ASIAN ANIMATION — current posts

Magic Steeped in Culture: Tea Leaves Last

In many fantasy stories, magic is drawn from ancient relics or arcane symbols, but what if it came from something as simple, intimate, and culturally rich as a cup of tea? In Tea Leaves Last, a 2D animatic pilot made by Asians in Animation, that’s the recipe. The story follows Mya, a young woman from a small farming nation as she ventures out to bring back forgotten Tea magic to the world. This society revolves around the plant – it is used in place of water for everything from bathing to drinking to waterfalls and lakes of tea. But the choice of this drink has deeper meaning. As the world’s most widely consumed drink, tea originates from a region between Burma (Myanmar) and China, with which showrunner Saira Umar shares ethnic roots. Tea’s journey to global presence has shaped empires and incited revolutions from the Boston Tea Party to the Opium Wars. It is a drink of ritual, rebellion, and colonial entanglement, serving as a perfect foundation of an entire magical ecosystem.

Review: Kenneth Chan and Andrew Stuckey (eds.), Sino-Enchantment: The Fantastic in Contemporary Chinese Cinemas (2021)

It seems that even film fans are becoming increasingly aware of the huge significance China is going to play in the next few decades of popular culture. In a global media landscape otherwise dominated by the United States, the huge significance of both the Chinese box office and the Chinese government’s cultural politics is shaping the fortunes of the globalised media industry.

BOOK REVIEWAlexander SergeantMay 4, 2023FANTASTIC, CHINA, ASIAN ANIMATION, POLITICALComment

Musings on Mir: Finding a name in American animation

At first glance, Studio Mir seems like the cutting edge of animation. The world-renowned studio – known for favorites like Avatar: The Legend of Korra (2012-2014), Voltron: Legendary Defender (2016-2018), and Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts (2020) – perches above 20-plus stories in a glass-and-steel building placed in the heart of Gasan Digital Complex.

EDITORIALGrace HanAugust 27, 2021PRODUCTION, LABOUR, STUDIO, ASIAN ANIMATIONComment

The Transition from Subject to Producer: Longhorn Miao’s Participatory Collaboration in Animation

The development of animated documentaries has expanded the functions of animation art, including recording the culture and life of ethnic minority communities or particular social groups and conveying their voices. Animations like The Stitches Speak (Nina Sabnani, 2009) and They Call Us Maids: The Domestic Workers' Story (Leeds Animation Workshop, 2018) endeavoured to make animation content represent the subjects’ views more accurately.

EDITORIALYijing WangAugust 20, 2021DOCUMENTARY, LABOUR, CREATIVE PRACTICE, ASIAN ANIMATIONComment

Orientalism and Raya and the Last Dragon (2021)

Eighty-four years after its first animated feature film, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (David Hand, 1937) and fifty-eight movies later, Disney finally has its first Southeast Asian princess with Raya and the Last Dragon (Paul Briggs, Don Hall & Carlos López Estrada, 2021). The titular character, Raya, joins the ranks of their other princess-of-colour from the Disney canon including Tiana from The Princess and the Frog (Ron Clements & John Musker, 2009), Jasmine from Aladdin (Ron Clements & John Musker, 1992), and the titular characters from Pocahontas (Mike Gabriel & Eric Goldberg, 1995), Mulan (Tony Bancroft & Barry Cook, 1998) and Moana (Ron Clements, Don Hall & John Musker, 2016).

EDITORIALPrakash Krishnan and Patricia Petit LiangAugust 13, 2021DISNEY, ASIAN ANIMATION, REPRESENTATION, IDENTITY, FANTASY, GENDER, RACEComment

Fantasies of Asians in Animation

What a delight to participate in the Society of Animation Studies annual conference: “Animate Energies,” hosted this past June out of the University of Tulane by Eric Herhuth. It was sad to not see my SAS friends in person, but on the other hand its remote (and free!) nature likely facilitated participation by those unable to afford the expense or time to travel to an international event.