Editor's note: The 30th Shanghai TV Festival started soliciting films in early December last year and ended on March 31 this year, collecting nearly a thousand works. The Magnolia Award selection of each Shanghai TV Festival is a collection of excellent works of radio, television and online audio-visual from April of the previous year to the first quarter of the current year, reflecting the industry's outlook. Recently, we have invited industry insiders to sort out the creative styles of the five major categories of Chinese dramas, overseas dramas, documentaries, cartoons, and variety shows during this cycle, and look forward to the announcement of the shortlist in May.
Author: Song Lei, member of the Chinese Society of Literary and Art Critics and director of the Creative Planning Center of China Animation Group
(This article only represents the author's industry observations)
IP is a core word in the animation industry. The formation of IP can make products more valuable, and the use of IP can make works more competitive. In the selection cycle of the Magnolia Awards from 2024 to 2025, the combination of animation and IP is closer. It becomes an incubator, amplifier, charger, and connector of IP, allowing the vitality of more IPs to be continuously extended and amplified.
IP Incubator
Animation has become a medium for the incubation of many IPs. For example, "Little Monsters' Summer" became a blockbuster after its debut in the online animation short film collection "Chinese Tales", and its first feature film will be released in 2025. From 2024 to 2025, many platforms have launched more short film collections, allowing some new people, new works, and new IPs to meet the audience.
"Capsule Project Heroes" is already the third season of "Capsule Project". The 11 episodes focus on the theme of heroes, spanning ancient and modern times, with a wide range of themes such as reality, science fiction, and magic, and styles that include differentiated textures such as two-dimensional hand-painted and three-dimensional CG. Many works have the potential to become big hero IPs. For example: "Unknown Master" tells the story of a courier brother who is actually a highly skilled demon hunter, reminding us that every seemingly ordinary worker in our lives can become a hero who protects people's happiness; "Cat Crossing the Bridge" gives a kitten a human name, and depicts a touching family story around the kitten.
"Cats in the East" is also a series of animated short films, using different styles and techniques such as ink painting, freeze-frame, and cyberpunk. These short films are not only an attempt to use modern animation technology to showcase oriental aesthetics, but also a debut performance of a new IP with cats as the theme. "The Great World" refers to ancient Shanxi architecture, and collects folk houses, murals, and brick paintings in Fujian, Guangxi, Guangdong and other places, spreading China's excellent traditional culture. "Cats in Chang'an" takes the audience back to the heyday of the Tang Dynasty, using cat bells as clues to connect the touching emotions between the cat girl and the general.
The Daydream Animation Short Film Collection brings together many works created by new directors. For example, Bishamonten tells a philosophical and gripping story through the delicate portrayal of fake monks, desperadoes and swordsmen. What is commendable is that the works are shot in stop-motion animation, with realistic puppet designs and smooth movements, representing the current high level of stop-motion animation production in China.
Posters of "Master Without a Name", "Cats Go East", and "Bishamonten"
IP Amplifier
Animation continues to play the role of an amplifier for IP to expand its audience and influence. From 2024 to 2025, many IPs of online literature, comics and games have magnified their value by being adapted into animation.
"Slaying God" and "Sword Comes" are the most outstanding works of animation adapted from online literature. "Slaying God" is adapted from Sanjiu Yinyu's original novel "I Learned to Slay God in a Mental Hospital", which created a strange worldview of gods grafted onto humans. The most important thing is to highlight the leading role of heroic predecessors in the awakening of people's abilities and consciousness. The protagonist does not constantly improve for his own selfish interests, but has a certain sense of social welfare from the beginning, which greatly enhances the positive energy attribute of the work.
Posters of "Slay the God" and "Sword Comes"
"Sword Comes" is adapted from the novel of the same name by the writer Fenghuo Xi Zhuhou. The first season of the story revolves around the strange world of Lizhu Cave Heaven. While gradually revealing the suspense, it contrasts the selfishness of fighting for treasures and the public spirit of protecting the people, which makes the protagonist feel touched all the time and makes him keep the original intention of benevolence and righteousness when choosing the path. The work has a strong Chinese style texture, the action is well portrayed, and the emotional content is full.
There are also some new works adapted from online comics and games, which extend their IP. The French cartoon "Upside Down River" is adapted from a fairy tale novel. It uses elegant colors and highly generalized geometric shapes to draw characters and scenes, telling a poetic story. The cartoon "Tiddler", adapted from a British picture book, tells the story of a little fish who loves to tell stories, gets lost in the sea and finds his way home through his own stories. The film appropriately makes the flat picture book three-dimensional and stereoscopic, allowing emotions to be hidden in the comfortable pictures and colors, giving people warmth and positive energy.
Posters of "Adventures Against the Current" and "Little Fish Tells Stories"
The Bear and the Bird is a very exciting animated short film. Adapted from the French picture book The Bear's Letter, the film reproduces the highly artistic style of the picture book in its original form, fully combining imagination with humanistic feelings. The work has an excellent sense of color, and the portrayal of various animals, plants, and environments is lifelike. As a road movie, the protagonist, a pink bear, overcomes numerous difficulties and dangers to find his bird friend, and his motivation is friendship, which is very touching. The launch of the animation has also brought new vitality to this 2017 picture book.
The American-French co-production "League of Legends: Two Cities Season 2" is undoubtedly another highly anticipated work. The production and marketing cost of each episode of the film is as high as 14 million US dollars, and it is known as the most expensive series in the history of animation. The second season continues the world view of the two cities' struggle in the previous work, telling a story full of emotional conflicts with both personal and social consciousness. The work complements the game IP and has become a global hit animation.
"Bears and Birds" "League of Legends: Battle of Two Cities Season 2" poster
IP Charger
The IP charging effect of animation is obvious. From 2024 to 2025, many IPs continued their brand vitality through animation sequels.
In addition to the continuous launch of sequels to brand works such as "Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf" to enhance audience visibility and influence, we have also seen the emergence of children's animations such as "Shuke and Beta: The Battle of the Water of Life", which continues to "recharge" the classic images of "Shuke and Beta" in Zheng Yuanjie's fairy tales, and new youth animations such as "Tea No. 2 Middle School" have been launched, which continue to "fuel" this youth series of works with realistic themes.
Posters of "Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf", "Shuke and Beta: The Battle of Life Water", and "Tea No. 2 Middle School"
In the field of online animation, the sequels of "The Son-in-law" and "The Thoughts of Love" have also received further attention and popularity in the market. "The Thoughts of Love" continues to extend the story of people who cannot redeem themselves as gods on an island full of mysteries. While gradually solving the suspense, it also reveals human nature, which has temptations, selfishness, kindness and justice. The work constructs a convincing fantasy world through exquisite characters and scenes.
Online theatrical animation has become a creative trend and a new charging station for IP. In 2024, many online animations such as "Under One Person: Rusted Iron Reappears" and "Painting Rivers and Lakes: Tiangang" launched theatrical works. Through the plot methods of spin-offs and new biographies, they explained the original stories based on the popular characters of the original works, while gaining good ratings and continuing the vitality of the brand. "Perfect World Theatrical Edition" and "Swallowed Star Theatrical Edition Blood Luo Continent" took out the more independent and exciting plots in the original novels and shot a feature film separately, allowing the audience to find unusual psychological expectations for the works in the fixed viewing experience of the annual series. The emergence of this annual series + theatrical version of the operation model represents that Chinese online animation is constantly maturing.
Internationally, there are also many excellent animation sequels. The Japanese sports animation "Blue Penalty Zone Season 2" continues to combine football with the strong external rules of confined space. While introducing the Japanese youth team as opponents, it emphasizes the athletes' pursuit of dreams and technology. The Canadian animation "Paw Patrol: Xiao Li and the Engineering Family" is a construction engineering special animation of "Paw Patrol". It continues to use cute puppies as the protagonists to spread the culture of architecture, engineering and machinery, which is suitable for children to watch. The British animation "The Adventures of Paddington Bear" has come to the third season. Compared with the real-life and animation co-production of the movie "Paddington Bear", the series uses full CG animation production, which more vividly portrays the daily life of this gentleman bear wearing a red hat and his human friends.
Posters for "The Wind and Smoke of Love", "Blue Forbidden Zone Season 2", "Paw Patrol", and "The Adventures of Paddington Bear"
IP Connectors
Animation also serves as a bridge between IP and other industries. Black Myth: Wukong has boosted tourism in places such as Shanxi, making the tourism consumption-boosting effect of cultural products such as animation and games more valued. Under initiatives such as "culture and tourism + all industries" and "follow movies and TV to travel", the integration of animation and tourism and other industries has become closer.
"New Big Head Son and Small Head Dad - Taking You to See China" is a new work in the "Big Head Son" series. It experiences the customs and practices of various parts of China from the perspective of Big Head, an ordinary Chinese family, and widely covers various topics such as rural revitalization and inheritance of traditional culture.
The large-scale ancient mythology epic animation "Legend of Mountains and Seas" is based on myths and legends and historical books such as "Classic of Mountains and Seas", "Records of the Grand Historian" and "Book of the Later Han Dynasty". It uses a romantic approach to tell the story of Dayu's growth from a young hero to a legendary figure who "fought floods and divided the nine states". It is a creative presentation of Chinese traditional culture.
In fact, there are also many animation ideas and films integrating culture and tourism in foreign countries. For example, the French animation "Belfort and Lupin" tells the story of a court pet dog and a wolf who has lost his sense of smell and adventures in the Palace of Versailles in the 17th century. The film's creative team worked closely with the Palace of Versailles to fully display the history and cultural relics of the Palace of Versailles, conveying its colors, aesthetics and even sounds. It is an innovative display of French traditional culture.
Posters of "New Big Head Son and Small Head Father - Showing You China", "Legend of Mountains and Seas", and "Belfort and Lupin"
In the future, we may see more two-way cooperation between animation and tourism. On the one hand, tourist attractions and cultural institutions will launch more animation characters and promote themselves through animation, comics, games and other means; on the other hand, animation companies will also go out and actively seek local cultural and tourism resources for implantation cooperation, bringing better scene applications and consumption possibilities for the works, thus making the profit model clearer. The role of animation as an IP connector will become more and more prominent.
