Guoman IP may be closer to real life than webtext IP.
Editor’s note: This article is from the micro-channel public number “Entertainment Hard Candy” (ID: yuleyingtang), Author: Wei Nika, Editor: Li Chunhui.
In the history of the development of Guoman IP, 2018 is a crucial year. This year, the live-action comic film “Take My Brother Away” unexpectedly became a dark horse in the summer. This unpopular movie about brother and sister relationship stood out from a large number of homogenous youth genres that are loved by men and women, and won nearly 400 million box office. While bringing a refreshing experience to the audience, it also allows the industry to re-examine the value of Guoman IP.
Manga, who has suffered a lot of failures, finally started to figure out some ways. Coincidentally, the online drama version of “Brother Fast” also led the summer season in word-of-mouth at the same time. The double success of the film and drama version of the same IP is an achievement that the first-line web-text IPs such as “Small Smiles Are Allure” and “Three Lives Three Worlds Ten Miles of Peach Blossoms” have not been able to achieve.
Unfortunately, the comic film did not take off quickly. In the following two years, no new successful domestic comic changes appeared on the big screen. However, it is quite brilliant in the field of comics and web dramas and skits, and it can be regarded as accumulating a certain amount of experience.
In the film and television industry, three years can be considered a small cycle. From 2018 to 2021, manga movies have begun to release positive signals again. It is worth noting that this time it is no longer a single-soldier combat for a single project. On March 25th, Kuaikan Manga and Alibaba Pictures may have reached a strategic cooperation agreement, including comic film adaptation, film adaptation of comics, and young young director cooperation plan.
The manga movie was pressed the accelerator key again. This is almost inevitable. On the one hand, web-text IP has been adapted from film and television, so many film and television companies have found another way out and set their sights on comic IPs that have not yet been widely explored.
More importantly, as the post-00s grow up to become the main force in the market, they, who have been deeply influenced by the Chinese comics, naturally have to rely on the comics to impress. And “Brother Quick” proves a fact that is easily overlooked: Guoman IP may be closer to real life than webtext IP.
Realism is the current mainstream trend of domestic films. We have not been able to follow the path of imitation of Japan and the United States, perhaps because real life details and real emotional resonance are the real way out for the rise of domestic comics.
In the process of changing and breaking the circle
Affected by the cold winter of film and television and the epidemic, youth dramas and youth films are still one of the light-weight and economical types currently preferred by film and television companies. But from the 2013 “To Youth”The rise of “nostalgic” youth films has been declining in recent years. After endless abortions, derailments, car accidents and other dog-blood bridges have caused verbal criticism, the current youth films are mainly divided into two forms:
One kind is based on Guo Jingming’s novel adaptation of the youth film “Sorrows Against the River” and “If the Voice Doesn’t Remember” as the representative, and is packaged as a social topic film; the other is the representative of “The Best of Us” , A youth film adapted from the popular drama IP.
The IP adaptation of youth dramas is also facing bottlenecks. There are two forms that cannot escape, either the group portrait nostalgic drama in the 90s, or the sweet drama sprinkled with sugar to death. This is why such live-action comics as “Take My Brother Away” and “God of the Game” can bring unprecedented freshness to the industry.
The movie “Take My Brother Quickly” tells the daily story of a pair of funny brothers and sisters. The drama “The Soul of Chess” tells the counterattack of the Go boy’s growth. It breaks the limitation of youth films focusing on love stories between men and women and expands. The boundary of youth dramas/movies has been broken, and the industry has also noticed the possibility of breaking the circle.
When it comes to comic IP, it is always labeled as difficult to break the circle. The world of the two-dimensional element is like a besieged city. The people in the besieged city of the two-dimensional element are eager for more and more valuable works to be adapted and More people see. The people outside the besieged city of the second element want to understand the law of its operation and produce original comic works.
In the past, many comic change IP types focused on fantasy martial arts, such as “Qin Shi Mingyue” and “Painting the Bad People of Jianghu” and so on. In the past two years, with the entry of many capitals and companies, there has been a clear trend of expansion of the IP types of comics, resulting in “Shenzhen Street”, “Full-time Master” and “Stop it!” “Classmate Guan” “Struggle, boy!” “” and many other types of works, covering youth, athletics, investigating, martial arts, science fiction and other types. Although these dramas are far from the pinnacle works of the early comic change such as “Meteor Garden”, they have broken through some circles to varying degrees.
Especially as the first batch of post-00s are 20+, they are becoming the main consumer of the society. Their enthusiastic ACG culture will become the mainstream. The adaptation of their favorite comic IP into film and television works is the general trend.
In the accumulation of original fansOn the Internet, Guoman no longer loses online texts. In terms of the potential for film and television development, Guoman is actually even better. Animation and film and television have similar visual characteristics, and many animation works can even be directly regarded as the manuscripts of film and television dramas. On the other hand, the text describes the 10,000 imaginations in the minds of 10,000 readers, and the visual presentation implies the difficulty and risk.
However, at present, the development of Manga IP presents a multi-point distributed workshop-like state, and the industry has always lacked an institutionalized and industrialized comic-film industry chain. The collaboration between Ali Pictures and Kuaikan Manga this time is the combination of the upstream end of IP and the downstream segment of production and distribution. It is possible to form a complete industry chain for incubating comic and changing IP works.
It is reported that Alibaba Pictures will become a strategic partner of the 2021 Kuaikan Original Comic Contest. Outstanding works won in the contest will enter the development and selection process of Alibaba Pictures and have the opportunity to be on the big screen. The cooperation will cover five major creative types: comics, books, dynamic comics, animation, and derivatives.
It’s worth noting that not only the IP of Guoman can nourish the film industry, but excellent movie scripts can also provide inspiration for Guoman. The cooperation between Ali Pictures and Kuaikan Manga is not only for live-action comics. In 2021, the two parties will also jointly launch a number of film-adapted comics, including “Jasmine”. This may be an achievement we can see earlier.
Domestic comic reform, what else is missing?
As the domestic comic industry is developing rapidly, we have to recognize a premise that there is a big gap between my country, the United States and the Japanese comic industry.
Marvel and DC Comics were established during World War II. Over 80 years, the two giants have accumulated many IPs that have been tested by the market, such as Superman, Batman, and Spiderman, for Hollywood development. The well-known animation companies in Japan have an average of more than 40-50 years of history. The number one fast-watch manga on the domestic animation circuit, only 7 years old.
But don’t be pessimistic. Take the development of domestic films as an example. The reform of the market economy system was implemented in the 1990s, and it took less than 30 years to compete with Hollywood films with a century-old history in the Chinese market. Since 2014, the market share of domestic films in the Mainland has exceeded 50% every year, and last year’s market share reached 80%.
After all, China has a huge user base and market potential. It took less than 7 years to read the comics and has more than 200 million users, of which over 50% are post-00s, firmly grasping the mainstream group in the future. So, where are the problems that need to be made up?
Quick Read Comics founder Chen Anni once summarized the characteristics of long content such as comics: one is that it takes a long life cycle from a comic to an IP; the other is that the threshold for comic authors is high, and the authors have real commercial value. And the works account for very little.
Hard Candies noticed that this time I chose to cooperate with the label of Alibaba Pictures for possible production cooperation. In addition to making up for the lack of film and television production capabilities, it alsoA training program for upstream comic creators has been launched. According to the agreement, the two parties will also launch a cooperation plan for young new directors. During the 33rd Golden Rooster Awards last year, Ali announced a list of 20 new directors for the “Unlimited Possibilities Club” of cooperation; look at the awards of the original comic contest in 2021 Works, you will have the opportunity to enter the project development process of Alibaba Pictures.
In addition to opening up the dimension wall of the comics and film and television industries, the two parties will also carry out in-depth cooperation in creator training and other fields, including holding an exchange meeting between cartoonists and young emerging directors, and Ali Pictures opening up the script library to comic authors and organizing “Newcomer” creation training camp, etc.
Look at it, I have actually been working on the original soil for many years. Launched KK New Star Hall and KK Academy to build a one-stop development system for newcomers from Xiaobai to Great God. It also held competitions such as the Newcomer Manga Contest and the Original Manga Challenge, which inspired thousands of newcomers to join in the creation of comics, and a large number of different styles such as “Yuchuan Story”, “Stars to Me”, “Sensitive”, “Taoist X Contract Demon”, etc. Popular works. In 2020, Kuaikan Manga has collected more than 2,000 comics, setting a record since Kuaikan’s establishment.
What’s even more amazing than the number of submissions in 2020 is that Kuaikan’s technical team accounts for nearly half of the company. The technical research and development department headed by Kuaikan’s CTO Li Runchao has more than 250 engineers. Use algorithms to push content and use technology to integrate content. Quickly look like Netflix in the comics industry.
The opening of Alibaba Pictures’ script library provides a new way for comic authors to study and create. Prior to this, the opening activities of Alibaba Pictures’ script library and Beijing Film Academy received unanimous praise from film majors. Now that it is open to cartoonists, it will surely create a different spark.
What do I want after 00?
It’s not a surprise that the popularity of the films adapted from the American Manga and the Japanese Manga in their respective countries. The U.S. and Japan arose as early as the late 1980s in the otaku culture. The term “Otaku” was first proposed by the famous Japanese manga artist Akio Nakamori in 1983. It describes those who are addicted to the world of two-dimensional animation, almost regardless of time and energy. Dedicated person.
So when these “otakus” grew up and became the main consumers, the Meiman and Japanese Manga adapted on the big screen were aimed at their childhood memories. Compared with the United States and Japan, China’s two-dimensional cultural development started late. The growth of the post-80s and post-90s has been affected by the daytime, but there is no economic purchasing power and consumption environment; the post-00s really grew up in the ACG generation, with existing economy Purchasing power and consumption environment. In the next few years, you can imagine the grand occasion about the business of changing IP after 00.
South Korea, which had a similar start to the domestic comics industry, accelerated the pace of real-life comic reform. Last year’s “Itaewon CLASS”, “A Day I Found by Accidental”, “Others Are Hell”, and the hit drama “Goddess Advent” which was just broadcast this year are all comic dramas, and the Korean film and television industry has already figured out a set. Change the way.
Guoman IP is in the process of advancing to film and television, and it urgently needs to explore a set of methods to break the barriers from the two-dimensional to the three-dimensional. Japanese media conducted surveys on males between the ages of 20 and 30 and summarized the ten most common crimes committed by Mangai. In fact, the same applies to domestic Mangai. For example, the casting does not match the original role, the special effects of 5 cents, the casting is too bad (the supporting characters were selected for the topic) and so on.
With the experience of “Take My Brother Away Quickly”, reading comics quickly increases the possibility of breaking the dimensional wall and fusing comics and film and television works. CTO Li Runchao described the founder Chen Anni: He is the person who understands comic content best in the Internet circle, and at the same time the product manager who understands the Internet best in the comic content circle.
Once, the original “Take My Brother Away” was unremarkable among the many comics on the platform. It was named “Brothers and Sisters”, and the comic author had fewer than 2,000 fans on Weibo. Chen Anni keenly caught the possibility of the work “out of the circle”, changed the work from black and white to color, and changed the name to “Take My Brother Quickly” to enhance the personality, and open the Weibo account “Take My Brother Quickly” to enhance interaction And marketing. In the end, “Take My Brother Quickly” created more than 20 billion views, the box office of Mangai movies was close to 400 million yuan, and the number of animations and web dramas exceeded 1 billion.
A prominent advantage of Mangai is the “re-engraved connotation”. Comics, especially comics, provide excellent characters and wonderful details. The film and television itself is aA process of re-creation and enriching the narrative, adaptation leaves more room for creators. On the contrary, the web text constructs a complete world view and story line, and the adaptation is basically equivalent to the visual presentation of the original work. Not only is the difficulty huge, but it also greatly limits the creative space of subsequent developers.
In Chen Anni’s view, comics must be the largest carrier form of China’s future young cultural IP. Look at the comics and Ali Pictures teamed up to take a forward-looking step. Guoman IP is ushering in the structural opportunity of demographic dividend and text advantage, and it only depends on the winner.