China and the Anime Industry: Growth and Censorship

I think it would take a significant culturally learning curve for outsiders through exposure to Chinese anime before the genre of romance, comedy, or slice-of-life ever becomes popular outside of china. I think China may do well with culturally-neutral anime when it comes to appealing beyond the domestic audience. Girl's Frontline is scheduled to have an anime down the line as a video game, but in storytelling it doesn't really require you to know anything about Japanese or Chinese culture. It takes place in Post-apocalyptic Russia and gets to the point, no fillers or comedy reliefs, and it's easy to insert yourself into the story. The team behind it, from their other works seem to be particularly skilled with gritty storytelling and sci-fi using the anime-style, and I can see potential in them if they ever go into anime as a standalone main project rather than as a supporting project.

I'm not sure of the manga and light novel scene, but unlike China, Japan has the manga and light novel industry that overlaps with the anime industry that feeds off of each other. For China, I think it may actually be from game developers given they have a more steady revenue and existing product recognition where successful anime may emerge from if they move to develop their own. In the long-term, the kinda of relationship between Manga-light novel-anime-video game industry on par with Japan is yet to exist in China. Video game developers may be the ones who jump start the maturity of the scene.

/r/anime Thread Parent