Long known as the maker of the world's goods, China has also been an art development powerhouse for the game and animation industries. But hentai cartoons?
Video game developers and companies have been using China as a source of cheap labor to do basic game development to art development long before the rise of the gaming. It is only now, in that past decade, that China has started to really take off on the front of game development; the same, however, can not be said for its animation industry.
Despite the amount of money made by the animation industry in China, 500 million RMB (US$79 million), the money was made through animation exports. Exports such as game art development, Japanese anime art development, and foreign art development.
What art development in China really is, is taking in work that was outsourced from more expensive regions. Many American cartoons such as South Park , Family Guy and The Simpsons comment on art outsource development in places such as South Korea.
According to Journey, anime classics such as Cowboy Bebop and Cardcaptor Sakura were drawn in China.
Well with the anime, the next part comes: Hentai. Hentai, the Japanese term for perverse/pervert, is commonly associated with animated pornography.
According to animation insider Zhang Nan, because pornography is technically illegal and hentai falls under pornography in China, Hentai can't be "drawn" there.
"However Japanese companies will outsource to Chinese art houses to do the basic background art, such as drawing the bed and scenery," said Zhang. "They have never asked Chinese art houses to draw the action, but I suspect they don't think the Chinese can draw the action the same way." But the background—the bed, the walls, the lamps—might be drawn in China.
If you can read Chinese, hit the source link to see if some your favorite anime shows were made in China.
List of Popular Anime animated in China (Chinese) [Journey Forums]
Baidu History of Animation (Chinese) [Baidu]
(Top photo: Vincent Yu | AP)