Streaming site Bilibili fosters domestic animation talent
Shanghai-headquartered video-streaming and entertainment website Bilibili has awarded prizes to six new animated works to encourage high-quality domestic production and foster talent.
The company said it hopes to link animation with gaming, cartoon, derivatives and offline events to drive synergy.
The top prize winner, "A Bedtime Tale," is expected to become a long-form commercial work in the near future with support from Bilibili.
It has also teamed up with domestic production companies such as Haoliners Animation League and YHKT Entertainment to co-produce animated works.
IResearch Inc estimates that the animation and comics market has a value of 194.1 billion yuan (US$27.6 billion) in China, where there are now 300 million online viewers as opposed to only 20 million in 2013.
Bilibili Vice Chairman and Chief Operating Officer Li Ni said the number of new Chinese animated titles on its site is already catching up with Japanese animation productions this year, and domestic films are warmly welcomed by new users.
In 2019, 73 animated titles aired on the site for paying members, up about three-fold from a year ago.
The domestic animation section has the largest monthly active users on Bilibili and Li expects the number of domestic animated works to double that of Japanese productions in two or three years.
Li expects viewership to rise further with new advances in technology, such as interactive videos, 5G and virtual reality.
