Japanese anime sees challenge from China at Berlin fest

Berlin: Anime director Makoto Shinkai on Friday said China could eventually leapfrog Japan on the global animation stage as Chinese animated drama "Art College 1994" had its world premiere in Berlin.

Shinkai´s "Suzume", among the contenders for the Golden Bear at this year´s Berlinale film festival, has made a splash amid a global boom in Japanese anime.

But "Art College 1994", Chinese director Liu Jian´s animated portrait of a group of art students in the 1990s, has also got the critics talking.

Screen Daily said it "evokes a specific time and a place so vividly that you can almost taste the stale cigarette smoke and cheap beer".

"The quality of (Chinese) movies is improving rapidly, and they´re also able to build those unique characters that we have in Japan," Shinkai said.

"So I think that sooner or later they´re going to overtake us."

Until 10 years ago, Japanese anime creators were "very confident that they were creating the best and most unique animation movies in the world", Shinkai said.

"But I think that this has changed in recent years, and most of my peers think that way as well."

The global market for Japanese anime grew 13 percent to an all-time high of 2.74 trillion yen ($20 billion) in 2021, according to the Association of Japanese Animations.

But Chinese films are catching up.

"In recent years there are more and more Chinese animation films coming out and they are becoming more and more diverse, not only commercial but also arthouse," Liu said.

"Many commercial Chinese animations are influenced by Japanese animation but they are starting to find their own style," he said. (AFP)