Marching to its own toon

Cartoonist Chen adds that progress is due mainly to sound government policies: "The Chinese government has actively promoted the cartoon and animation industry, while in other countries this industry is left to fend for itself."

The Ministry of Culture published a policy statement last August, saying it intended to become a big player in the industry, based on an estimated domestic market of 300 million youngsters who watch cartoons.

Xiao Yongliang, deputy dean of the School of Arts and Communication, Beijing Normal University, says the government has promoted the industry since 2006 by investing, giving tax breaks and setting up an office to coordinate efforts.

Mulan is a 1998 American animated feature film produced by Walt Disney Feature Animation.It tells a story of a China's femal hero.

Just last weekend, Beijing Municipal Bureau of Radio, Film and Television set up the three districts of Haidian, Shijingshan and Tongzhou as "Beijing Cartoon Industry Bases".

Before 2000, there were only several hundred students at two schools majoring in cartoon and animation, but in 2008 there were more than 500 academy-level institutions, with 500,000 students being trained.

Additionally, there were fewer than 100 companies in the market before 2000 employing about 50 people each, but now there are 5,000 enterprises in this business.

Even so, the Chinese animation industry does have problems. Xiao, who used to work at Blue Sky Studio, says there are no outstandingly successful Chinese cartoons.

"A successful movie should make more than 10 times its cost, and get good social feedback. Take Disney's Finding Nemo, for example. It cost less than $100 million but it made as much as $1.2 billion profit in two or three years."

Xiao adds that many locally produced cartoons are "cultural garbage.... Many companies want to make a profit as soon as possible, so they do not care about the quality. Even Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf is very rough."

"CCTV pays 1,500 yuan per minute, and that is the highest among Chinese TV, so some companies can't balance costs. They can only survive by government funding and by providing cartoon making training to the public," Xiao says.

Storytelling is the local cartoon industry's weakest point. Magic Wonderland is scheduled to be shown on Nickelodeon and is a 2008 Accolade TV Award winner targeting kids aged five to 12. Created by Zhejiang Zhongnan Group Animation Video Company (ZN Animation), it tells the story of Ocean, a beautiful girl who lives on a sun-kissed island with her grandfather and battles an evil wizard and pirates. Although it's a good story for kids, it cannot hold the interest of an adult audience.

Disney cartoons, on the other hand, set out to be "family movies", which means that adults can also enjoy the stories.

"Chinese animations are pedagogical. Why can't we just tell a good story? And there are really no cartoon movies created for adults in China, which is a pity," says Ye Shengying, a 29-year-old Japanese cartoon fan.

Many of the early Chinese cartoons that were successful were taken from ancient Chinese stories, such as A Journey to the West. "But this is not the only way forward. You can see in Disney cartoons that there are different peoples, opinions and cultures involved," Xiao says.

Another problem, Xiao says, is adopting new techniques: "At Disney, Pixar, or Dreamworks, there are special teams developing software to make cartoons, but in China, we only use foreign techniques."