Not Anime, Not Western — Something Else Entirely
Chinese animation — 动画 (Dònghuà) — occupies a fascinating position in global animation history. It produced genuine masterpieces decades before most countries had animation industries. Then it nearly disappeared. Now it's roaring back with a confidence and scale that's forcing the global animation industry to pay attention.
The story begins in 1941, when the Wan Brothers (万氏兄弟, Wàn Shì Xiōngdì) produced "Princess Iron Fan" (铁扇公主, Tiě Shàn Gōngzhǔ), Asia's first animated feature film. This was wartime China, with minimal resources and no established industry — yet the Wan Brothers created a feature-length work that influenced a young Osamu Tezuka, who would later become the father of Japanese manga and anime. The lineage from Chinese animation to Japanese anime is real, though rarely acknowledged.
The Golden Age: When Ink Came Alive
The Shanghai Animation Film Studio (上海美术电影制片厂, Shànghǎi Měishù Diànyǐng Zhìpiànchǎng), founded in 1957, produced what remains the artistic peak of Chinese animation. Their innovation was 水墨动画 (Shuǐmò Dònghuà, ink wash animation) — a technique that brought traditional Chinese painting to life on screen. "Tadpoles Looking for Mama" (小蝌蚪找妈妈, 1960) and "Feelings of Mountains and Water" (山水情, 1988) are not just animated films; they're moving paintings in the style of 齐白石 (Qí Báishí) and other classical masters.
"Havoc in Heaven" (大闹天宫, Dà Nào Tiāngōng, 1964), based on the Monkey King's rebellion from Journey to the West, showcased a maximalist aesthetic — vivid colors, dynamic action, designs drawn from Peking Opera face-painting traditions. It remains one of the most visually inventive animated films ever made. The character design for 孙悟空 (Sūn Wùkōng) in this film influenced virtually every subsequent Chinese depiction of the Monkey King.
The Lost Decades
The Cultural Revolution devastated Chinese animation. The Shanghai studio was shuttered, artists were sent to labor camps, and a generation of institutional knowledge was lost. When production resumed in the late 1970s, the industry never quite regained its artistic ambition. Through the 1980s and 1990s, Chinese animation struggled to compete with the flood of Japanese anime and American cartoons that filled Chinese television screens.
The result was a cultural irony: Chinese audiences grew up watching 日本动漫 (Rìběn Dòngmàn, Japanese anime) while their own animation tradition languished. Domestic productions were often low-budget educational fare, reinforcing a perception that Chinese animation was for children while anime was for everyone. Worth reading next: Chinese Cinema's Global Moment: From Wuxia to Art House to Marvel.
The Donghua Renaissance
The turnaround began around 2015 and accelerated dramatically. "Monkey King: Hero Is Back" (西游记之大圣归来, 2015) proved that a Chinese animated film could succeed commercially with domestic audiences. But the real watershed was 哪吒之魔童降世 (Né Zhā Zhī Mó Tóng Jiàng Shì, "Ne Zha," 2019), which earned over $700 million at the Chinese box office — making it the highest-grossing non-Hollywood animated film in history at the time.
Ne Zha's success wasn't just commercial. It demonstrated that Chinese mythology could power a modern animated blockbuster with emotional depth, humor, and visual spectacle that rivaled Pixar and DreamWorks. The film reimagined the 哪吒 (Né Zhā) myth — traditionally about a child warrior who fights his own father — as a story about defying destiny and refusing to accept the labels society assigns you. The tagline "我命由我不由天" (Wǒ mìng yóu wǒ bù yóu tiān, "My fate is mine, not heaven's") became a cultural catchphrase.
The New Wave Studios
Several studios now produce animation that competes internationally. 追光动画 (Zhuīguāng Dònghuà, Light Chaser Animation) created the "New Gods" (新神榜) series, reimagining figures like 杨戬 (Yáng Jiǎn) and 哪吒 with stunning visual design. 彩条屋 (Cǎi Tiáo Wū, Colorful Room), a subsidiary of Enlight Media, produced Ne Zha and continues to develop the "Chinese Mythology Universe" — an interconnected series of films drawing from classical sources.
In the series format, 灵笼 (Líng Lóng, "Spirits in Bondage") brought post-apocalyptic science fiction to Chinese animation with production values that shocked international viewers. 凡人修仙传 (Fánrén Xiūxiān Zhuàn, "A Record of a Mortal's Journey to Immortality") adapted a beloved web novel about 修炼 (Xiūliàn, cultivation) into a long-running animated series with consistently impressive fight choreography.
What Makes Donghua Different
Chinese animation draws from a different visual and narrative tradition than either Japanese anime or Western animation. The mythology is indigenous — not Greek gods or Norse warriors, but figures from 封神演义 (Fēngshén Yǎnyì, Investiture of the Gods), 山海经 (Shānhǎi Jīng, Classic of Mountains and Seas), and Buddhist/Daoist cosmology. The aesthetic vocabulary includes ink wash painting, traditional architecture, and costume designs rooted in specific dynastic periods.
The storytelling tends toward grand mythological scale — wars between heaven and earth, the forging of cosmic weapons, the cultivation of immortality across millennia. Where Japanese anime often explores intimate psychological drama and Western animation defaults to family-friendly adventure, Chinese donghua gravitates toward epic scope and philosophical weight. Whether this sensibility can translate to global audiences beyond the Chinese diaspora remains the industry's central question — but with production quality rising year over year, the answer increasingly looks like yes.