This article is from the WeChat public account: Hu Yong (ID: beingdigital) , author: Ran Xu Hu, head of FIG. source: watercress

When it comes to quadratic elements, what do you think of?

[Meng Niang] [Dead house] [Hand-made] [Manual exhibition] [Ear ears] [Barrage] [Follower] [Tucao] [CP] …

These may be the entries that pop up in your mind.

You may never know this circle, but you do n’t know what “Meng Meng Da” is. You will say two sentences, “but there is no use for eggs.” You hear people cheer, cheer, long live, you; Maybe I grew up in this circle, wrote the same humanities, chased coser, pondered that I would like to re-watch “Senhiro Away” this holiday, and added a new one to the barrage of the sky. The next life is willing to enter the second dimension. ”

But you still can’t tell what exactly the second dimension is.

The second dimension that has gradually become a symbol of the times

Secondary, in my opinion, actually refers to the range of related cultural products that is expanded with the Japanese ACG industry as its core. It is a circle drawn with ACG as the center, the length of the industrial chain and the related richness as the radius, and the youth group as the border.

ACG, or ACGN, generally refers to animation (Animation) , comics (Comic) , game (Game) and light novel (Novel) . The second dimension, as opposed to the “three dimensions” of reality, refers to the virtual world built on all planes. So to a certain extent, all of us have stepped into the door of the second dimension more or less.

Speaking about the second dimension, it is better to start with the concept of “anime” that it most often covers.

In the Edo period in Japan, a kind of graphic art born of ukiyo-e and bird and beast painting—manga appeared. Similar to the development of American manga in the same period, Japanese manga gradually changed from some vignettes in newspapers to products with fixed readers and plots.

“Comics” by Katsushika Kitsai, Japanese ukiyo-e master

Manga is an industry that is extremely dependent on readers. Take Japan ’s most famous weekly magazine “Juvenile Jump” as an example. Its key words are “friendship”, “effort” and “victory”. All serial works must surround these three Words expand.

It is also famous for “investigative supremacy”. Generally magazines only use readers’ opinions as a reference. In “Juvenile Jump”, the popularity will directly affect the layout of the work before and after, and even many works are severely cut off because of low popularity . With clear requirements on the update time and theme, a large number of high-quality, high-quality serials have emerged.

“Juvenile Jump” Weekly

The product form of journals can be said to have added an engine to the comics industry. A large number of boys and girls readers are the groups that are most likely to be emotionally affected. This kind of change has led to fierce competition in the comics industry, but also brought about another kind of prosperity.

Adolescents are also the main direction of a family ’s consumer output tilt, so they support a large number of cartoonists. The father of modern Japanese story comics Tezuka Osamu once summarized the development of comics in Japan into six stages: toys, recovery, snacks, staple food, air, and symbols.

The period from 1945 to 1954 is the age of toys. Comics in this period are exclusively for children.

1955 ~ 1959 is the era of recovery. In this period, comics were vulgar and shallow. They were attacked by all sectors of society.

1959 ~ 1962 is the Dim Sum era. At that time, young manga had just been published. Parents and teachers promised that children could look at manga occasionally as a dim sum.

1963 ~ 1979 was the era of staple food. The success of the TV animation “Tiebi Astro Boy” led to the grand occasion of parents and children enjoying comics together.

Since 1970, comics have generally infiltrated the lives of Japanese people, thus entering the era of air.

Since 1985, comics have become a common symbol for communication and communication, so it can be called the symbol age.

In other words, for more than half a century after the Second World War in Japan, manga has gradually changed from toys for children to even vulgar and flirtatious “psychomas” to necessities for young and old, Even common symbols in communication. Only from the development of comics, we can see the whole process of the “secondary” concept from entertainment products to cultural output and even a symbol of the times.

After talking about the “man” of anime, it’s time to say “movement”.

In Japan, comics on sale are in the stage of fire, followed by animation. Japanese animation is deeply influenced by the United States Disney. It is customary to season. A season usually has 12 episodes, one episode is 24 minutes, 24 frames per second, and a standard pipeline crop. A company launches about five to ten works a year, with multi-line operations, and depending on which IP is good, do more. Generally, the animation will be bought by the TV station for copyright and broadcasted for a special period of time.

This also explains why animation, as a combination of screen, dubbing, soundtrack, editing, etc., is much more difficult than comics, and there are still countless producers to follow. Without him, the interests are also guaranteed.

This may not be a character who combines all the factors extremely well, such as Hayao Miyazaki, whose work has gone beyond ordinary animation, more into an art and even a humane feeling.

Miyazaki’s “My Neighbor Totoro”

So around the core of animation, on the one hand, money is the line, voice actors, artists, studios, and companies continue the industrial chain in different directions to form a complete industrial model; on the other hand, they love to build bridges as a secondary The youth of the main force of creation have created a series of derivatives such as cosplay, neta (stalk) , and doujinshi.

When these people with common hobbies get together, there is such a large distribution center. There are various video sharing sites in the Internet age. (such as China ’s AcFun and Bilibili) also has another way of socializing, forming another kind of psychological group, forming a so-called “secondary circle.” In this circle, we share our love and memories, and we also gain touch and resonance.

The Embarrassment of Chinese AGC Culture

What kind of existence does this formed secondary circle have in China today?

According to Tezuka Osamu’s theory, it seems that animation is still in the stage of “everyone shouting” in today’s China. Maybe “anime” still has a certain degree of recognition at least among the teenagers, but the word “animation” is basically a toy for children in the eyes of parents. Once obsessed with it, it will be delayed by illusion and plaything. The saying is “don’t learn something good”, “everyday I know to see something”.

In the world, China ’s animation industry is still far from being a baby toddler compared to the leading Japan and the United States. The reason behind this comes from part of China’s strange cultural atmosphere and deformed industrial structure. (forgive me for saying so) .

The reason why Japan ’s ACG industry is booming is that it is all about money. The aforementioned “Juvenile Jump”, consumer journals and personal works of authors, basically need a middle-class family or more to afford it. The same is true for animation. There are high benefits behind the difficulty, which has attracted countless people to devote themselves to the production industry.

This is very different from the Chinese market. China is basically at the stage of a wide audience, eager to work, lack of money in the industry, the emergence of the industry, all rely on feelings, and collect money to scold the streets.

On the one hand, the audience of Chinese animation has amazing consumption potential; on the other hand, this huge financial support has not flowed into the hands of the producers at all, and all animation producers basically rely on feelings. Industry spectacles such as “comic is responsible for being famous and making money around” and “high-quality animation blood loss, brain-disabled movies make money” probably only in China. In other words, China is the cheapest country in the cultural industry in the world.

Nezhao, which has won 4.8 billion box office this year, has become a hit, but this is based on Nezhan, a well-known “old IP”

Even the writer who wrote this thing at the moment didn’t read the animated cartoons and novels, or watched pirated copies. Spend time with what you like