CATDOLL: The largest merger and acquisition case in China's animation industry is announced. Aofei and YouYaoQi join hands to build a pan-entertainment ecosystem

On August 12, 2015, the “IP Universe Explosion – Alpha Animation and YouYaQi Together Press Conference” was grandly held at the China World Hotel in Beijing. Both parties officially announced that Alpha Animation and Toys intends to acquire 100% of the equity of YouYaQi’s parent company Beijing April Starry Sky at a transaction price of RMB 904 million through a “cash + stock” transaction method.

Alpha Animation is currently the largest animation culture group in China and one of the leading pan-entertainment industry platforms in China. YouYaoQi is China's first original Internet animation platform and is committed to the transformation and cultivation of the entire industry chain of platform IP. This marriage between the two parties, whether in terms of the scale of investment involved or the impact on the industry, is the largest merger and acquisition case in the history of China's animation industry, which will strongly promote China's pan-entertainment industry into a new era.

YouYaoQi platform has more than 40,000 works, and Aofei has harvested China's largest "animation IP gold mine"

Recently, the Chinese original animation work "Hinabee" announced that it will be officially broadcast in Japan on August 15, becoming the first case of "reverse export" of Chinese original animation to Japan. This news caused a sensation in the domestic animation industry. "Hinabee" is a highly popular work born on the "YouYaoQi" platform, directed by Li Haoling and adapted from the original science fiction comic of the same name drawn by cartoonist Sun Heng on the YouYaoQi platform. The Japanese version of the heroine Liuli is voiced by the well-known voice actor Hanazawa Kana.

Prior to this, "One Hundred Thousand Bad Jokes", also discovered by the YouYaoQi platform, had created many miracles. The online hits of the comic and animation of the same name "Ten Cold" exceeded 2 billion. The movie of the same name "Ten Cold" became one of the movies with the highest box office returns in the past 30 years of Chinese cinema.

"What is YouYaoQi? YouYaoQi is a place that brings together the true desires and ideals of countless creators. YouYaoQi is a place that grows with the rebelliousness and dreams of youth." According to Zhou Jingqi, the founder and CEO of YouYaoQi, to date, the YouYaoQi website has been visited by more than 8 million users per month on average, with more than 40,000 comic works, more than 17,000 cartoonists stationed here, and 60,000 pages of comics updated per month. Therefore, "In the past one or two years, many groups have proposed to invest in or acquire YouYaoQi, including film and television groups, game collection associations, and other groups. But we still believe that YouYaoQi needs a partner who understands the value of animation better."

Chen Derong, senior vice president of Alpha Animation and Culture and CEO of Interactive Entertainment, also admitted that YouYaoQi is a very good asset. First of all, it is original. The products on the YouYaoQi platform are not produced according to standardized assembly lines, but are domestic IPs that can trigger emotional resonance and cultural identity. This will be the mainstream of pan-entertainment consumption in the future; secondly, it is a platform. It can continuously produce works and IPs, and can meet the needs of different fan circles at different stages; finally, it is a benchmark. It is a place that can retain authors and fans, and allow fans to participate in the creation, so that high-quality products can be continuously produced and phenomenal IPs can be continuously incubated. "For Alpha, coming together with YouYaoQi is equivalent to harvesting China's largest animation IP gold mine."

Aofei's "pan-entertainment map" above K12 was exposed for the first time, helping YouYaoQi launch the "U Plan"

After the transaction is completed, all comic IPs owned by YouYaoQi will be incorporated into Alpha Animation. But at the same time, Zhou Jingqi said, "YouYaoQi will continue to retain its independent development and fully enjoy its unique two-dimensional culture. "YouYaoQi Animation will not be renamed 'Alpha Animation'. We and Alpha will work together around YouYaoQi to carry out a series of industrial strategic layouts and build YouYaoQi into an original animation group with stronger comprehensive strength."

Chen Derong also agrees with this view, "YouYaoQi's joining is also a shot in the arm for Alpha Animation. It will become the heart and soul of Alpha Animation's pan-entertainment ecosystem."

At this press conference, YouYaoQi also announced the "U Plan" for the next stage of development. Its core content includes: increasing the number of existing professional comic works and cartoonists on the platform by more than 10 times. More importantly, YouYaoQi will provide a new and upgraded income mechanism for a large number of comic authors who are in a state of free creation, providing a return space several times greater than before. It will also establish YaoQi Pictures to open up more works and strive to create China's most complete copyright distribution management system. The release of the "U Plan" has focused on strengthening the upstream creation and downstream value mining of animation IPs, and will create a "2.0 version" of a more powerful original animation platform.

On the day of the press conference on August 12, Alpha Animation also announced that "Duan Nao", "Zhenhunjie" and "Hinabee", which are nicknamed "Yaoqi's Three Big Comics" by fans, will be made into live-action movies. These three movies will be jointly produced by Alpha Pictures, Yaoqi Pictures, Jujiao Pictures and the American 451 Group. They will follow Marvel's example of using super-cool visual effects and live-action performances, integrating Hollywood resources, and bringing the works to a new level. In addition to these three masterpieces, eight major movie plans including "One Hundred Thousand Bad Jokes 2" were also exposed at this press conference. This is the largest film plan release in the history of Chinese animated films.

For YouYaoQi's large-scale high-quality IP, Alpha Animation has already made system preparations for its operation and development. At the press conference, Alpha Animation revealed its pan-entertainment layout above K12 for the first time, including AiLeYou, which produced "Thunder Fighter", FangCun Games, which produced "Magic Heaven Record", PanTower Studio, which produced "Era of Lust", Buka and Magic Screen, two of the top mobile comic platforms in China in terms of traffic, SF Light Novel, China's largest original light novel website, ACfun and Douyu TV, China's otaku culture base, Regent Entertainment and 451 Group in Hollywood, etc., initially achieving full coverage of products, portals, content and platforms in the field of the second dimension.

Alpha Animation's complete pan-entertainment system enables the copyrighted works on the YouYaoQi platform to realize product monetization through Alpha Animation's global IP management and licensing channels operated by the entire industry chain, and to achieve brand value-added by leveraging the mature resources on Alpha's pan-entertainment platform.

Zhou Jingqi, founder and CEO of YouYaoQi

IP connects everything, and the "new generation of Disney" emerges

The industry believes that the marriage between Alpha Animation and Toys and YouYaoQi is a far-reaching cooperation for the Chinese animation industry. In the future, Chinese animation IP will have a deeper impact on "three-dimensional" life.

In Chen Derong's words, "IP connects everything." This sentence has two meanings: the first is that we need to have a high-quality IP with the potential to "connect everything"; the second is to allow high-quality IP to quickly and effectively extend its reach, establish relationships with fans in multiple dimensions, and truly "connect everything."

After more than 20 years of development, Alpha Animation has accumulated and created the largest number of IPs with the highest reputation in China, from authorization to original creation, from manufacturing to the development of the entire pan-entertainment industry chain around IP, including "Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf", "Armor Hero", "Balala the Fairies", "Kai Neng Robot Wars", "Fire Boy King", "Happy Superman", "Super Wings", "Lightning Finish", "Hurricane Soul", "Bakemon Bear", "Tai Chi Mouse", "Kung Fu Cooking Girl", "Thunder Fighter", etc. It has also formed a pan-entertainment ecology with IP matrix as the core, integrating film and television animation, animation, games, literature, movies, media, platforms, toys, derivatives, education, theme parks, etc.

Aofei Pictures CEO Su Zhihong

"The pan-entertainment industry ecosystem with IP as the core has entered an explosive stage in China. As a sustainable operating asset, the commercial value of IP will continue to expand and increase in value in China. In the future, Aofei will fully enjoy the dividends of the revaluation of IP value and the explosion of commercialization in China." Securities analysts said that Disney, the global media and entertainment overlord, has a market value of nearly 200 billion US dollars, which has increased by about 3 times in the past 5 years. Disney's continued rise is due to its continuous strengthening of IP as its core competitiveness. It has made three large-scale acquisitions of Pixar, Marvel, and Lucasfilm in 6 years. It has the world's top IP, which ensures sufficient IP energy for its development.

The layout of Alpha Animation and YouYaoQi is similar to that of Disney in terms of business logic. That is, the good IP+ content creativity on the YouYaoQi platform can create greater commercial value after being combined with the overall platform of Alpha Animation. It will reshape the independent IP creation ability, IP diversified development ability and IP channel output ability of the entire two-dimensional field, and lead the ACG industry to a new transformation. With the help of this transaction, Alpha Animation's IP will be extended to all age groups, with richer content types, strengthening its leading advantage in creating extraordinary creative content for Chinese and even global audiences. At the same time, the superior content will in turn promote the further evolution of Alpha Animation's "IP+big ecology", and gradually create a "new generation of Disney" in the continuous self-value cycle of IP.