“If
you don't take charge of shaping your own destiny, others will apply their
agenda to you“
My
name is Ling from South China. I don’t consider myself a very enthusiastic animation
fandom. I don’t wait for the coming of latest period of an anime or manga every
week. I have never joined a cosplay party. I don’t have tons of action figures
of a character from animation. But I have never stopped watching it since I
grew up when some classmates or friends as old as me are losing their interests
in the animation. I still remember most of the animations from Japan and
America I watched on TV and the manga from the manga rental store are quite
late imported, maybe one or two years after the time they were published in
local markets. At that time, my and friends and I liked to not just watch animation
but also draw the animation characters. Absolutely some questions often
bothered us in the old days. For example, quite a lot of animations were not
fully introduced. The tools to draw manga were very limited and hard to find
out in the related book markets. There were not many manga classes since the
teachers were very few. Thus, few students had a thought to become an animator
or work in this industry. There was even no such an environment to develop
animation.
Nowadays,
profiting from the powerful Internet, the children and adolescents can access
the latest series of anime and manga in special websites easily and quickly. More
and more major cities hold carnivals each year and the carnivals are popularized
among high school students and some of workers born after 1980s. Shanghai
Disneyland Park has been construed since April 8th in 2011. It was announced
that a joint venture was to be established by American DreamWorks and Shanghai
Media Group on February 17th
in 2012. The foreign companies entered our markets to explore our consuming
industry but not the creation of animation, the opinion I hold different from
the view by Rosen referred in this article. Even though Chinese animation fandoms are increasing and other
derivative industries are being well developed, it is still difficult to see
our local excellent animations. Although the animation, Pleasant Goat and Big
Big Wolf, has done well, it cannot be taken as good enough by the majority of
fandoms yet. The conversations and motif are still simple. The targeted
audiences are not clear because the outlooks of the characters in it are
supposed to be created for children, but in fact some contents are unsuited for
children. Moreover, the most popular animations are still mainly made by
Japanese. As Allenbaugh said, if we don’t take charge of our animation industry
by ourselves, it would be designed by others. It is obvious because when we get
used to watch Japanese animations, we already have a standard of good animation
raised inside that is set during the time we are enjoying those Japanese anime.
Hence, we become somewhat strict on our local animations and are easy to
complain that why we cannot create animations as good as those by Japanese. It
may not be fair for our animators. It could be hard for our animators. We have
invested quite a lot of money in this industry, especially buying the advanced
technologies aboard, why cannot we still generate animation that we are proud
of. Technologies cannot guarantee the quality of animation which is one of my
key terms – the relation between animation and technology. I’m curious in the
deeper reason.
Unlike
the elders, the new young generation born after 1980s has their thoughts and bravery.
The most important thing is that they are spoiled. They have higher
requirements on things they eat, read, wear etc. At some point, this willfulness
is challenging the quality of animation. After exploring the starting point that
what animation is, I found it could not be the core of my topic. Though we can
make a lot of advertisements to tell people that animation is consisted of images,
so what? Then we should emphasize it or can generate gorgeous animation? Or I
should ask why we may be attracted by animation? Is that because it is an
entertainment? If this is only reason, I guess this industry won’t be supported
by parents. Often we take entertainment as a joy but not teaching. However, we
are enlightened not just from the books but also a piece of talking or a scene
of life. Spirited Away, Brave, 5 Centimeters Per Second and so on give us a lot
of touching about nature and affects. The combination of the so-called
education and entertainment (the second key term of topic) in animation seems
to be ambivalent so that the design of such stories would be hard. But we still
see a power from the animation. After all, animation is a culture product that
involves our cultural values.
I
know animation ratings are set up very early in other countries. But China does
not have one yet. What? Yes. We should build it as soon as possible. But except
for the guidelines that rating system can provide, what else does it serve? I
got a very interesting viewpoint from a film maker in a Talk Show program and
this maker kind of complained that because there is no film rating system in China
it is hard to make a specific type of film. The film needs to meet most of
audiences’ tastes so that film makers cannot focus and explore on one type of
film. This discussion prompts me that Chinese animators could face the similar
situation as well. I found another meaning of rating system which I couldn’t
imagine as a normal audience. Based on the rating system, audiences and
animators are protected and may want to support the animation industry. It is
basis of our expectation on the development of animation. So it is a very
important and last argument in my topic.
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