CATDOLL: Japanese media reports that Chinese anime fans cannot tolerate plagiarism

Many foreigners think that China is a "country of copycats", and of course this is true in many cases. They also think that Chinese people should be indifferent to "copying", but recently a Japanese media article said that in fact, Chinese anime fans care more about the problem of copying than Japanese people, and even to the point of "cleanliness obsession". What is going on? Let's take a look.

The case that caused the commotion

Recently, the filing of a Chinese drama was discovered by netizens. After reading the plot introduction, many anime fans thought that the drama was a copy of the "Fate" series, which caused an uproar. In fact, in the past, Chinese works that were considered to be plagiarized from "Hikaru no Go" and "5 Centimeters per Second" were also criticized. It can be said that in China, there is a criticism of "domestic works plagiarizing foreign works" every once in a while.

However, from the perspective of the Japanese, there is nothing wrong with those Chinese works that are considered plagiarized. However, despite this, these works still encountered fierce attacks from Chinese anime fans. For example, although the "copycat 5 Centimeters per Second" incident is indeed serious, the so-called plagiarism of the "Fate" series, according to the information obtained by the author, people think that the plagiarism includes:

1. In a world different from reality, the "Dream War" is held every 300 years around the "Imperial Seal" that can realize any dream;

Second, using the names of legendary heroes, one can use amazing powers;

3. Those who have the name of legendary heroes are selected as participants in the "Dream Battle" and fight to realize their wishes.

If we look at the content of "different characters throwing themselves into battle to realize their dreams that they cannot give up", it does have similarities with "Fate: The Holy Grail War", but I think it's a bit too much for the Chinese anime fan community to bombard it just for this reason.

Regarding the criteria for judgment, the author also asked Chinese anime fans and got the following answers:

First, if you claim to pay tribute to a certain work but fail to gain recognition from Chinese fans, this is not acceptable;

Second, if it is not clearly marked as a “tribute”, it will not work;

3. The scope of being considered plagiarized involves characters, plots, and settings, and the requirements for each of them are very strict. However, magical girls and the like have become a "conventional" genre, so to some extent they may be spared...

4. Even if there are some settings that are fine if they are considered fan works, once they become commercial works and are marked with the author's name and presented as original works, they will immediately be criticized.

From the above conclusions, we can see that in China, if you do not clearly express "respect for the original work", then you are basically OUT. If a work does not encounter such criticism, then it is simply "not discovered".

Fans’ reactions and unique Chinese phenomena

Fans have such a harsh reaction to plagiarism, which may be related to the current Chinese general belief that "masterpieces cannot be altered or insulted." China now has an aesthetic consciousness that regards the re-editing of traditional literary works and classics as a "taboo," and this is also followed by Chinese anime fans. When some of them believe that certain works use elements of classic anime works or pay tribute to the works, they will think that this is a kind of tampering and blasphemy of the "masterpiece."

In addition, "some Japanese works similar to those works have not entered China very often, so most local anime fans and fans lack the knowledge that 'the works influence each other' compared to Japanese otaku." Therefore, works that have gained popularity and fame among Chinese anime fans are very easily regarded as "sacred and inviolable."

In addition, making things complicated is also a phenomenon unique to China and the position held by Chinese anime fans.

In China today, if you express your love for Japan or Japanese works, you may be attacked by people around you. From the perspective of anime fans, if something is considered to be a copy of a Japanese work, many people will think, "I will be attacked by both Chinese and Japanese!"

According to Chinese anime fans, even if no one explicitly expresses this negative attitude to them, they still can't help but think of these questions:

"This thing will definitely be considered plagiarism in Japan, and then the Japanese will criticize it again."

"It's so painful to be denied and attacked by both Japan and China..."

To this end, they will attack those works that are copycat or suspected of being plagiarized in an extreme manner.

In addition, even ordinary Chinese people who are not anime fans find it difficult to accept the phenomenon of plagiarizing Japanese works. If the plagiarism object is a Western cultural work, it is not a big deal, but if it is an Eastern cultural work...

"China, as the origin of Eastern culture, actually plagiarized Japan..." Such phenomena also make it difficult for ordinary people to accept the plagiarism of Japanese works.

China's production environment

Finally, please allow me to briefly introduce the situation of the producers. One of the reasons why there are still many copycat works in China, even though fans hate copycats, is that "sponsors or people with decision-making power do not care about copycats and even encourage them." For this reason, instead of trying to create original works to avoid the risk of being criticized, they clearly stated that they "want to copy", so there are many works that "don't say they are copycats, they are completely copied."

According to some practitioners in the Chinese anime fan community, even when they present "works and settings that are not considered plagiarism in terms of impact", they will be scolded "It's different from Japanese XX works!" "Copy it completely!" In order to meet the above requirements, the situation of "only plagiarism" has emerged. From the above introduction, it can be seen that for Chinese anime fans, the problem of plagiarism of Chinese works may become a very troublesome thing.

Japanese media have done a lot of analysis, and we can see some Japanese views from them. Although they think the copywriting of the TV series is not plagiarism, this may be related to their creative concept. However, the plagiarism that Chinese anime fans think is real, and Japan has also criticized the "copycat" phenomenon in China before. So as anime fans, what do you want to say about this report? Welcome to discuss.