In recent times, most business related news say something involved with China. It’s no secret that the country with the biggest population is making headway economic wise. In every other movie I see in theaters, I always see at least one film with a Chinese company being a sponsor or producer. Heck, they’ve made so much progress, military nuts believe China will take over the world. Truth is, the Chinese actually make more success in terms of business than military. Unless you include Chinese police in the African country of Zambia. This is certainly in no small part due to most of the labor from other countries going there. Now being a blog focused on comics, I’ll keep my focus on that.
China in the Mainstream Comics
Remember that mention about Valiant Entertainment being under new management? All of its stocks were bought by an American based Chinese company, DMG Entertainment. People are having concerns about stocks in China going down leading to bankruptcies. Well China’s been making a big step into foreign markets. As long as they’re not being copycats.
DC even decides to play the Chinese copycat game with The New Super-Man. But at least it features a very human Superman; complete with character development and world building social commentary about the country. Dark Horse also decides to jump on the flight to Beijing to expand their business internationally; all through a partnership with Vanguard Visionary Associates. Heck, Marvel takes part in the Chinese movement with Netscape through Aero and Sword Master. Even though this is mainly trying to cash-in on the Shang-Chi movie announcement.
The Mobile Market of China
It’s not just the physical forms either; in the digital platform Tapas, my first (better quality) exposure to Chinese content was premium comics including Jack of All Trades, Black Pupil, and Fox Spirit Matchmaker. All of these present in some form, China’s preferred style of comics. Some of them have wide panels packed close with smaller panels and oversized balloons. With the content packed so close together it makes reading a good story hard on a smart phone; especially with the flow of speech balloons. However a few series manage to become animated by a company called Haoliners Animation League. A few of them can even be watched on Crunchyroll including Fox Spirit Matchmaker. Oh boy… now that website’s going the way of sushi stops mixing with Chinese restaurants. That’s not even including the Fox Spirit Matchmaker game available on Steam.
To further the spread, Chinese companies and licensers go out of its way to create apps to compete with similars apps. Netizens are likely familiar with Webtoon, Tapas, and the like. Although to be honest, the developers could have come up with something catchier names than WebComics – Daily Manga or MangaToon; nevermind the fact that it’s misleading. Still the apps have are a good source of the Chinese epic fantasy genre, Xianxia (don’t try to pronounce this).
Unique Genres
If you don’t know what Xianxia even is, I’ll give you a short enough summary. Think Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon in a more fantasy based version of China. Most characters focus on cultivating their Qi to become powerful demigods and the politics surrounding them; often they come into conflict with powerful noble families or organizations. For some it’s a coming of age story, other times it’s about establishing oneself in the world to see your goals through. The themes are roughly taken from both Taoism and Buddhism, originally meaning to find enlightenment and inner harmony. As a result one of the oldest and most famous Xianxia is the ever present Journey to the West.
The Xianxia tales are so widespread, one of Webtoon’s newer series Phantom Paradise is actually inspired by these tales. Yet it takes a more unique approach with the setting being China’s land of the dead as well as the background element of WWII’s aftermath on China.
The Standouts
While most of these series are often in novel format; a few including Yaoshenji (Tales of Demons and Gods) make regular top 100 lists of combined manga, manhua, and manhwa. Or at least that’s what Manga Updates and Anime Planet says.
Is There Anything Else?
Now there is way more Manhua content than just Dragon Ball Z levels of ridiculously overpowered fight scenes. There are plenty of romance series that can but not necessarily include supernatural elements like a magic cake that makes a group of girls fall for a guy who shared the same cake.
Even then some lists show a distinct inclusion of historical series, including but not limited to adaptations of Romance of the Three Kingdoms such as The Ravages of Time. Other genres include a classic Chinese genre of caizi jiaren where a young scholar and a beautiful girl fall in love such as Gu Fang Bu Zi Shang. Then there a few Shenmo series where gods and powerful magic exist with long running online series Feng Shen Ji allowing a colorful and epic tale. Other times gaming series like Quan Zhi Gao Shou show a VR and MMO experience that most Japanese Isekai series of similar themes lack; just playing a good game.
Relief to the rule by China
With all of the pirating and focus on bringing content from Asia that won’t be licensed or officially translated, it’s about time that China returns the interest to other countries. So with China getting every economic finger into industries, be glad we’ll be getting some good content along with it because the West sold a lot of its infrastructure to them.