The production house of late Japanese manga legend Osamu Tezuka is to make its first film specifically for China, employing local talent, in a bid to grow Japan's star cultural export in its huge and sometimes hostile neighbor.
The two-hour animated film, Rest on Your Shoulder, will be the debut work of Beijing Xiele Art Co, a Chinese subsidiary set up by Tezuka Productions.
While Japan has seen a growing international market for its animated films, the producers say the upcoming film will target Chinese tastes by basing the plot in part on Chinese fairy tales.
A Chinese-language fantasy of a man who continues to love a woman even after she turns into a butterfly, the film will be made by Hong Kong director Jacob Cheung using both Chinese and Japanese creative staff.
``The political relationship between Japan and China is not necessarily good. That's why cultural exchanges should be promoted on the private level,'' said Hiroyuki Yumoto, chief producer at Tezuka Productions.
``Tezuka used to say that manga is a universal language. People can communicate through manga pictures regardless of nationality or language. Manga is one of the best tools for communication,'' Yumoto said.
Osamu Tezuka was a pioneer of Japanese manga cartoons and is best known for his Astro Boy series, which debuted in 1951 featuring a robot boy who flies through the future.
Tezuka grew interested in China through his respect for the work of a Chinese animator, Wan Raimin, who made a celebrated film based on the Chinese literary classic Journey to the West.
Beijing Xiele Art was established in 1990, a year after Tezuka's death as per his will, with the aim of training Chinese people in animation.
``This is a big stride forward,'' Yumoto said of the upcoming film, the release date of which has not been decided.
``Tezuka's will calling for cultural exchanges has evolved into a business operation. But this is just the beginning to see whether it can be a success.''
Yumoto said the film could reinforce the idea that animation is not ``only for children.''
``The time has ripened for Chinese talents and for the Chinese market,'' he said.
Statistics also indicate that animated films, as with so many consumer products, could have a vibrant future in the growing Chinese market.
The Japan External Trade Organization says China's market for sales in animated films and programs total 19.5 million yuan (US$2.36 million) annually, with no domestically made shows holding any dominance in the market.
Japan's share is around 3.9 million yuan (US$470,000), with US animation also popular in China, the trade body said.
China in April witnessed major street protests and said that relations with Japan were at a 30-year low after Tokyo approved a history textbook written by avowed nationalists.
With Japan's relations with its neighbors haunted by its militarist past, a panel of experts in December advised Koizumi to turn anime into foreign policy.
``These cultural assets are now considered a part of Japan's strength, as is evident from the expression now being bandied about: `Japan's Gross National Cool,''' said the report by the Japan Forum on International Relations.
The Chinese government itself has recognized the draw of anime. Last year its culture ministry started a university program to boost China's animation industry -- in part through ties with Japan.
May 11 to May 18 The original Taichung Railway Station was long thought to have been completely razed. Opening on May 15, 1905, the one-story wooden structure soon outgrew its purpose and was replaced in 1917 by a grandiose, Western-style station. During construction on the third-generation station in 2017, workers discovered the service pit for the original station’s locomotive depot. A year later, a small wooden building on site was determined by historians to be the first stationmaster’s office, built around 1908. With these findings, the Taichung Railway Station Cultural Park now boasts that it has
Wooden houses wedged between concrete, crumbling brick facades with roofs gaping to the sky, and tiled art deco buildings down narrow alleyways: Taichung Central District’s (中區) aging architecture reveals both the allure and reality of the old downtown. From Indigenous settlement to capital under Qing Dynasty rule through to Japanese colonization, Taichung’s Central District holds a long and layered history. The bygone beauty of its streets once earned it the nickname “Little Kyoto.” Since the late eighties, however, the shifting of economic and government centers westward signaled a gradual decline in the area’s evolving fortunes. With the regeneration of the once
In February of this year the Taipei Times reported on the visit of Lienchiang County Commissioner Wang Chung-ming (王忠銘) of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and a delegation to a lantern festival in Fuzhou’s Mawei District in Fujian Province. “Today, Mawei and Matsu jointly marked the lantern festival,” Wang was quoted as saying, adding that both sides “being of one people,” is a cause for joy. Wang was passing around a common claim of officials of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and the PRC’s allies and supporters in Taiwan — KMT and the Taiwan People’s Party — and elsewhere: Taiwan and
Even by the standards of Ukraine’s International Legion, which comprises volunteers from over 55 countries, Han has an unusual backstory. Born in Taichung, he grew up in Costa Rica — then one of Taiwan’s diplomatic allies — where a relative worked for the embassy. After attending an American international high school in San Jose, Costa Rica’s capital, Han — who prefers to use only his given name for OPSEC (operations security) reasons — moved to the US in his teens. He attended Penn State University before returning to Taiwan to work in the semiconductor industry in Kaohsiung, where he
RSS