The animation version of "Three-Body Problem" has been aired for several days, and this result is good, and the number of views on the first day exceeded 120 million. This is also a point that the audience has criticized about domestic animation in recent years. First, the aesthe

text | Linghu Boguang

"Three-Body Problem" animation version has been broadcast for several days, and this result is good, and the number of views on the first day exceeded 120 million. However, there is a lot of controversy over this evaluation. There is no need to talk about the controversy on the adaptation and restoration of the story. Among them, the controversy about the art style. Many viewers criticized its style as gray and the character modeling does not meet their thoughts. At the same time, the urban wasteland set by the original work and the style of cyberpunk , as well as complaints about the art style that exudes a Western cultural aesthetic at all times, etc.

This is also a point that the audience has criticized domestic animation in recent years. First, the aesthetics of Chinese culture are too weak, at least weaker than those of previous domestic animations. As for whether it is traditional cultural aesthetics, there is controversy. The second is a discussion on the aesthetic definition of characters. You will think of the discussion on squinting eyes in " Lion Boy " and various "white face" modeling.

In fact, both cultural aesthetics in art and character aesthetics have become quite intense. When the " Spirit Cage " was broadcasted in the early stage, the controversy point was quite large. As the quality gradually increased in the later stage, the final episode of the ground team's oriental character appeared. But at present, "The Three-Body Problem" has magnified this controversial point, so why? How should we view this issue?

art demotion, no Chinese face? Why do domestic animations become like this?

I believe that when it comes to the issue of domestic animations, there are many controversies among the audience. But one thing is definitely a consensus: is to compare it with the domestic animation 2,000 years ago, that is, " The Heaven Palace " and "Nezha The Sea". Even if it is compared with "Rainbow Cat and Blue Rabbit" after 2,000, this cultural aesthetic, art style and cultural art pursuit is very serious.

This is the complaint of various details, and the more animation fans are, the more they despise the current domestic animation aesthetics.

Believe me, the animation version of "Three-Body Body" and "One Under One Person 5" are the future of the development of the domestic animation production model. Don't listen to some sentient beings working behind closed doors to fix the previous set (the problem will be discussed below). Unless you take action on " Wushan Five Elements " (strictly speaking, it is different from the previous animation), domestic animation is just a dead end.

In fact, the current domestic animation market is completely different from before. In the early days, "The Great Trouble of Heaven" and "Nezha Has the Sea" and other , the art animations on the screen studio have been written many times, and the systems were different at that time. At that time, it was planned economy, and it was completely made by artists, regardless of time, cost, or market. It was absolutely impossible to play in this era of commercial markets.

The worst time for domestic animation was about 2000 to 2010. At that time, we transformed from a planned economy to a market economy, and there were many problems in the transition from the old traditional art film model to a commercial model, because at that time, the commercial animation industrial chain did not develop.

This leads to commercial animation being no match for American and Japanese animation at all. Teenagers can only watch American and Japanese animations in order toward animation. The official fears of destroying the local animation industry, so he bans TV stations from playing foreign animation during popular periods, and at the same time began to subsidize local animation companies. How severe the two policies of

destroyed domestic local animations? And how serious did young people evaluate local animations at that time? I believe that as long as those who have experienced it are clear, I will not expand it here.

At that time, the animation mode of the TV station was mainly used for children to watch, and of course some of them were good works. For example, "The Legend of the Seven Heroes of Red Cats and Blue Rabbits", "Hidden Goat and Big Big Wolf" that were criticized in the early days, and then "Bears in the Hide", which are now accused of being the gods.

It is in the past ten years that the Chinese animation market has grown into the second largest in the United States, Japan and the animation market in the world. In the past, there were only a few teenagers who could watch it, but now there are a lot of them. Netizens will only ask why they have not surpassed the United States and Japan? Why are there not as many classics and masterpieces as American and Japanese?

These people are ignorant and want to mock them, so they don’t understand these things (of course, ordinary audiences have no obligations).

More words: Compared with art films 2,000 years ago, those animations after 2,000 may not be very good (art films are the same as CCTV's "Four Great Classics", which is really different).

The public opinion situation of domestic animation has never been very good, not to mention that there are works such as "Big Mouth" and " High-speed Railway Man " that cheat subsidies and storyboard Chineseization have further deteriorated the national trend. At that time, the group of national trend dramas represented by "Joy Gray" and "Bears" scored more than five points on Douban, or even lower.

Now, because children who watch those works have the right to speak, the score has become more than 80% points. Of course, part of this score is childhood buff and the production level is only more than 70%. After all, those early Chinese animation dramas were only at the same time, and the level of 2 to 100% of the Japanese comics.

has a bit of similarity, so it is said to be plagiarism, such as "Rainbow Seven" plagiarizes "Seven Warriors", "Little Fugui" plagiarizes "China One", the old version of " Go Boy " plagiarizes "Chess Soul", " Magic Horn Detective " plagiarizes "Conan" and "Joy Gray" plagiarizes "Cat and Mouse", etc.

The common remark at that time was that my childhood was not too happy in "Joy Grey" and "Bears in the Haunted".

In fact, domestic animated movies had no sense of existence in the market before the big hit " Return of the Great Sage ". And there are things like " Autobot Mobilization " and "Lei Feng's Story" that almost drove market confidence into the abyss. It has been said about the domestic serial animation of the same period, and this is the case anyway.

Western face, without Chinese cultural aesthetics? When will Chinese animation "awaken"

Chinese commercial animation, especially the rapid development of teenagers to commercial animation, is after the online animation after 2010, especially the 3D animation " Qin Shi Mingyue " transformed from the first and second TV stations to the third and fourth movies to the online platform, and later led the emergence of domestic 3D ancient animations.

In 2011, the success of the demonic " Hundred Thousand Jokes " led to the emergence of a 2D serialized animation.

Next, the development stage of this domestic animation is roughly like this (there is no official definition yet, I personally summarize it based on the phenomenon).

1: From around 2011 to 2016: Domestic animations have completed the transition from TV platform to online commercial platform, but at that time, big platforms and big capital had not yet deeply involved, which is a bit like early Chinese online novels, independent music, and early online dramas.

works have low investment, rough style, and limited time, but most of the works are original, and the specific aspects of style, subject matter, content, etc., such as "Luo Xiaohei", "Bad Man", " Nano-Core ", " Super Seminary ", etc.

The second is from 2017 to the present: During this period, domestic Penguin, Bilibili and other large capitals have begun to end, and investment and building commercial industrial chains have become more mature, but there are more chaos.

Do domestic viewers often complain that the domestic serial animation has not been completed? I wonder if you have discovered something.

Except for a few domestic original animations born after 2011, such as "The Bad Man" and "Luo Xiaohei", other works have been completed early, or there is no continuation for other reasons. is replaced by big capital and big platforms, because of continuous investment, production capacity is more stable IP animation on .

Look at the first batch of IP animations such as " Bee Bee " and " Brain " in the early days, and the second batch of IP animations, including " Fox Demon Little Matchmaker " and "One Person Under" began to stabilize (the end of big capital). Now IP animations are full of flowers, but to this day, few well-known serialized animations have not been officially completed.

Actually, if you think about it carefully, this development time is quite short. It has only been 7 years since around 2016, and only seven seasons a year, but seven seasons a year are obviously endless. Moreover, there are not enough seasons a year (only a few such as ", the Demonic Master " which only has three seasons, has been completed)

At the same time, this period has emerged original animations that rely on large platforms to invest, but have more pursuits in art style, subject matter, content and creation. However, the animation industry chain before 2019 was not mature enough, and the investment layout of large platforms was insufficient, so they could get better.

For example, how long has the works such as "Wind Spirit Jade Season 1" been updated? The second season has not yet been released.

After 2019, the domestic animation industry chain has become more mature. IP animations are beginning to bloom in full swing, and even in terms of style, style and subject matter, it is not as consistent as before.

For example, 3D animations such as " Mortal Cultivation of Immortals " have a certain pursuit of art style. The 2D animation "Under One Person" is a work that has obvious art style from the early days of learning Japanese cartoons to the current art style. The good legendary animation behind " Dali Temple Log " is a top-level company in the domestic 2D serial animation technology.

At the same time, the production capacity of original animations that is more and more pursuing is becoming more and more stable, with more and more themes and styles.

For example, 2d's " Assassin Wu Liuqi ", "Five Elements of the Fog Mountain", " Time Agent ", etc., and then 3d's "Pillow Knife Song", "Black Gate", etc. The animation version of "The Three-Body Problem" has begun to be original. After success, it is typical of mainstream IP. The early game fan " Crazy Hero " is no different from the same period "Super Theological Academy". The fan of "Fantasy Nodrin" can't go on and dies. Then, with the original "Spirit Cage", it is mixed and gradually recognized later. Finally, the animation version of "The Three-Body Problem".

" Three-Body " is controversial, "One Following 5" is not popular? Domestic animations are about to enter the next stage.

The development of Chinese commercial animation has been going on for more than ten years now. Of course, the point of view is not strictly rigorous, but you just need to be clearer. The art film model in the planned economy period before the 2000s was not much inherited, and even the TV station's young animations from 2000 to 2010 are not mainstream now.

Why can’t I see the previous domestic animation set of domestic animations? Why are aesthetic and artistic pursuits severely degraded?

The reason is that the older generation of planned economic animation is different from the modern business model. Later, the talent was out of reach. Around 2000, many animation companies cheated subsidies, seriously cracking down on the domestic animation industry. If it weren't for the development of online animation later, the development of domestic animation would have been even worse.

After 2010, domestic commercial animation is to learn 2D animation comprehensively, and 3D animation is to learn from the United States. You can copy everything, so how can you not be like others. As for the 3D serialized animation, the mysterious style after "The Ming Yue of Qin" has a profound influence, so the market is full of modeling and facial style, and then online game style.

Finally, I think the order of development of the cultural industry is roughly like this: Copying cooperation - learning, imitation and exploration - integrating localization - creating your own cultural aesthetic style - and finally establishing your own mature cultural industry chain.

22's domestic animation is probably still in the stage of learning and imitation. There are signs of localization in fusion, but it is obviously not going to be this step. For example, "The Wandering Earth" is like a domestic heavy industry special effects blockbuster, which integrates film and television industry, cultural aesthetics, cultural consciousness and cultural expression, etc.

Domestic animations have developed a very mature industrial chain in more than ten years, which has formed a path dependence on products in the market.

like the animation version of "Three-Body Problem" is the reliance of Yihua Kaitian on the technical style of the previous work "Spirit Cage". This company started with Western game fan animation. This technical style and the temperament of the original work are hugely different. In the end, it did not establish the science fiction epic animation at the cultural phenomenon level that the audience believes is considered to be.

There are no other 3D serial animations, and "The Legend of the Immortal Cultivation" and so on. The aesthetic style of 2D animation is still richer, such as "Assassin Wu Liuqi", "Five Elements of the Fog Mountain", "Dali Temple Log", etc., but they have not achieved success in the level of "cultural phenomenon" significance in all aspects.

Domestic animations are indeed time to establish their own cultural aesthetics, cultural awareness, and cultural expression. But with the huge controversy over the highly anticipated animated version of "The Three-Body Problem", at least not this time, which is a pity.

ps: If you have seen the "Capsule Plan", there is also the annual animation conference for B and Penguin in 2022, the style and guesses of domestic animation will become more and more abundant in the future, including various Chinese traditional culture aesthetics, as well as various learning Western and Japanese cultural aesthetics.

I think we should certainly establish our own cultural aesthetics and cultural awareness works, but we should not exclude and criticize works that study foreign cultural aesthetics. Culture, art and cultural aesthetics should be diverse, and it should be corrected, but we should not overcorrect it!