MEDI 211_Critique_JinzhouLiu

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1 - Criticism of Douluo Continent: A Chinese Animation Television Show Economic Operation Jinzhou Liu Department of Media Studies, Vancouver Island University MEDI 211: Understanding Television Professor Ravindra N. Mohabeer, PhD April 8, 2022

2 Criticism of Douluo Continent: A Chinese Animation Television Show Economic Operation Animation plays an important role in China's Television program industry, and it has experienced a long and tortuous development. Since its decline after the last golden era between 1976 and 1980, the Chinese animation industry has generally been eclipsed by larger Japanese and American productions. However, in recent years, China has carried out economic and political changes in various industrial fields, the development of Internet technology and the opening of the market, and many other factors that make the Chinese TV animation industry have signs of revival. Douluo Continent is produced under this social industry trend. Compared with the animation works before the revival, its operation form is more in line with the market economy needs of today’s era. So how does the way this anime TV show relates to China's industrial economy? This essay will combine the TV log and related research to conduct a critical analysis of Douluo Continent to get the answer. Douluo Continent is a very famous fantasy anime series in China. It’s based on a fantasy novel of the same name by Tang Jia San Shao. The background of this story is designed in a fictional fantasy world called Douluo Continent. It tells the story of the protagonist Tang San cultivating “Wuhun” in this world and a series of experiences with his partners as the center of the story. This anime TV series is jointly released by Tencent Group and its subsidiaries Penguin Films and Xuanji Technology. Tencent Group is responsible for major capital investment, and Xuanji Technology is responsible for animation production. Updates to each of its episodes are released every Saturday at 10 am on the TXTV-14 channel and Tencent's video streaming service application, Tencent Video.

3 Before the main content of Douluo Continent begins, the first images to appear are the brand and sponsors of the animated series, the first thing that appeared was the Tencent Pictures logo. Sponsors are an integral part of the Chinese animation industry, they provide the impetus for the production of Chinese animation from the economic level. According to Villén Higueras et al. (2020), “Notwithstanding economic support from the Chinese government and the large amount of resources sustained by the big studios of this country, the small or medium-scale animation producers continue to have difficulties in materializing their projects” (p.131). There are many large and small animation studios in China, and most animation studios failed because they could not get enough funds to support animation production. So how finding sponsors to provide financial support for their studio's animation production process has become one of the efforts of many studios. Take Douluo Continent as an example. The largest sponsor of Douluo Continent is Tencent Pictures, a subsidiary of Tencent Group. Yin and Sun point out that “In addition to its own three major labels, Tencent Pictures, Tencent Penguin Pictures, and Tencent Video, Tencent also holds shares in Huayi Brothers, Bona Film, and Maoyan Entertainment, as well as a controlling stake in New Classic Media through its China Literature Limited brand” (p.303). This is enough to prove that Tencent Pictures is one of the most well-funded sponsors in China. So how did Xuanji Technology Studio, the producer of Douluo Continent, win the favor of Tencent? In my opinion, an excellent ID is the main factor for Douluo Continent to attract Tencent. As mentioned earlier, Douluo Continent was originally a very famous fantasy novel in China, and this name has a large audience of fans in China. And Douluo Continent is made into animation will inevitably make the name of the audience groups concerned, which may bring

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4 huge economic benefits to Tencent, such as high ratings and member recharge benefits. Here's why Tencent Pictures invested a huge amount of money in Douluo Continent's production, which is based on the premise of possible more profits. This complementary relationship between sponsors and studios is a common economic relationship in China's animation TV industry. After finishing the main sponsor of Douro Continent, the sponsorship of the commodity brand to this animation is also worth paying attention to. As described in the TV Log, in the middle of each episode, the show's storytelling pauses and inserts ads for real-life products. These ads are unrelated to the main plot of the story, but use the main characters of the show to promote and describe the products. Kugler (2017) mentioned that “TV shows and movies have been forced to obscure logos on real products because manufacturers did not want to be associated with how those products were used on camera” (p.5). In other words, the reason they did it was to avoid appearing in TV series as an advertisement without the permission or sponsorship of the relevant product brand. The actual goods that appear in any TV series can affect the audience and thus involve economic benefits or copyright issues. However, this situation in Douluo Continent is completely implanted as an advertisement in the animation TV show with the permission and capital injection of the commodity producer. In the Douluo Continent episodes, the adverts focus on the real-life food industry. It featured two products, instant noodles and a drink from a Chinese brand. Inserting pictures of Tang San and other protagonists eating instant noodles and drinking drinks at a time other than the main story, and the cooperation of the lines, successfully played an advertising role in the program. The audiences of TV shows may be influenced by these advertisements and buy these products in

5 real life, bringing economic profits to the corresponding industrial brands, this is what brand sponsors of these products expect. Put simply, this is a link between China's animation TV industry and other industries. Economic benefits link the two unrelated industries together and jointly promote the development of the two industries. Then it studies the relationship between audience and economy. For questions about the audience of the Douluo Continent, the first thing that comes to my mind is the target audience it is aimed at. In my opinion, the main audience for this anime show is teenagers and young adults. Because this kind of fantasy theme is the most attractive to the younger generation, it is easy for young people to be addicted to a series of fantasy scenes described by this theme. According to a research survey on Douluo Continent by Comicguests (a famous Chinese animation magazine) in 2021, “the main age range of viewers watching this animation series is between 12 and 21 years old, accounting for 68% of the total audience”. Compared with middle-aged people who have passed their youth, such fantasy themes and false exaggerated effects are no longer attractive. This first determine the age range of the audience for this anime, and then what attracts the audience of Douluo Continent to spend money on this anime TV show? Knowing that watching this anime requires registering as a premium member on a TV platform or Tencent's streaming software, which costs money. In my opinion, the excellent plot of the original novel is one of the main reasons. But for anime TV shows, the production of special effects is particularly important. Special effects can give the audience a strong sense of visual impact and immersive reality. In Douluo Continent, Wuhun is a fictional material that has no substance, and the battle between Wuhun can only be reflected by making special effects. Such special effects cannot make the audience see an

6 obvious sense of falsehood, so the producer invests a lot of cost and time in the production of special effects and colors. Special effects bring unique feelings to the audience that other forms do not have, so in order to enjoy the plot under special effects, the audience is willing to spend money for anime TV series. And the money spent by the audience flows into animation studios and sponsors, thus forming a cycle. That is, sponsors and studios spend their economy to produce anime, and part of the income from anime is to continue to maintain the production of anime shows. In conclusion, through the analysis of Douluo Continent, a well-known Chinese animation TV series, we have a relatively deep understanding of the operation form of China's animation TV series industry today. This form of operation is closely related to the current economic market in China. This mode of operation can be explained as a cycle. That is, the sponsors fund the production of the shows, and the profits from the release of the series flow to the sponsors. This cycle promotes the common development of China's animation and TV show industry and other industries and drives the economic cycle of the Chinese market. In general, Douluo Continent is a successful animation TV show in China's current animation economic market and represents the economic operation form of most other animation TV shows.

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7 References Liu, J. TV Log. MEDI 211 Assignment. Vancouver Island University. Villén Higueras, S. J., Ma, X., & Ruiz-del-Olmo, F. J. (2020). Crowdfunding as a Catalyst for Contemporary Chinese Animation. Animation, 15(2), 130–144. https://doi.org/10.1177/1746847720933792 Yin, H. & Sun, Y. (2021). Analysis of China’s Film Industry in 2020. Journal of Chinese Film Studies, 1(2), 295-328. https://doi.org/10.1515/jcfs-2021-0029 Kugler, M. B. (2017). The materiality of sponsorship confusion. U.C. Davis Law Review, 50(5), 1911. Comicguests. (2021) Research report on the Chinese Animation industry in 2021. ISSN 2095- 1272. 38-127.