Author| Xiao Sanjun
National comics are on the rise again?
At the beginning of 2023, an animation called "Chinese Strange Tan" has continued to ferment word of mouth since it was broadcast. Because it skillfully integrates the elements of traditional Chinese aesthetics, it is very different from American comics and daily comics, and has a strong Chinese aesthetic style, so it quickly won a lot of praise, and many viewers believe that "Chinese Qitan" has become a symbol of the rise of national comics this year.
The field of national comics has been very lively recently. As early as "China Strange Tan", the "Three-Body Problem" animation was launched at the end of last year, and since the two animations were on the air at the same time, it was inevitable to compare with each other. Blowfish Jun found that although the Douban score of "The Three-Body Problem" was lower than that of "China Qitan", its playback exceeded that of the latter. As of writing, the "Three-Body Problem" animation has aired 6 episodes on Station B, with a total of 320 million views and an average of more than 53 million episodes. "China Qitan" has broadcast 3 episodes on station B, with a total of more than 56 million views, and the average number of episodes is more than 18 million. Deducting the number of broadcasts from other channels, just from the perspective of station B, the popularity and out-of-circle degree of "China Strange Tan" are actually not as big as imagined.
The praise for "Chinese Wonders" is varied. "Dream back to childhood" is a saying, and the Chinese version of "Love, Death and Robots" (hereinafter referred to as "Love Death") is another kind of boast, and in the context of the rise of national comics, the revival of Chinese aesthetics with such an animation is somewhat beyond the ability of the work itself.
It can be understood that the audience is eager for high-quality national comics, especially when the performance of "The Three-Body Problem" is not satisfactory, "China Qitan" emerged, its story and painting style are familiar, and behind it stands the existence of Shanghai Art Film Studio (hereinafter referred to as Shanghai Meiying) with a childhood filter, which is logical to praise it. But the flood of praise is also out of touch with the actual situation, "China Qitan" has brought some new explorations to the national comic, but for the entire industrial system of the national comic, it undoubtedly carries too high expectations.
The glory that was once far away, the reality of loneliness now
Talking about "Chinese Odd Tan" can't avoid the existence of Shangmeiying.
As one of the producers of "China Strange Tan", Shanghai Meiying has an incomparably glorious history. From "Trouble in the Heavenly Palace" to "Little Tadpole Looking for Mother", from "Nine-Colored Deer" to "Tianshu Qitan", a large number of Chinese animations created by Shanghai Meiying are world-renowned for their high-quality standards and national aesthetic characteristics, forming the "Chinese School" in animation.
Tracing back to the source, the origin of the "Chinese School" should be "The Proud General" in 1956. At that time, Tewei, the director of Shanghai Meiying, put forward the slogan of "exploring the road of national style", and the work directed by him boldly borrowed the stage elements of Peking Opera and introduced the pipa song "Ambush on Ten Sides", which officially opened the road to the nationalization of Chinese art films. In 1960's "Little Tadpole Looking for Mother", the style of ink painting was introduced into animation, the so-called "creation of frightening gods", such a completely Chinese aesthetic made Shanghai Meiying internationally famous, and also opened the reputation of the "Chinese School" in the field of animation.
Since then, Shanghai Meiying has continued to make efforts, successively launching paper-cutting animations represented by "Zhu Bajie Eating Watermelon", origami animations represented by "Smart Duck", and puppet animations represented by "Laoshan Taoist", which can be described as a hundred flowers. In the eighties, Shanghai Meiying launched a number of high-quality works, such as "Nezha Troubles the Sea", ink animation "Landscape and Water Love" and so on.
It can be seen from these animation works that the Chinese aesthetic characteristics advocated by the "Chinese School": that is, a large number of elements are drawn from traditional culture, and the meaning and god are written laterally, bringing the audience reverie space in the form of white space and blurring, and the soundtrack is mainly based on national musical instruments. These animated works nourished the childhood of generations of people, but there was a premise, that is, these works were paid for by the state and were the product of the planned economy.
For the cartoons of that year, there are regulations, the total annual production of the country is between 300 and 400 minutes, most of the production tasks are issued to Shangmeiying, and the excess part will not be additionally acquired, which leads to Shangmeiying concentrating resources to complete production tasks, and lack of interest in additional production.
Taking "Nezha Hai" as an example, its length is less than 70 minutes, and 3 directors Xu Jingda, Yan Dingxian, Wang Shuchen, 42 animation staff, 3 photographers and many technicians and auxiliary personnel are used to participate in the production, spending a total of 1 year and 3 months before and after, drawing more than 50,000 drawings, so that the artwork created is actually cost-effective.
Take ink cartoons, for example, its own shooting process is extremely complex, requiring a lot of energy and time, and the same time can shoot four or five ordinary animations. It is indeed remarkable in art, but in terms of cost, it is really not cost-effective, in the era of unified purchase and marketing, you can still rely on the state to pay, and in the face of the market economy self-financing profit and loss, compared with the increasingly mature industrialization of the day, Shanghai Meiying has no chance of victory.
In the late 80s, Shanghai Meiying's talents began to lose a lot, and they successively went south to Shenzhen to become the screws of the international animation industry. The direct cause is the income problem, and the income of thousands of yuan per month in the south is obviously more attractive than the salary of more than 100 yuan. In 1995, the original art film unified purchase and underwriting policy was completely canceled, and since then, Shanghai Meiying has been completely pushed into the tide of market economy, although there have been attempts like "Pauline Lantern", but the overall decline is inevitable.
Once wide, it has become people's memories of the glory of Shanghai Meiying. Fans relish the influence of "Iron Fan Princess" on Osamu Tezuka, so that he devoted himself to the animation industry to create "Astro Boy", talking about Osamu Tezuka's pilgrimage mentality when visiting Kamiyoshi... Behind the repeated telling of these stories is the reality of Shangmeiying's gradual loneliness: holding a large number of IPs, but never being able to launch a work with the style of yesteryear.
(Osamu Tezuka visits Meigen)
In this sense, "China Strange Tan" has been regarded as a rare out-of-the-loop work by Shanghai Meiying in recent years, although it is not a work completely created by Shanghai Meiying. Apparently the audience doesn't mind distinguishing these details, and what could be more exciting than bringing childhood memories back to the present. In this way, "Chinese Qitan" stood on the shoulders of giants with nostalgia and received the cheers of Ye Qinghui.
Chinese aesthetic revival, can national comics stand up?
Of all the praise for "Chinese Wonder", the expectation of its benchmarking "Love Death" and the praise of Chinese aesthetics are very typical two views.
The eight stories, unrelated to each other, are composed in the form of unit short films, which at first glance do look very similar to "Love Death", but they are only superficially similar, and the two are completely two types of products. Behind the story of each season of "Love Death", it relies on animation studios and first-class talents from all over the world as support, which is Netflix's "pinching" of the global animation market with its strong funds.
Netflix's leniency of the "Love Death" project was a big factor in its success. From planning to screening, the whole project took years and was full of experimental methods and technologies, not a product of catering to the market. Such a loose environment cannot be achieved in the domestic market, not to mention the extremely mature industrial system behind it.
On the other hand, in "China Strange Tan", several consultants of Shanghai Meiying contributed a lot. Among them, Chang Guangxi served as the director of Shanghai Meiying, participated in the film crew of the next episode of "Trouble in the Heavenly Palace", served as the original artist in "Nezha Troubled Sea", and directed the 1999 animation "Pauline Lantern". Zhou Keqin also served as the director of Shanghai Meiying, and also participated in the filming of the next episode of "Trouble in the Heavenly Palace", including "Hulu Brothers", "Monkey Fishing for the Moon" and so on. As a screenwriter, Ling Shu has successively created animation works such as "Laoshan Taoist" (adapted from "Liaozhai"), "Ruler Between the Eyebrows" (adapted from "Soushenji"), "Hundred Bird Yi" (adapted from Zhuang folk tales) and other animation works. Gong Jianying served as the director of the planning and creation department of Shanghai Art Film Studio. Yao Guanghua is one of the directors of "Shuta and Baker" and the painting supervisor of "Pauline Lantern".
Mountain and water show AI drawing Creative by Entertainment Capital Tea tea
It can be seen from the resumes of the consultants that their creative experience has been greatly exerted in "Chinese Wonders", and the use of many elements gives people a sense of déjà vu, such as the use of traditional elements, the grasp of adaptation and selection of materials, and so on. The experience of these older generation experts is extremely valuable and cannot be easily replaced, which makes "China Qitan" unable to achieve new studios every season like "Love Death", because old experts are limited. This reliance on Chinese Wonder makes it closer to workshop production than systematic operation.
The establishment of the industrial system can not be completed overnight, but the aesthetic tradition can be gradually restored. The first episode "Summer of the Little Goblin" excavates the elements of "Journey to the West", and the fox in the second episode "Goose, Goose and Goose" obviously pays tribute to the fox in "Tianshu Strange Tan", and the earrings that pass away with the wind and turn into cranes are more full of reverie space. In the third episode of "Linlin", the national instruments such as gong, flute, and flute used in the soundtrack have been successfully practiced in the previous works of Shanghai Meiying, which is why many viewers feel that "Chinese Qitan" is familiar in terms of aesthetic style.
Shanghai Meiying has a tradition, "do not imitate others, do not repeat yourself", which is very enlightening for today's national comics. It is not that making animation of national elements such as ink, paper cutting, and shadow puppets is called a revival of Chinese aesthetics. Whether there is artistic sublimation in the telling of the story, the white space of the picture, whether the soundtrack fits the story, etc., are all issues that need attention. After all, simply reproducing the glory of the past has no future, nor should it become a way out for Chinese animation, and such a big word as Chinese aesthetic rejuvenation is by no means supported by an animation, it can only be said that it is a direction of national comic efforts, national comics want to stand up, and the effort is not only aesthetic.
The rise of national comics still needs to be explored, and the establishment of an industrialized system has a long way to go
The decline of Shanghai Meiying actually caused a lack of tradition, resulting in national comics that can only imitate foreign countries in terms of learning objects. Learn American comics, learn daily comics, imitate a circle, and go through a series of exploration trial and error before touching the door. And "Chinese Strange Tan" can also see a strong sense of exploration.
The first episode "Summer of the Little Goblin" excavates "Journey to the West". The sword goes far and tells a fable of "beating workers", coupled with the gentle reversal at the end, which makes people quite moved after reading it. Episode 2 "Goose Goose Goose" is based on the story of "Goose Cage Scholar" in "Continued Qi Huoji", which was originally a localized variant of foreign Buddhist stories, and its layered story mode is very interesting, and the strong Gothic style can also be seen in the painting style. Episode 3 "Lin Lin" is less Chinese aesthetic than the first two episodes, and more similar to ordinary 3D animation.
From the several episodes that have been broadcast, it can be seen that "Chinese Wonder Tan" explores the animation itself, not only the technical expression, but also the adaptation of the story. If the road of "Chinese Qitan" works, then from "Three Words and Two Beats" to "Liaozhai Zhi Yi", from "Zi Bu Yu" to "Yu Chu Xinzhi", there will be a huge bonanza in these classical Chinese literature waiting to be developed. To the traditional beggars, it is not a breakthrough for the current national comics, after all, the highest-grossing animated film is still about Nezha.
In the remaining stories, "Jade Rabbit", "Flying Birds and Fish" can see the shadow of folklore, and "Xiaoman" belongs to one of the twenty-four solar terms, and also belongs to traditional culture, all in the category that can arouse the audience's expectations. Therefore, before "China Strange Tan" has not been fully broadcast, you can put aside your preconceived judgments and enjoy a surprise like opening a blind box.
As for the heavy responsibility of reviving Chinese aesthetics, you may wish to leave it to others, because "Chinese Wonder" is a small and medium-sized project after all, if it is forcibly said to represent the rise of national comics, indicating the revival of Chinese aesthetics, I am afraid that it will be killed. The brilliance of Chinese aesthetics depends on the support of the industrial system, and with the collective wisdom and efforts of the Shanghai American Film Industrial System, the masterpieces of the "Chinese School" have been produced one after another. And now the entire system of Shanghai Meiying is far worse than it was back then because of the loss of talent, and there is still a long way to go to regain the glory of the past. After all, from workshop production to systematic industrialization, not one or two works can be achieved overnight.
In the early years, Shanghai Meiying made an animated short film called "Dong Dong is Coming", which tells the story of a monster called "Gollum" that shook the entire forest, only to find out that it was just the sound of a papaya falling into the water. The voice of the rise of national comics has been shouting over the years, but there are not many high-quality works, and we should still praise the courage of the experimental exploration of "China Qitan", which is helping the country to travel. I hope that the rise of national comics is real, not the gu of the new era.