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NEWS: South Korea Announces 5-Year Plan to Boost Animation Industry

The government also plans to support AI-based video content production and distribution, build Korean-specific AI training data, and establish related technologies.

Education programs will also be enhanced. As demand grows for webtoon and web novel adaptations, new training programs for planning producers and professional scriptwriters will be introduced, alongside AI-based video content courses in partnership with universities and affiliated institutions.

Very good news!! I hope for more webtoon and webnovel adaptations! Also hope for Lookism more seasons! I really like this manhwa!!

I do hope South Korean animation will thrive. However, they’ll definitely be falling behind Japan and China no matter what. Japan will still do some Manhwa Adaptations as well. On top of that correct me if I’m wrong, many people in South Korea are not interested in animations in general. Yes I know some anime films and series are popular like Slam Dunk, Suzume etc but South Koreans are FAR more interested in live action Kdramas and films. So I don’t think KAnimations will dominate the South Korean market but we’ll see.

Yamato4life1999 wrote:

I do hope South Korean animation will thrive. However, they’ll definitely be falling behind Japan and China no matter what. Japan will still do some Manhwa Adaptations as well. On top of that correct me if I’m wrong, many people in South Korea are not interested in animations in general. Yes I know some anime films and series are popular like Slam Dunk, Suzume etc but South Koreans are FAR more interested in live action Kdramas and films. So I don’t think KAnimations will dominate the South Korean market but we’ll see.

Hi, both long time anime/manga fan, and also a fan of K-pop/Hallyu for 12 years here. Yeah, from what I've seen coming out of South Korea, yeah, I can definitely say that South Korean animation is taking a little bit longer then I originally thought a few years back despite the huge growth of webtoons and manhwa coming out of South Korea. So yeah, despite seeing promising test animation coming out of South Korea on Youtube, I thought we could see Korean animation being able to rival them, but I don't think we're at the point yet. You're correct that Korean do more live-action adaptation over animation. And I wish I had more analysis on that when it comes to Korean animation.

About Chinese animation/donghua, yeah, I don't have enough data or enough information, or reliable news sources to give you the state of it other then the one that are already available in the US already on streaming like Netflix, and Crunchyroll. But I'll say this, Chinese animation/donghua particularly their 2D hand-drawn animation looks just as good as their Japanese counterpart if not are on par. I mean if you showed me The Apothecary Diaries and Raven of the Inner Palace and not telling me the animation was done in Japan, I would've thought and assumed those 2 are dongua and not anime (although I already know those 2 titles I mentioned are anime even before I typed this post), I'm pointing out that 2D hand-drawn donghua can look so good they can be mistaken for Japanese animation. And if you have anime that has Chinese setting or fictional places that resemble Ancient China like Apothecary Diaries, Raven of the Inner Palace, or Saiunkoku Monogatari aka The Story of Saiunkoku/ColourCloud Palace, they can be mistaken for donghua if a person watched a lot of donghua and quite a few anime or don't watch any anime at all, that can lead to mistakes and misidentifications like that if they didn't bother to do some research online. I wouldn't be shocked or surprised that a foreign (in other word, a non-Chinese/non-Asian) C-drama fan or a person that just started to watch donghua for the first time might think (or mistakenly thought) that Fushigi Yûgi is a donghua and not anime because of the imaginary Chinese setting the anime used (again, if the person didn't do proper research online).

So yeah donghua/Chinese animation particularly 2D hand-drawn digital ink one do look a lot like anime (if not they can look too much like anime) that they can be mistaken for their Japanese counterpart, and anime that have setting that take place or resemble Ancient China can be mistaken for donghua.

To this day I think Turning Mecard was the better show than Bakugan.

I’m glad i found someone loves all Asian entertainment like me. Majority of South Korean animations are gearing towards little kids like Miniforce. A lot of donghua whether is CGI or 2d are awesome. I know the Chinese Animation industry always enjoys doing CGI very often. Their CGI quality puts Pixar and DreamWorks to shame. Ze Nha 2 is the highest grossing animated film of all time. China is the next big competitor when it comes to animation. While it’s true that majority of Donghua does set in ancient China or is Wuxia, they also have a lot of animated series that are not in that category like Link Click, Daily Life of the Immortal King, Bureau of Paranormal Investigation, The King’s Avatar(2017), Super Cube, To Be Hero X etc etc etc which are great. One of the Manhwa I want to see an either a Anime or gets animated in South Korea is Bastard (Webtoon one and not talking about the original 80s Japanese Manga which I also enjoyed). I’m super optimistic about the future of the Asian Animation Industry.

Yamato4life1999 wrote:

I’m glad i found someone loves all Asian entertainment like me. Majority of South Korean animations are gearing towards little kids like Miniforce. A lot of donghua whether is CGI or 2d are awesome. I know the Chinese Animation industry always enjoys doing CGI very often. Their CGI quality puts Pixar and DreamWorks to shame. Ze Nha 2 is the highest grossing animated film of all time. China is the next big competitor when it comes to animation. While it’s true that majority of Donghua does set in ancient China or is Wuxia, they also have a lot of animated series that are not in that category like Link Click, Daily Life of the Immortal King, Bureau of Paranormal Investigation, The King’s Avatar(2017), Super Cube, To Be Hero X etc etc etc which are great. One of the Manhwa I want to see an either a Anime or gets animated in South Korea is Bastard (Webtoon one and not talking about the original 80s Japanese Manga which I also enjoyed). I’m super optimistic about the future of the Asian Animation Industry.

I don't know how old you are, but I've been a fan of East Asian entertainment even before you joined ANN or even before I joined this website.

So yeah, about donghua/Chinese animation in general, it's hard to find information output on those. Even website that report on animation like Animation Magazine, Animation World Network, and Cartoon Brew don't have this level of in-depth information about Chinese animation/donghua the same way they covered Japanese and Korean animation. So that's why I don't have that in-depth knowledge on Chinese animation the way I know about Japanese and Korean animation.

I wouldn't say the CGI animation on Chinese Animation is superior or better then Disney animation or Pixar. There are CG animation in China which can look bad sometime on par with lousy CG animation made in Japan. It's subjective, and opinion can vary.

The 2D hand-drawn donghua as I said can look a lot like their Japanese animation that you can't distinguish them. The one you listed, they can be mistaken for Japanese anime if someone didn't do proper research on those titles carefully. So that's why I think the opposite is true and that anime title like The Apothecary Diaries, Raven of the Inner Palace, Saiunkoku Monogatari, or even Fushigi Yugi can be mistaken idenitified as a donghua by a donghua watcher that never watch anime before.

I've said this in another thread, but the animation in The Apothecary Diaries do sometime looked donghua-ish in some situation that I sometime worried if people can mistakenly called that anime a donghua (assuming that person watched a lot of donghua and less or no experience with anime) because of the pseudo-Chinese setting, and the animation itself. So yeah, the idea of an anime fan calling Bureau of Paranormal Investigation, or Daily Life of the Immortal King an anime may not sound all that crazy.

I’m 26 years old and I’m autistic. I’ve been a HUGE admirer for the Asian culture for over 16 years now. Now I agree some CGI Chinese animation can been off but I’ve seen dozens of Donghua CGI series and films that are so awesome in terms of story and animation like Ze Ha 1 and 2, Soul Land, White Snake, Swallowed Stars, Battle Through The Heaven, The First Order etc etc.

Now yes 2d animation Donghua definitely look a lot like Japanese anime and can be confusing like Heaven’s official blessing, Psychic Princess etc. The Apothecary Diaries does look like it at times but once you see the Chibi scenes, you would understand that it’s Japanese because Chibi is a huge trope for Japanese anime where you don’t really see it in Donghua. However Fushigi Yuugi can understand to be anime because China wasn’t really doing animation all that much during the 90s and even the Chinese animation at the time felt a bit more western style in terms of art.