What does the West think of Chinese and Korean animation?

[Bullet Sniper]

When it comes to Eastern animation, Japan is easily without a single doubt, the most popular, well-known, and mainstream of them all and their impact and influence on the West and the rest of the world's pop culture is simply vast and countless. But what about China and South Korea?

Being of Asian descent myself living in a diasporic community and even travelling to places like Taiwan every so often, I can easily spot a large number of Chinese-created animation as much as I can for Anime or Japanese-produced animation wherever pan-Asian visual media is available. And I must say, they can be pretty interesting and decent or even fairly beautiful in their own right (depending on which Chinese-speaking country it was made in), but most of them only feel somewhat lukewarm or mediocre at best compared to the best of what Nippon has to offer in my opinion.

And just now, when I was reading the tvtropes page: "Americans Hate Tingle", I looked under the Asian animation section and found that Chinese animation like Pleasant Goat Goat and Bad Wolf, and Korean animation are popular in their respective home countries, but are "hated" and ignored in Western countries like the United States and that it has "barely any fans" in that part of the world. I wonder what are the reasons.

I know that Chinese and Korean animation (unless co-produced by Japan) are usually nowhere near as popular and loved as Japanese animation (and their country's other popular media like K-Pop or K-Drama) and are typically very obscure in the West compared to the latter, what do people in the West truly think of them if they ever saw it appear in front of their eyes? Has anyone here had any experiences with Chinese, Korean, or non-Anime/non-Japanese Asian animation?

[Bullet Sniper]

So no one here in CBR is really familiar with Asian animation outside of Anime and whatever Japan produces.

[jeanvaljean]

I bet Kanye loves it.

[Darkspellmaster]

So no one here in CBR is really familiar with Asian animation outside of Anime and whatever Japan produces.

I am. I've seen several animations from both Korea and China and both can be seen as very good. The issue comes down to what is brought over here via the market. Because China, as far as I understand, hasn't done a lot in the exporting of it's animated movies over the years the ones that do make it to the us are the less then well made movies that are seen as, well, badly designed. This is far from the truth but the Chinese animation industry is only now catching up to the west and Japan and the programs that they use for animation until recently with CG haven't been the best.

However there's been a shifting in this as more people, thanks to the net, have been finding out that there are a lot of non exported Chinese animated movies that are really good that we haven't been allowed to see due to issues between the countries. One of the best one's I've seen has been the Son-Wu kong movie where he has to help a child out with the aid of Piggsy (I can't think of his traditional name) and there was another hand drawn one that I saw a few years back.

Over on the end of Korea, you have the issue of smaller studios doing not so great animation for filler arcs of Japanese shows, so good quality Korean animation hasn't come out here in a while. Again, like China more people are discovering it along with Taiwanese animation and several other asian countries. The problem still is that they have to get dubbed here and pushed into the market. There's been several italian shows that have shown up here in the states but you wouldn't know it because the style is very Asian influenced. W.I.T.C.H., Winkies club, Totally Spies, and Huntik are a few I know of, along with France: Code Lyoko, Miraculous Ladybug, and the Uk: Matt Hatter and some other smaller shows, are the ones that usually get dubbed and even then it's a hard sell because of the lack of places for animation.

Netflix and other streaming sights are trying to counter this by allowing studios that want to dub series to bring them out, but again it's hard with the logistics of licensing. Japan has been doing it for years, China and Korea and Taiwan are still learning how to navigate these things. Heck there's a Pakistani cartoon I want to come over here but so far it's been a no go due to licensing issues.

[Billy Batson]

You mean "American" animation? The West seems to like it.

[Bullet Sniper]

You mean "American" animation? The West seems to like it.

I mean pure Korean and Chinese animation... but nice joke to reference that a lot of American cartoons these days have been outsourced to Korea.

[JediKage]

Well Korea is actually responsible with some Anime. But yeah Americans are in general not uptodate on Chinese ANimation.

[Handsome men don't lose fights]

Blade of the phantom Master was pretty good. Most anime produced these days is outsourced to Korea, so I'm sure we like it just fine.

[Darkspellmaster]

But there are some pretty good Korean animated series as well, we just never get them over here sadly.

[RedWhiteAndBlueSupes]

I don't think the West has hardly been exposed to Chinese/Korean animation, at least anime made for those markets, I don't see why it wouldn't be popular if it was marketed to US audiences. But was'nt thundercats done by a Korean studio? I'm pretty sure regular show was also done by a Korean studio.

[Mister Mets]

I think most of the west doesn't know it exists. Some might be aware that Chinese and Korean animators work on American shows, but that's as far as it goes.

There are a few reasons for this. Anime is pretty big in Japan in a way that allows for tremendous variety in subject matter and audience.

Looking at the films nominated for the Academy Award for best animated film, it's common to see entries from Britain, France, and Japan, but not China or Korea. Hell, there was a nominee from Brazil. This shows a lack of penetration into the critical community.

[RedWhiteAndBlueSupes]

I think most of the west doesn't know it exists. Some might be aware that Chinese and Korean animators work on American shows, but that's as far as it goes.

There are a few reasons for this. Anime is pretty big in Japan in a way that allows for tremendous variety in subject matter and audience.

yeah, the big thing for Chinese anime is, there just is'nt a whole lot of it, compared to Japan anime.

[Mister Mets]

yeah, the big thing for Chinese anime is, there just is'nt a whole lot of it, compared to Japan anime.

Yeah, there's enough chinese animated films to fill one wikipedia list.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...animated_films

That ain't happening in Japan.

There's also plenty of Japanese anime in genres that "travel" well (sci-fi, fantasy, action-adventure) often with international influences. It could be that Chinese and Korean animated films speak mainly to that audience.

[JCAll]

Yeah, there's enough chinese animated films to fill one wikipedia list.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...animated_films

That ain't happening in Japan.

There's also plenty of Japanese anime in genres that "travel" well (sci-fi, fantasy, action-adventure) often with international influences. It could be that Chinese and Korean animated films speak mainly to that audience.

Oh, now I really must look up Godbeast Megazord Return of the Green Dragon. I doubt it has a sub though...

[RedWhiteAndBlueSupes]

Oh, now I really must look up Godbeast Megazord Return of the Green Dragon. I doubt it has a sub though...

yeah that's another thing, a lot of these Chinese anime's don't even have subs!