Let's talk about the latest trend in the global animation industry
I am Han Chang-wan, a professor at Dept. Of Cartoon & Animation at Sejong Univ.
Today, we will talk about the scale of the animation industry
And in particular, how global its scale is
And we will also talk about characteristics of the animation industry for each country
As well as the main trends
Let's start with the scale of the global animation industry
The scale of the animation industry is still growing
In 2022, the worldwide animation industry was as big as 386 billion dollars
Which was a 4.3% increase compared to the year before
And the prospects say that it will grow 5.4% every year,
which will reach an industry as big as 588 billion dollars in 2030
One of the reasons behind this prospect is
The increase of OTT platforms which made animation available any time, anywhere
And through digital media, such as smartphone or smart pad
People now watch more animation anywhere, any time
And with the development of 3D animation technology, production is now much faster and bigger in scale
And the target audience has widened in generations for animation consumption
These are some major reasons
In particular, speaking as of 2023
An analysis of popular content genres on seven major OTT platforms in 91 countries
Claims that animation and action genres tied for the second place
So it is now one of the major portfolios
Japan is in the center of the international market
This is because Japan is the rising core of the OTT animation
After the endemic, when things restored in 2021
The Japanese animation market has increased by 13% compared to the previous year, reaching 2.74 trillion yen
Which equates to around 20 trillion Korean won
As per categories, as global demand for Japanese animation increases
The export area is recorded to be 13 trillion and 134 billion yen
Which is the biggest portion of the market
In that sense, as the K-Hallyu
is being activated in other categories in other countries
Korean animation is the weakest at the polar position
While for Japan, all its cultural genres are outweighed by Korean equivalents
Though for animation, it can surpass Korea and even be a threat to America
That's how much of a rising power it is
In contrast, America still is the biggest of the global industry
It marks 121 billion dollars, a 3.4% increase from 2022
The prospects say that it will
Grow an annual average of 5% to reach 180 billion dollars in 2030
This is because, as you know, Disney, Pixar, Dreamworks
And other popular studios are still making successful animation works
Next, China is a rising rookie in this market
The animation market scale in China in 2022
was 240 billion dollars, a 4% increase from the previous year
In particular, because it is recorded that there are 500 million 2D industry users in China for 2023
Such increase in 2D industry user as well as their consumption
adds to the prospects that say that the Chinese animation market will
reach around 38 billion dollars in 2040
In particular, as Internet and commerce companies such as Weibo and Tencent
jump into the animation market, they are maintaining large-scale investments
This is because mobile animations are increasing in platforms such as Tik Tok
In contrast, the market scale of Europe remains 109 billion dollars in 2022
And prospects call for
an average growth of 5.5% to reach 167 billion dollars in 2030
There are more than 300 children's channels there
So consumption is increasing around TV series animation works
What about the Korean market?
In 2021, the domestic animation sales amount was 750 billion won, a 36.6% increase from the previous year
The export volume also increased by 16.6%, to 156 million dollars
However, in 2023
The frequency of animation content consumption at least once a week only slightly increased to 63.5%
Here, Korean animation consumption is only 11.7%
Which is still lower than foreign animation, which recorded 54.2%
Let's look more closely at each country's market
In Japan, their OTT platform market is becoming Netflix-centered
It's 22.3%, the highest
Next, the Japanese local platform
U-NEXT takes 12.6%
In particular, in order to compete with foreign OTT platforms with a lot of funds
In 2023, their paid video service
Paravi is planning to collaborate with the cable channel TV Tokyo
Since they contain more than 6,000 animation contents
This has the most variety of contents in Japanese OTT platforms
Especially, they are planning to work with NBC Universal
with whom they entered into a partnership, to expand publishing Dreamworks animation works
Starting the year 2023
In 2022, their animation OTT market scale marked 4.426 billion dollars
And they prospect a growth to reach 5.7 billion dollars in 2027
Especially for Toei Animation, which you might remember
It's the studio for The First Slam Dunk
They have announced a co-production in 2023
of writer Moon Jungwoo's 'Gosu', with Naver Webtoon Studio N
With their various character IP, such as Dragon Ball and One Piece
In 2023, they also entered a partnership with
Sandbox, a Metaverse game platform
In particular, Wit Studio, having produced 'Spy x Family'
Opened their Wit Animation Academy in 2021
to work further on talent training and animation discovery
After six months of animation training
This course allows trainees to be hired in Wit Studio to participate in productions
On April, 2023, Toei Animation Drawing Academy has been founded
And they are running an employment linkage program
In this sense, Japan has activated their talent discovery works of young animators
To work through this much quantity
In addition, global OTT platform companies are funding Japanese animation
Netflix worked with Nippon TV
and released 'Hunter x Hunter' first in the OTT platform industry on September, 2022
as well as their popular 13 animation series including 'Berserk' and 'Death Note'
which were released to 190 countries
Perhaps with such collaborations
Netflix, having lost animation works by Disney or Universal
was able to retain a variety of animation content in their platform
And with this investment by Netflix
The Japanese animation is being more activated
Disney+ also opened a partnership with Kodansha, the publisher of 'Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba'
to attain their global exclusive service rights of
various Japanese animation works
Nielsen, an American market research firm, conducted a survey on OTT platform users
to analyze their preferences for detailed content genres
Japanese animation ranked on the third
which showed a lot of demand in the American market
And animation platforms with more than 10 million subscribers in America
Niche OTT platforms such as Crunchyroll
Now exclusively have Japanese animation IT for service
And another characteristic of such animation works
is the spin-off animations
A spinoff to Detective Conan series is
'The Culprit Hanzawa' and 'Zero's Tea Time' series
which retain and even expand the fandom for the original
And this is why, one of the classics, Inuyasha
the children of its main characters are now the main characters
in 'Magical Doremi' of 'Yashahime'
The world expands where the characters are now adults
Such spinoff animations are actively in production
Aside from spinoffs, classic animation works such as
'Urusei Yatsura', 'Magical Circle Guru Guru', 'Sailor Moon' are
being remade into a contemporary style
Because it is a remake of what has already been produced
This shortens the process and the schedule compared to making an original
And it targets women in the age group of 20-34
Who are active in consumption
Finally it can attract not only the old generation
But also the new gen MZ as their fandom
What about the U.S. market?
In America, Internet platform usage rate is still increasing
Video platforms such as YouTube or Tik Tok
OTT services such as Netflix or Prime Video
expand to video-based media
The TV program market through terrestrial and cable TV has decreased in scale
while OTT-based consumers watch more animation now
In particular, the OTT market where video contents such as animation and movie is available
has marked a big growth from 2018 to 2021
with the annual average of 25.4%
The animation OTT market marked
49.4 billion dollars in 2022, almost 50 billion
and it is expected to grow 8.8% a year, which is a big growth
In sum, thanks to the OTT platform market
Animation that had its limitation in time, availability and generation
was able to expand its industry by this much
In addition, the market share of American OTT platform industry shows
the big leader of Netflix, 15% of share
and with their own strong IP
Disney+, though having been in service later in time, is a solid second in place
In addition, various production studios such as Disney, Pixar, Dreamworks, Illumination and more
are actively producing animation films using 3D technologies
In particular, Pixar's 'Elemental'
visualizes the four elements, such as fire, earth, and air
in a very real-like form, which is very difficult to do so, using machine learning technology
And it generated around 26.91874 million dollars in demand
becoming a hit in Korea
‘Puss in Boots: The Last Wish' by Dreamworks was nominated for an Oscar
'Super Mario Bros. the Movie' by Illumination
achieved over 1 billion dollars in box office revenue
and ranked at the top of the worldwide box office
America also has the spinoff works
Having earned 1.27 billion dollars in box office revenue
'Frozen' has used the character IP of Olaf
to create three spinoff works, in shorts and series
And you may know about 'Up' by Pixar
They used the dog character called Dug
to produce a short animation piece in 2021
in an episode format at Disney+
In addition, featured at 'Despicable Me' by Illumination,
The character IP of Minions allowed for a feature film for themselves
In America, the spinoff production is active
for the works that have already proved their popularity
The AI technology was first published in America
Netflix has revealed 'Dog and Boy' on YouTube in 2023
which was the first animation created with AI-generated backgrounds
And this prospected that
AI will contribute in shortening the animation production time
Native Foreign, using Dall-E the open AI
Successfully generated characters of 'CRITTERZ'
as well as the forest background images
At this point of time, AI animation technology is beyond mere image generation
It is advancing as a technology for expressing delicate movements
Let's look at the Chinese animation market
The market scale for Chinese animation OTT
still shows an annual average growth rate of 16.2%
It is slowly in growth
The market scale for animation OTT in 2023
is recorded as 20.066 billion dollars
Prospected to show a 7.4% growth in the future
In particular, at Bilibili, a Chinese YouTube
started as a video website in 2009
and it is now focusing on subculture events and game content production
Based on this energy of cultural industry
its monthly active user, or MAU in the fourth quarter of 2022
was 326 million people
Bilibili is now a big platform
And centered around Bilibili
animation consumption is increasing
Based on the results of Bilibili
the most watched animation in 2022 was
'The Three Body Problem', based on a Chinese sci-fi novel
'The Three Body Problem', which was also a successful Netflix movie and series
Achieved 24.07 million views
And in the most watched animation top 10,
except four animations, other six are all Japanese works
Even in China, Japanese animation is still very popular
You can refer to this table for that
According to the China National Radio and Television Administration (NRTA)
In 2022, Chinese animation was produced and published
11.5% more than the previous year, 331 works in total
Perhaps Chinese animation production is activated
as one of the strategies to spread the Chinese culture
In 2022, China began their animation production project based on classical Chinese folklore
called as 'Network Animation Film Support Program'
So, perhaps applicable for all Chinese-produced videos
There are a lot of ideological works
that reflect the Chinese ideology and the stance of the Chinese government
And classical Chinese folklore is
also presented in Chinese animation
In 2023, the Chinese animation industry received attention
With Chang'an San Wan Li (30,000 Miles from Chang'an) and Yao-Chinese Folktales
At Sejong Graduate School, these two pieces are the most popular subjects
of the dissertations of Ph.D.s of China
Popularity of Chang'an San Wan Li (30,000 Miles from Chang'an) and Yao-Chinese Folktales
Chang'an San Wan Li (30,000 Miles from Chang'an) recorded the second highest box office earnings in China
It centers around the Chinese history
Spanning a long running time of 168 minutes for storytelling
And its success is beyond expectation
168 minutes is longer than 2.5 hours
Why so long?
Many Chinese animation works are very long
Even for TV series, while they usually span 52 episodes elsewhere
In China, 300 episodes is a common number
That must be why feature film length is also long
Yao-Chinese Folktales is an omnibus work
containing 8 episodes based on Chinese traditional culture
A 6-episode AI animation 'Qianqiu Shisong'
which was produced by China Central Television (CCTV) with AI generative content technology
was aired on February, 2024 through CCTV's comprehensive programming channel
And it has won the first In viewing ratings among
the animations broadcasted simultaneously on satellite channels
Classical poetry in Chinese textbook
was recreated in a Chinese video with the ink wash painting background
These kind of works are popular in China
Through Netflix, their original IP animation
'Scissor Seven' is shown in 190 countries all over the world
If you watch this through Netflix,
you might think that China makes all these short and comic animations
Because it's a very short animation
but it is a very interesting and creative work
Through the translation infrastructure that Netflix has
They are going for both globalization and localization simultaneously
So this animation represents the Chinese animation with the Glocalization strategy applied
It has some non-Chinese-looking ninja characters
Let's move on to the European animation market
In Europe as well, the major market for
consuming media and content is shifting to the OTT platforms
Especially for France, England and Germany
Netflix, Disney+, Amazon Prime Video
dominates the global OTT platform market
Their local platforms such as Canal+
are ranked after these big OTT platforms
So Canal+ ranks on the fourth
And in these platforms
animation plays a key role
A French production studio Xilam
has collaborated with global OTT platforms such as Netflix and Disney+
and has produced and streamed works such as
Oggy Oggy and Chip 'n' Dale
A British studio, Aardman Animations
has collaborated with Disney+
to produce Star Wars Visions 2
And with the support of Netflix
They are about to open Chicken Run 2
Like so, through partnership and collaboration
Between global OTT platforms and intra-Europe animation studios
They are seeking to enter into the European market
In particular, every country in Europe
has linked to a support business in order to
foster their own children's animation
And this activates more production
In Europe, they still prefer American animation
Especially for children's channel
Its 48% provides American contents
With this, in order to promote the domestic animation industry
Methods such as tax reductions and production support policies are implemented
And annual animation production is increasing, as seen in 8.8 for France
7 for Russia and 6 for Germany
Thinking Europe as a small market
They are working on animations
as a whole, as the 'EU Market'
They are expected to be more present at events
such as Oscar and Sundance and show more continued growth
In particular, the beginning of animation
France, which basically is the founder of animation
has released 52 feature length animation works in theaters in 2022
And the highest in number is marked in 1996 and 2019
This estimates that animation production is activated
in France after the endemic
In addition, with the import of Japanese animation
Which targets the youth in the teens and twenties
The main target of animation consumption
is now becoming older than the children
With this, France has produced a comedy animation
called 'Le Petit Nicholas'
Which has attracted 37.8% of the elderly audience
to promote for diversification in animation
And there, 5,166 episodes of TV animation series
are being produced annually
Every season, 2 to 13 short episode series
take 40% of the whole animation works
and episode series between 14 to 26 mark 25%
and episode series between 27 and 52 mark 23%
showing preference in shorter episodes
In particular, around video sharing platforms such as YouTube
Web-based TV animation series is growing
And in particular, for animation marketing
They would create their own YouTube channel
To provide more information about their animation
So it is prospected that the TV animation series production
In Europe will continue to grow
What about in Korea?
The Korean market had its OTT market scaled to 1.9 billion dollars in 2022
prospected to grow by 9.9% a year in 2026
In particular, OTT service usage rate increased by 2.5% from the previous year
In 2022, it marked 72%
which keeps showing its growth
In August, 2022, the monthly user in Korean OTT market shows
Netflix as 12.13 million users
Wavve, 4.32 million users
And Tving, 4.28 million users
What we should focus on here is
that the active OTT market means
the equivalent growth of the animation market
And to support the production of Korean animations
Every year there are Korean animation production support policies
IP-based animation production support
Young animation producers support
And more support policies done by The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism (MCST)
Through their support in 2023
A Korean animation
'Cabeon' is now released in cable channels or IPTV OTT
Cony's Sketchbook, The Legend of Myo-si
Guardians of the Video Game, and many more
are being produced through such policies
In 2022, Aniplus acquired Laftel, a platform worth 35.1 billion
This was an expansion of content variety in the OTT market
Laftel was a niche OTT, an animation OTT platform
And by enhancing business competitiveness and expanding influence in global market
It is expected to increase in sales and revenue
Such attractive IP as global OTT platforms
are now exclusively in service, seeking to expand the market
Using 10 popular Webtoon IP including Red Fox and The Dangerous Convenience Store
They are to produce their animations
The production studio of Super Dino Catch! Teeenieping
SAMG Entertainment has reached its sales revenue in 2023
That grew by 40% from the previous year, which reached 95.1 billion won
the biggest in their four years' history
And initial public offering (IPO) contributed to this result
Producer of Lookism, The Legend of Korra, The Witcher and more,
Studio Mir also succeeded in IPO in 2023
For more growth of the company
Iconix and FunnyFlux are also planning for their IPO
In particular, The Pinkfong Company
was included in Time's 100 Most Influential Companies of 2022
proving the power of Korean children's animation
The Baby Shark animation hit the first ever on YouTube
10 billion views worldwide, the biggest ever
And by June, 2023, it ranks no.1 for YouTube views worldwide
The Pinkfong Company, following Baby Shark, has released
Bebefinn on Netflix
And in its first week of release, it went on
Top 10 for 9 countries worldwide including the US
As world animation industry expands
and more channels are allowed for content usage
K-webtoons are being remade into animations
Based on the Naver Webtoon, Yumi's cells
Yumi's Cells The Movie was released on April 2024
It achieved the highest pre-sale rate on the first day of released
In 76 countries worldwide
After Lookism by Studio Mir was released on Netflix
It ranked 8 on Global Weekly
as well as entering Global Top 10 of Korean animation
Works like 'Shinbyeong' by Studio Jangbbijju, targeting YouTube
has recorded a cumulative 1.3 billion views
and was remade into a TV series in 2022
And it is being considered for revenue diversification such as through merch sales
YouTube animation Bbangbbang's diary (B2ANG)
has reached 1.91 million subscribers to produce revenue through
Merch, collaboration, pop up stores and more
And in 2023, it has entered into a licensing agreement with
Japan's Sony Creative Product to enter into the Japanese market
YLAB Studio is working for Naver Webtoon 'Terror Man'
and is co-producing its animation with CJ ENM, DR Movie and Studio Bazooka in 2024
It will be released on Tving, a Korean OTT platform
Korean animation utilized popular Korean Webtoon IP
And the trend is to collaborate among various studios
to activate the production system
A welcoming news
Celebrating the 40th anniversary of Dooly the Little Dinosaur
Its film released in 1996, Dooly the Little Dinosaur - The Adventure of Ice Planet
is now remastered to be re-released
The work following the series Run Hany in 36 years, 'Naughty Girl'
is revolving around a new story centering around Na Ae-ri, Hany's rival
and is released in 2024 winter
These classic animations expand the target audience generation
and are expected to approach the gen MZ
as the new works
So having seen such scale and trend in the industry
Let's summarize the trends in global animation
First of all, rather than feature length
Mid- and short-form animations are getting more attention
As YouTube and Tik Tok are becoming core platforms for video consumption
In 2021, in Korea, 56% of the teens prefer short videos
So mid- and short form animations
under 10 minutes are now in presence
Disney+ released something with 6 minutes of running time
A Marvel Cinematic Universe Animation
I Am Groot Series
And in Korea, Kakao Entertainment
produced short animation using its own character in 2022
'I am Jordy' at Kakao TV
which ranked 500K views in a week
and achieved 5.7 million views in total
It is such an interesting case
American gen Z is mesmerized with Tik Tok Sludge Content
After the advent of short form video
As they are now used to a minute's worth of videos
Within Tik Tok
Listen carefully here
Without any correlation on the screen
More than four videos play simultaneously
This is what a Sludge content is, which is popular among American gen Z
For me, seeing four different stories simultaneously
will make me lose focus
But this is the trend
The source of these contents are not clear
But this culture was born out of the short form addiction of gen Z
Many doctors claim
Over-multitasking will negatively affect the brain
and cause problems such as depression
This is their comment against this culture
However, based on a study at Ofcom
Minors nowadays spanning age 3 and 17
are more likely to watch two videos simultaneously
And conversely are losing focus when one video plays at a time
Therefore, this study claims that
sludge contents will provide psychological stability
Though it is unclear who to believe
This new culture of Sludge content
is a competent new trend for the
rising young generation
Another trend is seeking diversity
Example includes queer genre in America
At Nimona, released on Netflix
Transgender and homosexuality are mentioned
to express the discrimination and conflict in the modern society
Owl House, a TV animation at Disney+
reveals that the female character is bisexual
and homosexuality between women is the main story
In China, based on novels, Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation (MDZS) and Heaven Official's Blessing (TGCF)
are action, historical, fantasy, and xianxia in genre
But their main characters are homosexuals
This homosexuality code is
often criticized within the narrative by other characters
But rather than becoming a tragic main story
It is considered as something natural and trivial
In Korea, the first commercial BL animation
Hyperventilation has achieved an explosive reaction
and reached 120K views on Naver TV alone
It was exported to Japan in 2019, and is running collaboration cafe and fundings
The Summer is about homosexuality between women
It also won a box office for art films as it was released
According to the study on the development of guidelines for promoting content diversity
to expand ESG management in the content industry
In global animation, diversity of content is being attempted through
The race and gender role of the main characters
In Korea, a 2020 KBS TV Animation
The Curious World of Linda has challenged gender roles
and pursued for diversity in gender roles
For Disney+, it built its pipeline to foster Black talent
and a partnership program to discover Latino production studios
is sponsoring NALIP, or National Association of Latino Independent Producers
There is a challenge popular worldwide where one dances to
the opening song, IDOL, of a Japanese animation 'Oshi no Ko'
This challenge achieved 2 million, 1.84 million and other number of views
on Tik Tok per creator, which is a big number
With the trend of Y2K fashion
Another trend is to mimic fashion in classic animation
Y2K fashion around the turn of the millennium
is re-trending in the gen MZ nowadays
As of May 2023, according to the survey on the consumption status of goods by Hyungji Elite
Encompassing Generation Z, born from the mid-1990s to the early 2000s, and Generation Alpha
called 'The Zalpha'
Hyungji Elite conducted a survey on the consumption of merch by the Zalpha generation
and 94% of 1,142 has experienced buying merch
Also, for fandoms, in order to celebrate
the anniversary of death or birthday of their favorite characters
Another trend is to open subway advertising and birthday cafes
As people visit the advertising and take photos with it
It fosters communication within fandoms
Birthday cafes are when fans rent a cafe for a certain time
to either enjoy drinks and desserts in relation to the character
or sell merch
Lately, companies also participate in such un-official events
to widen their fandom business
In analyzing the animation trend we've been looking at
There are now more attempts to break out of the box
that animation trend has been put in
And now, animation, even more than live action film or photograph
It is a new genre that attracts more audience
In other words, in the past, to watch an animation
You had to wait for the time belt between 4 to 6 pm at a terrestrial TV
Or you had to look for a cable channel such as Tooniverse
But nowadays, with OTT platforms
You can binge-watch whatever, wherever and whenever
With this, adults in their 20s to 30s or 30s to 40s
Now enjoy animation as their 'chill' content
And just like movies, TV series and documentaries in the OTT platforms before
Animation is now treated as a solid portfolio
And more culture is arising where animation works are selected and binge-watched
These are included in the prospects of animation, which is expected
To grow much more than movies and TV series
As producers are being activated centered in Japan
2D works, not 3D works, are also being actively produced worldwide
Korean market is also active in producing animation
And with more than 100 university departments majoring in animation
This gives birth to new artists
And in the global market, Korean animation has a great potential
With more audience, more genre and more theme in the industry nowadays
The future of Korean animation is to be prospected as more positive
That was my opinion
1. Domestic and International Animation Market Japan Scale: 2.7422 trillion yen as of 2021 Activation of young animator talent development programs Active investment in Japanese animation by global OTT platform companies
United States Scale: 121 billion dollars as of 2022 Box office success of theatrical 3D animations by renowned studios such as 'Disney,' 'Pixar,' 'DreamWorks,' and 'Illumination'
China Scale: 24 billion dollars as of 2022 Promotion of domestic animation production to spread Chinese culture Many ideological works with long running times
Europe Scale: 109 billion dollars as of 2022 48% of children's channels prefer American animation content High preference for short-episode TVA series
Korea Scale: 750 billion won as of 2021 Expanding global market reach and expecting increased revenue and profits through animation production using webtoon IPs Enhancement of the animation industry through corporate IPOs
Increasing global influence of domestic children’s animation Activating creation and production systems through collaboration with other studios using a single IP
2. Domestic and International Animation Trends Mid-form and short-form animation Sludge content Pursuit of diversity Challenges Following fashion from classic animations Merchandise consumption Subway ads and character birthday cafes