By Yang Zeyu; translated by Jessica Morris During the early stages of Chinese animation, teaching materials were developed according to the needs of those working in the field. With ideas derived from filmmaking practices, these teaching materials standardized operations and the direction of progress in animation, as well as reflected the diverse theories held by … Continue reading The Evolution of Early Chinese Animation Teaching Materials →

By Yasheng She What does it take to transcend a national border to be globally recognized, and what are the responsibilities of being on the global stage? I will attempt to answer these two questions in my analysis of three incidents surrounding the open-world roleplaying game Genshin Impact (2020). While video game is distinct from … Continue reading What is Lost Moving from “Shanzhai” to Global: On the Video Game Genshin Impact (2020) →

By Ann Y. Y. Leung The world-renowned style of Chinese ink-painting animation emerged in 1960 with the release of Little Tadpoles Look for Mama, produced by the Shanghai Animation Film Studio. In terms of art style, this animation studio released a similar animated short film, The Herd Boy’s Flute in 1963, and then Deer Bell … Continue reading A Brief History of Ink-painting Animation in Hong Kong →

By Muyang Zhuang In December 2020, an exhibition was held by the Guardian Art Center in Beijing to celebrate the 120th birthday of Zhang Guangyu (1900–1965), one of the most important Chinese cartoonists. According to the curator, Zhang Guangyu was the pioneer of not only Chinese cartoons, but also graphic design and animation.[1]The curator divided … Continue reading Bell Boy: Cartoonists and Animated Filmmaking in Southern China, 1940–1949 →

By Christopher Rea Animation appears throughout Chinese cinema of the Republican era (1912-1949). Historians have paid close attention to the handful of available fully-animated Republican films. Yet dozens of live-action films also include animated segments, and examining where, when, and why such short animations appear might open up new possible approaches both to animation studies … Continue reading Animation and the Republican Chinese Film Industry →

By Adela Hurtado It was Fall 2016, and I was studying law for a semester in Shanghai at the East China University of Political Science and Law (“ECUPL”) when I first became interested in Chinese animation. I had loved China itself since I was a child after reading “Romance of the Three Kingdoms” in the … Continue reading Journey to the Best: A Journey through Law and Policy for a Flourishing Chinese Animation Industry →

By John A. Crespi What exactly are manhua, otherwise known as Chinese “cartoons”? The word manhua is easy to trace. It is a cognate of the Japanese word manga, though the two-character compound was used on occasion in China from the Song dynasty, in reference to a bird rather than pictures. The art of manhua, … Continue reading Manhua as Magazine: The Case of Shanghai Sketch no. 10 →

By Li Guo In her recently published monograph Puppets, Gods, and Brands: Theorizing the Age of Animation from Taiwan, Teri Silvio insightfully observes that for the author, the animation model could also be utilized to display “how specific local cultural traditions make sense of and contribute to global transformations.”[1] Further, Silvio observes that “recent transformations … Continue reading Hauntological Aesthetics in Taiwanese Animation Feature Grandma and Her Ghosts (1998) →

By Muyang Zhuang  Manhua, a Chinese term that can be translated into English as cartoon or caricature, was a popular art form that flourished in early 20th century China. Emerging in treaty ports such as Shanghai and Tianjin in the late Qing Dynasty, most manhua was published in newspapers or pictorial magazines.[1] Mainly serving as … Continue reading A Literature Review on Manhua Studies →

By CHEN Yishui; adapted by Yixing Li While Chinese animation originated in the 1920s and had an early impact on world animation, animation studies in mainland China remained rudimentary until the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949. The field developed steadily after the Reform and Opening-up and has made significant progress in … Continue reading An Overview of Animation Studies in Mainland China, 1949-2020 →