CATDOLL: Tencent Animation: 500 Japanese animations introduced, none of which are inappropriate for children

On March 30, 2015, the UP2015 Tencent Interactive Entertainment Conference was held in Beijing. At this conference, Tencent will release a new "pan-entertainment" strategy as well as business strategies for literature, animation, film and television, and announce a number of new PC and mobile games.

At the press conference, Zou Zhengyu, general manager of Tencent Interactive Entertainment's animation business department, cartoonist Tong Yao (representative work "Ace Inspector"), animation director Li Haoling, and Aha Entertainment CEO Zou Shasha were interviewed and answered reporters' questions about the future development direction of Tencent's animation business.

500 Japanese comics imported: no content inappropriate for children

At the press conference this morning, Tencent Animation announced that it will introduce the digital copyrights of 500 Japanese comics in 2015. Among the huge number of works, the themes, content, and user groups of comics are all different. Comics in Japan have a relatively strict rating system, but in the Chinese mainland market, there is no rating system for anime works. How can the health of the content be guaranteed?

Zou Zhengyu said that Tencent mainly uses two dimensions as reference when selecting Japanese anime works: the first is to see how popular the work is; the second is to see whether the imported comics meet the review standards of relevant Chinese departments. Therefore, children and young readers do not have to worry about the issue of healthy content.

At the end of last year, CCTV exposed the problem of some content violations of Tencent Animation. Zou Zhengyu said that Tencent did not avoid such problems and actively cooperated with the review of content by domestic competent authorities. After corrections and optimizations, Tencent Animation business was not affected at all.

Tencent obtains the authorization of famous comics such as Naruto

Fighting piracy: Tencent is willing to take the first step to accelerate the improvement of the copyright environment

At present, the animation market is flooded with piracy. Even for works like "Naruto" and "One Piece" that have been officially introduced, there are still a large number of readers who are exposed to pirated copies. What is the commercial significance of Tencent's large-scale introduction of Japanese animation this time?

Regarding this issue, Zou Zhengyu said that when Tencent Animation was first established three years ago, it faced a huge and difficult piracy problem. However, Tencent Animation continued to introduce works mainly for two reasons:

1. Zou Zhengyu believes that good works know no borders and that people who love them should be able to read them more easily. This is Tencent's original intention to introduce them. In addition, Tencent is learning more about the experience of comic production, creation, and promotion in the process, rather than simply taking them in and translating them into Chinese.

Second, back to the issue of copyright protection. Zou Zhengyu said that China's copyright environment has been very poor over the past decade or two, and Tencent is willing to be the first to take the first step in improving the industry environment. Only when the copyright environment gets better and better will authors have the passion to create and innovate.

Zou Zhengyu believes that piracy will continue to exist for a certain period of time, but the trend towards legalization on the Internet is getting faster and faster, and the industry environment is much better than it was a few years ago.

As for the commercial significance of this, Tencent is not in a hurry to realize it. In the long run, profits will come naturally. In the future, IP licensing, paid reading, monthly subscriptions, rewards and other methods can all bring commercial benefits to Tencent's animation platform.

Revitalize Chinese comics: Give Chinese original creators some patience

In addition to introducing a large number of excellent Japanese comics, Tencent is also committed to cultivating and supporting domestic original creators. Zou Zhengyu believes that from the perspective of sentiment, he hopes that the next generation of comic fans will not only read American and Japanese comics, but will also be able to see more excellent works by Chinese authors.

At present, the Chinese animation market is growing rapidly and the market capacity is expanding. However, the number of excellent works seems to be unable to match that of foreign works. In this regard, several animation authors said that, like the film market, the animation market is also a process of growth. The quality of Chinese animations that everyone sees today seems to be inferior to that of foreign ones, but both the authors and the market are growing. I hope readers can be patient with the original creators.

Zou Zhengyu also said that unlike the film market where any bad movie can still make a profit, the carrier of Chinese animation is the Internet, which is changing rapidly. Tencent Animation Platform has a strict elimination and cut mechanism to ensure that the author's work meets the needs of users.

The "Zombie Brother" movie team announced this morning that they will cooperate with foreign film teams to produce the film. Regarding the division of labor, animation director Li Haoling said that foreign teams have relatively excellent process chains, and domestic teams provide them with creativity and ideas. It is equivalent to foreign teams helping us to do the work, but the core is still the domestic creativity and team. I believe everyone will see a wonderful "Zombie Brother" movie.