CATDOLL: From animation to film and television, it is not just about watching animation in the cinema.

On September 17, the newly established Tencent Film announced three comic adaptation plans: I Am Bai Xiaofei, Fox Spirit Matchmaker, and The Legend of the Ancient Sword. These three animations have different styles, but they all have complete stories with a world view and are extremely popular. This is also the basis for the success of comic adaptations.

Zou Zhengyu, general manager of Tencent Interactive Entertainment's animation business department, at the press conference

This year is called the big year for animated films. The box office of "Minions" reached 118 million yuan on the first day of its release. The protagonist had no lines and only acted cute and silly, but it still broke the first-day box office record of Chinese animated films. Including the Minions, there have been three phenomenal animated works this year. The success of "The Return of the Great Sage" can be called an accident of the accumulation of Chinese animation, but Doraemon and Minions show the inevitability of the efficient combination of animation IP and modern film industry.

In fact, the contribution of animation to the entertainment industry is not simply limited to animated films. The Avengers and Justice League, which are indispensable to Hollywood blockbusters, belong to the two major comic companies Marvel and DC respectively. They just skipped the animation link and went directly into the ranks of comic-adapted movies. The subsequent games and peripherals are all based on the worldview constructed by the comics. Animation IP has long been an important source of content for the entertainment industry.

Since the IP concept became popular, a sentence, a song, or a game can be used to make a movie. A hot post that circulated on WeChat Moments not long ago, "A review of the weird movies that were approved for filing in 2015," showed the "pseudo-IP" works that might be seen next year, including the song "Fruits of Midsummer" and the sentimental quote "The world is so big, I want to see it," which have become "blockbusters" that may be broadcast on the big screen. This may usher in an anti-climax for "pseudo-IP."

The prerequisite for a truly high-quality IP is "an excellent story with a complete world view". Compared with text stories, animation IP has its inherent advantages. In addition to a complete world view and character settings, it also has visual presentation. Whether it is the character settings or the scene environment in animation works, they are all natural images. The subsequent adaptations of derivative industries such as games, film and television, and peripherals can be passed down in one vein. For example, Mickey Mouse, who was born in 1928, still occupies theme parks, clothes, toys 87 years later... This is the charm of the animation image, and it is also a major killer of its IP adaptation.

In addition, the keyword of IP fever is "fan economy". Anime IP has a huge fan base and is still expanding. For example, the anime IP selected by Tencent Pictures this time: "My Name is Bai Xiaofei", the comic has over 5.5 billion views and the animation has over 2 billion views; "Fox Spirit Matchmaker" has been viewed over 10 million times in a short period of time after being animated; "Shanhe Shejitu" is a typical niche work. It is a Chinese-style anime with a group of core niche fans and the comic has 300 million views. The two-dimensional fans of these anime IPs constitute the second reason for their adaptation.

Cartoon of Mountains, Rivers and States

Because the fans of the ACG industry have long become the target of research - they are young and numerous. According to third-party data, there are 260 million animation users in China, with the majority of those born in the 1990s and 2000s. They have the characteristics of high consumption, high communication, and high requirements. For core ACG users, consuming genuine peripheral products (such as buying action figures that cost thousands of yuan), the high degree of internetization of social communication, and high requirements for products have become labels, which happen to be the elements of high-quality fans with strong conversion. Anime IP can be extended to voice actors, music, cosplay, home dance and other sub-fields. To some extent, the ACG ACG cultural trend is based on high-quality animation.

In the past two years, the domestic animation boom has placed its bets on animation + movies. Can the combination of the two give birth to a new generation of content kings? Whether it is Marvel and DC in the United States or Studio Ghibli in Japan, their core business is movies. In the entire entertainment industry chain, literature, games, film and television, animation... only movies have the most social attention and topic dissemination. Although at present, the sales revenue of the Chinese game market in the first half of 2015 exceeded 60 billion yuan, and as of September, the box office of the entire Chinese film market only exceeded 30 billion yuan, which has broken the domestic box office record. But movies are still the most mainstream business in the entertainment industry and the business with the largest audience. For example, "The Return of the Great Sage" won 900 million box office, and its actual income is certainly not as good as a moderately popular mobile game, but in the final analysis, it has allowed domestic animation to enter the mainstream again and become a phenomenal product. It is natural that it has subsequently driven the chain of peripheral derivative products.

This is also the most important reason why Marvel joined Disney.

Stills from the animation film "The Return of the Great Sage"

From the second dimension to the third dimension, the rise of Internet comics platforms

For Chinese comics, the emergence of Internet comics platforms is the foundation for their rapid development. Before this, Chinese comics were always positioned as "low-end and young", which was certainly due to policy protection and market orientation. This made Chinese ACG users turn their attention to Japanese and American comics. However, with the rise of Internet comics platforms, a large number of high-quality Chinese comics appeared in the ACG field.

For example, Internet comics platforms, led by Tencent Comics, have established a complete IP cultivation and incubation mechanism. Internet comics platforms are generally based on UGC (user-generated content), and the main operating model is: cartoonists publish comics, and the platform modifies, recommends, and commercializes the comics.

Currently, a large number of authors who used to be active in comic magazines have turned to online platforms such as Tencent Comics. Unlike traditional methods, more interactions with readers have been added in terms of content, which is a major feature of Internet creation. Although traditional comics are mainly serialized, they are not real-time and effective in terms of interaction. Through the Tencent Comics platform, editors and authors can directly see readers' feedback and opinions, and conduct subsequent creation of works by analyzing the data of the works. This open creative process can generate "co-creation" between authors and readers, allowing readers to invest more deeply in the works.

At present, Tencent Animation has become China's largest original platform, with a total of more than 20,000 works, more than 500 contracted authors, and more than 6,000 contracted works. More than 40 works have received over 100 million clicks, and more than 200 works have received tens of millions of clicks.

"Fox Spirit Matchmaker" Cosplayers were photographed by the audience at the 2015 Chinajoy

In addition, Tencent Comics has also cooperated with Shueisha and Kadokawa of Japan to vigorously introduce overseas genuine Japanese comics and light novels. This move is to take into account the habit of readers who love Japanese comics to read genuine works. Currently, Tencent Comics is the online platform with the largest number of genuine Japanese comics in China.

After cultivating many excellent animation IPs and opening up the space for animation audiences of all ages, the core competitiveness of Internet comic platforms lies in the ability to incubate IPs and operate the entire industry chain. For animation IPs, as long as they are properly operated, the IPs will have a large number of loyal fans during the creation stage. When the IP matures to a certain stage, it can begin to explore commercialization such as licensing. Through animation, games, stage plays, web dramas, peripherals and other forms, more and wider paying users can be developed, while verifying the value of the IP and further attracting fans in more fields.

Film and television adaptation is an important step. China has always been a major animation production country, but it is only in the capacity of OEM. Its painting skills and technology are not inferior to those of the United States and Japan. However, due to the lack of upstream high-quality IP, domestic animation often falls into the vicious circle of high-quality pictures and poor plots. The popular ones are "Pleasant Goat" and other films targeting the young market. The emergence of Internet comic platforms has finally allowed youth-oriented works to enter the mainstream of domestic animation.