© Photo: Maria Avdonyushkina
Ilya M. Goncharov
Source: Russian Satellite News Agency
https://sputniknews.cn/20220621/1042050112.html
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EpicCon, a popular culture festival, was held in Moscow last weekend. Characters in the Chinese game Genshin Impact's protagonist costumes and female writers' novels with a copper smell are the most popular among Russians. A booth with the theme of "Magic Ancestor" even won the first place in the best program of the pop culture festival. On the contrary, this year the number of Western protagonists has been greatly reduced. Journalists from the Russian Satellite News Agency who attended the event spoke with Chinese pop culture enthusiasts.
Russian youth love Chinese pop culture
In general, Western audiences' interest in Asian culture is mainly related to Japanese anime or Korean pop music (K-pop). However, one of the most successful examples of cultural export in the 21st century is China. According to China's iResearch group, about 145 million people outside of China currently read Chinese online novels. In Russia, the popularity of Chinese pop culture has flourished in the past 5 years, and there has even been the first fan translation of the chinese online novel queen's ink incense copper stink works.
VK, one of Russia's major social networks, has so far a community of more than 500 fans who have studied the creation of inky copper stink. The largest fan community has between 15,000 and 20,000 subscribers. There, fans of the much-loved "Magic Ancestor" and "Blessing of the Heavenly Officials" share their theme paintings, discuss the twists and turns of the plot, and look forward to the next story.
The inky copper stinking book was officially published in Russia today, with a large number of illustrations by Russian artists. The first volume of the Blessings of heavenly officials alone was printed in 40,000 copies.
The love of Chinese aesthetics and charismatic characters is just heating up. In 2020, the world saw the hit of the theme song of "Original God" (miHoYo - Genshin Impact), in which Russian youth sat dry during quarantine and spent their daily lives in the fantasy space of Tivat.
Role-playing, competitions, calligraphy
As a result of the pop wave, at EpicCon-2022 in Moscow, a large number of themed events and role-plays were dedicated to Chinese works. The "Magic Ancestor" booth finally won the Best Booth Award of the Event, and it was one of the largest booths at the event. Here, anyone can learn about the plot of a Chinese novel, take a picture with any of the protagonists, work with them to clear the land of demons in an addictive and flexible game, get predictions, and even practice calligraphy under the strict guidance of Lan Zhan himself.
According to the cosplayers who organized the booth, the secret of the success of Chinese works lies in the beauty and elegance of the stories and characters presented.
"Did you know that even a novel full of beautiful stories, characters, and environments is not liked by Russian audiences or readers? Everyone values high-quality good works that are beautifully and elegantly finished. These are the contents that flow out of the stinky pen of the inky copper. These beautiful stories are written for elegant connoisseurs," says Yelena, who plays "Jin Zixuan."
Mirasol, dressed in the costume of the novel's protagonist "Wei WuXian", believes that if the inky copper-smelling short stories are particularly popular in Russia, it is because of the detective plot.
"In Russia, the series of investigative and detective novels are popular. However, the plot itself and the characters here are much deeper than in other detective stories. While the plot is complex, the author also reveals the emotions of the characters. This is very important. ”
It's not enough to just write a good plot. Mirassol believes that it should be beautifully presented:
"Even at Confucius Institutes, when we write hieroglyphs in class, our teachers often tell us: Yes, hieroglyphs are written correctly, but not beautifully. Chinese always try to do everything beautifully. Therefore, when interesting, educational, and beautiful content are combined, it is impossible to turn a blind eye. ”
The girls believe that China eventually succeeded in conquering the Western pop culture market. The recipe is simple, and Chinese animation and game masters simply stop trying to please Western consumers, but show off the full beauty of their own culture:
"China is starting to integrate into global pop culture, which is great. I don't think China could guess genre and form for a long time. After all, even the creators of Protosthesis didn't succeed immediately. The West wasn't so interested in their previous games. Today, Japanese original animation produced by Chinese studios is not even bad, and it is often even better than the Japanese themselves. All that's left to do is be happy for them. ”
Yelena (Jin Zixuan), Anna (Jiang Wanyin), Mirasol (Wei Wuxian)
© Sputnik / Iliya Goncharov
The statistics do a good job of confirming the girls' words. Istari Comics, which publishes The Magic Ancestor, launched a fundraising program. It only takes 400,000 rubles (about 48,000 yuan) to publish all 4 volumes, but fans of the series donated more than 15 million rubles (about 1.8 million yuan).
The EpicCon Pop Culture Festival is one of the largest pop culture festivals of its kind. Every year it brings together connoisseurs of all films, series, computer games, advanced technologies, animations, books and board games in Moscow and St. Petersburg.
The Moscow Pop Culture Festival was a huge success and became the biggest event in moscow's pop culture scene this summer. Back in early July, EpicCon's gates will reopen in St. Petersburg, Russia's northern capital.