Animation co-productions between Japanese media firms and their Asian counterparts were once few and much between, but up to now decade, with the rapid rise of animation industries in China and South Korea, the pace has picked up.
Indeed, FilMart is playing host to an animation panel March 13 that explored the benefits of cross-border collaboration.
Still, given the massive worldwide demand for animated IP, fueled by Netflix, Crunchyroll and other streamers, it may very well be faster. Industry observers have cited various barriers to Asian animation co-productions, including political, structural, legal and cultural issues.
In China especially, where the appetite for Japanese and other foreign animation once seemed unlimited, connections with the Japanese anime industry have grow to be strained, if not severed.
One reason is a 2020 law aimed toward protecting minors that bans anyone under 16 from owning a streaming account and prohibits audio-visual content with “obscenity, pornography, violence, cults, superstitions, gambling, inducements to suicide, terrorism, separatism or extremism” to anyone under 18.
“Not all anime is sex and violence, but a superb half of recent productions are aimed a late-teen demographic sweet spot that’s now forbidden in China,” said Jonathan Clements, writer of “Anime: A History,” whose recently published second edition incorporates latest chapters on the consumption, production and distribution of animation in China.
In consequence of this content clampdown, Chinese media firms that were once desperate to put money into Japanese animation at the moment are more cautious. “They’re well aware that in the event that they pay out for the incorrect form of anime, their investment is worthless within the Chinese market,” said Clements.
By comparison, Korean media firms are more open to anime productions with Japanese counterparts, using Korean comics, web novels and webtoons to produce much of the content.
Meanwhile, the Japanese production committee system has long been a bottleneck for Chinese and Korean media firms. Typically comprised of Japanese entities with a stake within the project as investors or rights holders, production committees could be slow to make decisions and immune to foreign participation. “In my experience, [the production committee] is usually a terrifyingly tedious chicane of obstacles, particularly with old shows where things that you would once agree with a handshake and a whisky now must be run past a bunch of disparate strangers,” said Clements.
But in addition they offer access to Japanese funding, including government money only available to projects with a Japanese production partner. “The power to purchase into the ‘ownership’ of a brand new anime while it’s being made can save a canny investor tons of of hundreds of dollars on the distribution end,” Clements noted.
In other words, a hurdle value jumping over.
