By Jifeng Huang The History of Chinese Animation, edited by Sun Lijun, makes a considerable contribution to English language scholars who are interested in Chinese animation. In the first volume of this book, Chinese animation in the embryo stage (before 1930), the early stage (1931–1948), and the socialist era (1949–1977) are linearly instructed. The second … Continue reading The History of Chinese Animation (volume 2), edited by Sun Lijun. Routledge, 2022. 220pp. →

By Hui YAN Chen Shaopeng’s recent publication The New Generation in Chinese Animation is based on his PhD dissertation, which Isabel Galway kindly reviewed in 2018. His book follows the general layout of the dissertation. The first chapter, the introduction, provides the historical background of NGCCA, the acronym for “New Generation of Chinese Cinematic Animation” … Continue reading The New Generation in Chinese Animation, by Shaopeng Chen. Bloomsbury Academic, 2021. 304 pp. →

By Thomas William Whyke and Joaquin Lopez-Mugica  Sun Lijun’s edited book The History of Chinese Animation, volume I, is a readable and analytical lengthy study of the artistry, commercial and technical aspects of Chinese animation. It constitutes one of the standout contributions to the English language scholarly field on the subject matter. The long-standing development of … Continue reading The History of Chinese Animation (volume 1), edited by Sun Lijun. Routledge, 2022. 326pp. →

By Sean Macdonald    “Humanity is far from understanding itself. The turning point of civilization’s recklessly unrestrained exploration of the abyss of consciousness has been slow to arrive. Actually, we already know that Hell is our ideal way home (31).”[i]                                                              Hu Xiaojiang, The Father on the Moon Before I read this book, I was … Continue reading The Father on the Moon (Yueqiu shang de fuqin), by Hu Xiaojiang. Guangzhou: Huacheng, 2021. →

By Jason Cody Douglass Armed with a Type-38 rifle to protect herself from bandits, 16-year-old camerawoman Duan Xiaoxuan ventured into the countryside outside of Changchun with half a dozen fellow animators to complete research and preproduction for Thank You, Kitty (1950). Duan had already worked at the Northeast Film Studio for two years at that … Continue reading Chinese Animation and Socialism: From Animators’ Perspectives, edited by Daisy Yan Du. Brill, 2022. 287 pp. →

By Jeremy E. Taylor John A. Crespi’s Manhua Modernity: Chinese Culture and the Pictorial Turn represents an important contribution to the study of print and visual cultures in mid-twentieth-century China. Given the prominence of Republican Shanghai in Crespi’s narrative, this book might also be seen as part of a broader attempt to re-assess the place … Continue reading Manhua Modernity: Chinese Culture and the Pictorial Turn, by John A. Crespi. University of California Press, 2020. 198 pp. →

By Peng-yi Tai Puppets, Gods, and Brands: Theorizing the Age of Animation from Taiwan is a truly unconventional book about animation. It is unconventional not because it is so deeply interdisciplinary, ranging from religion, film and media studies, psychoanalysis, sociology, to East Asian studies, but because it is essentially an anthropology of animation. Rather than discussing … Continue reading Puppets, Gods, and Brands: Theorizing the Age of Animation from Taiwan, by Teri Silvio. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2019. 270 pp. →