Donghua: The Rise of Chinese Animation Challenging Japan

On July 26, 2019, in a darkened cinema in Beijing, a kid with black-rimmed eyes bursts onto the screen. He has fangs, a thug's voice, and the temperament of a volcano. That kid is Ne Zha, a millennial deity from the Chinese pantheon, rewritten as a cosmic delinquent in Ne Zha (哪吒之魔童降世, Nézhā zhī Mótóng Jiàngshì) by director Jiaozi. In forty-six days, the film rakes in 5 billion yuan (roughly $750 million), shatters every Chinese box-office record, and becomes the second highest-grossing animated film in history outside the United States. That evening, a truth becomes undeniable: Chinese animation is no longer a festival curiosity. It is a force.

Yet this force was not born in 2019. Its roots reach into the 1940s, through a story of forgotten pioneers, a sumptuous golden age, a long crossing of the desert, and then a blazing renaissance that the world is only beginning to measure.

The Word: Donghua#

The Pioneers: The Wan Brothers and the Birth of Donghua#

Princess Iron Fan: Asia's First Animated Feature Film#

The story of donghua begins with four brothers: the Wan brothers — Wan Laiming, Wan Guchan, Wan Chaochen, and Wan Dihuan. Born in Nanjing at the turn of the twentieth century, they discovered American animation — the Fleischer Brothers, Disney — and set out to create a distinctly Chinese animated art.

In 1941, in the midst of the Second Sino-Japanese War, the Wan brothers directed Princess Iron Fan (铁扇公主, Tiě Shàn Gōngzhǔ), adapted from the classical novel Journey to the West (西游记). At 73 minutes, it was the first animated feature film in Asia and only the second in the world after Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937). The film was distributed across Japanese-occupied territories, where a young artist named Tezuka Osamu saw it in a Tokyo cinema. Tezuka would later say it was that screening that drove him to create animation — making the Wan brothers a direct, if rarely cited, influence on the birth of Japanese anime.

Shanghai, Cradle of Chinese Animation#

After the war, the Wan brothers settled in Shanghai, which became the nerve center of Chinese animation. In 1957, the People's Republic of China founded the Shanghai Animation Film Studio, the country's first public animation studio. Under the direction of Te Wei, the studio would produce some of the most original works in the history of world animation.

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The Golden Age: When China Invented Its Own Forms#

Havoc in Heaven: Wan Laiming's Masterpiece#

The summit of the Shanghai studio is Havoc in Heaven (大闹天宫, Dà Nào Tiāngōng), directed by Wan Laiming between 1961 and 1964. Also adapted from Journey to the West, the film features the Monkey King defying celestial authority with infectious exuberance. The visual style is a manifesto: no copying Disney, no Western imitation. The film draws on Peking Opera, traditional Chinese painting, theatrical masks, and the symbolic colors of Chinese folklore. Every movement of the Monkey King echoes the codified gestures of opera; every backdrop looks as though it has been unrolled from a Tang Dynasty painting scroll.

Havoc in Heaven won the Special Jury Prize at the London International Animation Film Festival in 1978 and remains, for many critics and animators, one of the most beautiful animated films ever made.

The Invention of Unique Styles#

What set the Shanghai Animation Film Studio apart from the rest of the world was its invention of animation techniques without equivalent elsewhere:

• Ink wash animation: inspired by shanshui painting (山水, "mountains and water"), this technique gives characters and backgrounds the appearance of ink wash paintings, with gray gradients, vaporous whites, and deep blacks. The short films Tadpoles Looking for Mama (小蝌蚪找妈妈, 1960) and Impression of Mountain and Water (山水情, 1988) are the genre's masterpieces, recognized by UNESCO.

• Paper-cut animation: inspired by the folk art of jianzhi, Chinese paper cutting. Characters, sets, and props are cut from paper and animated frame by frame. The Monkey and the Crocodile (1958) and Pigsy Eats a Watermelon (猪八戒吃西瓜, 1958) illustrate this tradition.

• Puppet animation: the studio also produced remarkable puppet films, heirs to a Chinese puppet theater tradition stretching back two thousand years.

Nezha Conquers the Dragon King#

In 1979, the studio produced Nezha Conquers the Dragon King (哪吒闹海, Nézhā Nào Hǎi), a sixty-five-minute film presenting the classical version of the Ne Zha myth: a child-god who sacrifices himself to save his people from the dragon king. Vibrant with color and remarkable emotional intensity, the film was presented at the Cannes Film Festival in 1980 and remains one of the best-known Chinese animated films internationally.

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The Decline: The Lost Years (1990-2014)#

The Shadow of Japanese Anime#

The 1990s marked the collapse of Chinese animation. Several factors converged. Deng Xiaoping's Reform and Opening Up opened the Chinese market to foreign productions, and Japanese anime — Dragon Ball, Sailor Moon, Slam Dunk, Saint Seiya — flooded Chinese television screens. An entire generation grew up watching Japanese cartoons, not Chinese ones.

At the same time, public funding for animation collapsed. The Shanghai Animation Film Studio lost its monopoly and its budgets. Chinese studios became subcontractors for Japanese, Korean, and American studios: they produced the in-betweens and backgrounds for Japanese anime but no longer created anything of their own. The technical know-how survived, but the creative capacity faded.

Failed Attempts#

The 2000s saw a few revival attempts, most of them disappointing. Children's series like Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf (喜羊羊与灰太狼, 2005) or Boonie Bears (熊出没, 2012) achieved commercial success in China, but their animation quality and narrative depth could not rival Japanese productions. Donghua, in the eyes of both Chinese and international audiences, remained synonymous with children's cartoons.

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The Renaissance: Donghua Reclaims Its Breath (2015-Present)#

Monkey King: Hero Is Back — The Turning Point#

Everything changed on July 10, 2015. Monkey King: Hero Is Back (西游记之大圣归来, Xīyóujì zhī Dàshèng Guīlái) opened in Chinese theaters with no particular fanfare. The film, directed by Tian Xiaopeng on a modest budget of 60 million yuan (roughly $8 million), retells the Monkey King legend in a dark, melancholic version where the hero has lost his powers and must rediscover his greatness.

Word of mouth did the rest. The film earned 956 million yuan (about $140 million), a record for a Chinese animated film at the time. More importantly, it proved that an adult audience existed for donghua, that Chinese mythology could rival Marvel or Disney universes, and that Chinese studios were capable of producing animation of international quality.

Ne Zha (2019): The Consecration#

Four years later, Ne Zha (哪吒之魔童降世) by Jiaozi shattered every record. With 5 billion yuan at the Chinese box office ($750 million), the film became the highest-grossing Chinese animated film in history and the second highest-grossing animated film worldwide outside the United States, behind Frozen II.

The film reinvents the Ne Zha myth: instead of a solar hero, he is a rejected child, called a monster by his village, who chooses to defy destiny. The theme — "My fate is my own, not heaven's" (我命由我不由天, wǒ mìng yóu wǒ bù yóu tiān) — resonated deeply in a China where youth are questioning social expectations. The animation, produced by Caitiaowu, the animation division of Chinese giant Enlight Media, is spectacular: fluid fight sequences, striking visual effects, and art direction steeped in Taoist mythology.

Fog Hill of Five Elements: The Visual Stunner#

In 2020, a series of three ten-minute episodes stunned the global animation community. Fog Hill of Five Elements (雾山五行, Wùshān Wǔxíng), directed by Lin Hun and his micro-studio Samsara Animation, delivers fight scenes of a fluidity and inventiveness that rival the best episodes of Naruto Shippuden or Mob Psycho 100. Anime fans worldwide discovered, dumbfounded, that the most impressive animation they had seen in years came not from Japan but from China.

The style draws on traditional Chinese ink painting: backgrounds are ink washes, fighters' movements evoke Chinese martial arts, and the five elements (五行, wǔxíng — metal, wood, water, fire, earth) structure the narrative universe. A second season is expected, and Lin Hun has become a cult figure in the donghua community.

Link Click: The International Conquest#

Link Click (时光代理人, Shíguāng Dàilǐrén, 2021), produced by Haoliners studio (好传动画) and aired on Bilibili then on Funimation and Crunchyroll, is the donghua that won over international fans. The story follows two young men who can travel into the past through photographs to alter the course of events. The narrative, blending suspense, science fiction, and emotion, is precise in a way few series achieve, and season 2 (2023) confirmed the show's status as one of the best donghua of the decade.

Scissor Seven: The Donghua on Netflix#

Scissor Seven (刺客伍六七, Cìkè Wǔ Liù Qī, 2018), created by He Xiaofeng, is a quirky action comedy about an amnesiac hairdresser who is also a failed assassin. The tone is absurd, the fights inventive, and the humor-emotion blend works perfectly. In 2020, Netflix acquired the international rights, making Scissor Seven one of the first donghua to reach a broad Western audience through the platform.

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Bilibili: The Platform Powering the Donghua Boom#

The donghua boom is inseparable from Bilibili, the Chinese video platform founded in 2009, often described as the "YouTube of Chinese animation." Bilibili was born as a site for Japanese anime fans but has gradually transformed into the leading producer and broadcaster of original donghua.

Bilibili's signature feature is its danmu system (弹幕, dànmù), the floating comments that scroll across the video in real time. This creates a collective viewing experience: viewers' reactions — laughter, tears, exclamations — appear directly on screen, turning each episode into a communal event.

Bilibili directly finances the production of original donghua (Link Click, Fog Hill of Five Elements, The Daily Life of the Immortal King), acting as Netflix and YouTube combined for Chinese animation. In 2024, the platform counted more than 340 million monthly active users and its donghua catalog exceeded 4,000 titles.

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Donghua vs Anime: Two Traditions, Two Aesthetics#

The comparison between donghua and anime is inevitable, but it deserves nuance. The differences are not merely stylistic — they are cultural.

Themes: where Japanese anime draws on Shintoism, Zen Buddhism, samurai culture, and manga tropes (shonen, shojo, isekai), donghua is rooted in Chinese mythology, Taoism, Confucianism, and distinctly Chinese literary genres: xianxia, wuxia, and web novel adaptations.

Aesthetics: contemporary donghua tends toward more saturated colors, backgrounds inspired by Chinese painting, and a preference for 3D or 2D/3D hybrids, where Japanese anime remains predominantly in traditional 2D. Donghua fight scenes often privilege Chinese martial arts movements (kung fu, tai chi, wushu), while anime uses its own visual conventions (speed lines, expressive deformations).

Production model: donghua is often financed by streaming platforms (Bilibili, Tencent Video, iQiyi) and adapted from web novels published on platforms like Qidian or Jinjiang. The xianxia/wuxia pipeline — from web novel to donghua, sometimes passing through manhua (漫画) — has become an industrial model comparable to the manga-to-anime adaptation pipeline in Japan.

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The Xianxia/Wuxia Pipeline: From Web Novel to Screen#

One of the most powerful engines of contemporary donghua is the adaptation of web novels. Platforms like Qidian host millions of online novels, some of which accumulate billions of reads. The xianxia and wuxia genres dominate: sprawling tales of cultivators ascending the ranks of immortality, battling demons, and weaving cosmic romances.

Successful web novels are first adapted into manhua, then into donghua, sometimes into live-action C-dramas. This pipeline has become an industrial ecosystem: Battle Through the Heavens (斗破苍穹), Soul Land (斗罗大陆), A Record of a Mortal's Journey to Immortality (凡人修仙传), and Perfect World (完美世界) have all followed this path from web novel to animated screen.

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International Reach: Crunchyroll, Netflix, and Beyond#

Donghua is no longer confined to the Chinese market. Several international platforms now stream donghua:

• Crunchyroll: Link Click, Heaven Official's Blessing (天官赐福), The King's Avatar (全职高手)
• Netflix: Scissor Seven, The Daily Life of the Immortal King (仙王的日常生活)
• Bilibili Global: Bilibili's international platform, available in numerous countries
• WeTV (Tencent): Soul Land, Battle Through the Heavens, Perfect World

International fan communities have organized on Reddit (r/Donghua), MyAnimeList (where donghua appears alongside anime in the rankings), Twitter/X, and Discord. English, Spanish, French, and Portuguese subtitles are multiplying, and certain donghua like Link Click and Scissor Seven now boast fanbases that rival those of mid-tier Japanese anime in size.

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Donghua Vocabulary#

• Donghua: Chinese animation
• Manhua: Chinese comics
• Xianxia: fantasy genre where humans cultivate immortality
• Wuxia: chivalric martial-arts adventure genre
• Wangluo xiaoshuo: web novel, online fiction
• Shuimo donghua: ink wash animation
• Jianzhi donghua: paper-cut animation
• Danmu: floating on-screen comments (Bilibili's signature feature)
• Wuxing: the five elements (metal, wood, water, fire, earth)
• Sun Wukong: the Monkey King, a central figure of Chinese mythology and donghua

FAQ#

What is donghua? Donghua (动画) is the Chinese word for "animation." In international usage, it refers specifically to animation produced in China, as opposed to Japanese anime. Donghua covers all formats: films, television series, and ONA (Original Net Animation) released online.

What is the difference between donghua and anime? Anime refers to Japanese animation; donghua to Chinese animation. Beyond geographical origin, the differences lie in themes (Chinese mythology vs Japanese mythology), aesthetics (influence of Chinese painting, more frequent use of 3D), and production models (web novel adaptations vs manga adaptations).

What is the best donghua to start with? For a film: Ne Zha (2019), spectacular and accessible. For a short series: Scissor Seven, humor and action. For a thriller: Link Click, suspense and emotion. For pure animation prowess: Fog Hill of Five Elements, a visual knockout.

Is donghua available outside China? Yes. Crunchyroll, Netflix, Bilibili Global, and WeTV stream donghua with subtitles in multiple languages. Many donghua are also available for free on YouTube.

Why does donghua often use 3D? The reliance on 3D (or 2D/3D hybrid) stems from economic and industrial reasons: China has invested heavily in 3D technologies, and 3D production reduces costs for long-running series (some xianxia exceed 200 episodes). The Chinese 3D style has improved dramatically since the 2010s and now rivals the best international productions.

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