korea with Japan. Jonathan Clements, author of Anime: A History and who has recently published its second edition, commented on the merits of such an investment. “The ability to buy into the ‘ownership’ of a new anime while it is being made can save a canny investor hundreds of thousands of dollars at the distribution end.”
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