The Great Ruler Annual Series 2 Breaks into the Mainstream — iQIYI Has Made Its Annual Series a Success

Author / Huiye

Edited by < The Reliable Editorial Desk >

Following "annual series" has become a collective demand among Chinese animation fans over the past two years. Whether it's critically acclaimed works with rising Douban scores or traffic hits with impressive view counts, as long as a show looks great and has a complete worldview, the comment sections never stop calling for "make it an annual series" and "please don't stop weekly updates." This is not only fans' desire for long-term companionship with quality content, but also reflects a strategic shift in the entire Chinese animation industry — upgrading from seasonal series to annual series is no longer an optional path, but the inevitable choice for cultivating quality content, achieving systematic long-term IP operations, and unlocking commercial value.

On January 9, The Great Ruler Annual Season 2 officially returned, sparking trending buzz across the internet the moment it premiered. iQIYI's in-platform heat quickly broke 5000, and it broke out across Weibo, Douyin, Bilibili and other platforms, triggering screen-sweeping discussions and a wave of fan creations. Related topics repeatedly made the trending lists, with fans exclaiming "found my love of following updates again" and "iQIYI, with a prestigious anime like this, you're guaranteed to win."

Douyin users even posted self-made videos calling Xiao Xiao the "strongest second-generation star," proving that Xiao Yan truly is a "daughter's slave" in The Great Ruler. Some creators even watched the show with their 60-year-old dads, with the Flame Emperor becoming an "explainer" interpreting the return of The Great Ruler Annual Season 2 — the lively interactions between creators and audiences felt like celebrating the New Year early.

This impressive scorecard not only showcases the strong appeal of The Great Ruler IP, but also confirms that, at a time when homogeneous competition in the annual-series race is intensifying and audience tastes keep rising, iQIYI Anime's annual-series strategy has already proven itself. From early planning to gradual momentum, from single hits to a full slate, iQIYI avoided falling into the trap of a "numbers race," instead insisting on a quality-focused route and systematic operations, ultimately overtaking on the curve and proving the correctness and feasibility of its annual-series strategy with solid, tangible works.

Investing more in Chinese animation means building an annual-series slate — this has become a hard requirement in the new round of competition among platforms, and iQIYI is no exception. Since launching its first annual series, The Great Ruler, in June 2023, iQIYI Anime has witnessed the development of the Chinese animation industry across production capacity, market, and IP commercial development in the context of the annual-series strategy.

The technological progress of animation studios and the maturing of industrialized pipelines are the industrial foundation that makes Chinese annual series possible. The widespread adoption of the UE engine has accelerated mid-to-late production workflows, and asset reuse in long-term project planning means more stable schedules and continuously decreasing marginal costs.

Audiences have already developed the habit of consuming annual series. In viewers' minds, the term "annual series" is automatically associated with keywords like "big IP, big production, premium quality." Homogeneous Chinese animation content has caused aesthetic fatigue, while the word-of-mouth spread of annual series that steadily hit their stride has become the mainstream way for Chinese animation to break out today.

IP commercialization has been a hot topic in the consumer market in recent years. Traditional seasonal series have short broadcast windows that make cross-promotion difficult, and negotiating partnerships in advance involves many uncertainties. Only annually broadcast series with long runs can truly build an IP, amplify its value, and achieve multi-faceted collaborative development.

Everything is in place — from content to commerce, the long-termism of making annual series is becoming increasingly important. Platform strategies like iQIYI's annual-series layout align with industry development and are both necessary and forward-looking. And whoever has more premium annual series has become the deciding factor in the next stage of platforms' Chinese animation business competition.

Making annual series is the industry trend, but that doesn't mean it's simple. There are already more than a dozen annual series competing simultaneously in the market, and successfully building a new annual-series IP that enters the view of Chinese animation's core audience requires steady progress on multiple fronts. The Great Ruler Annual Season 2, which returned at max level on January 9, offers valuable insights.

The opening of The Great Ruler Annual Season 2 turns its lens to the Endless Fire Realm, where Heavenly Silkworm Potato universe IP characters return as max-level accounts, delivering Chinese animation's first out-of-the-park iconic scene of 2026 in its premiere. Thanks to differentiated handling from the Battle Through the Heavens anime, the interactions between Xiao Xiao, the Flame Emperor, and Yao Lao spread widely on short-video platforms. In particular, the "mute Xiao Xiao" opening her mouth to call Xiao Yan "Daddy" and Cai Lin "Mama," plus the "Xun'er's mom" plot point, were genuinely delightful surprises.

The lively and spirited little princess of the Endless Fire Realm pierced a long-held wish of the broader fanbase of Heavenly Silkworm Potato's works with just a few simple lines, making up for the regret of the tens of millions of Battle Through the Heavens anime viewers. Audiences showered it with praise on social media: "So heartwarming and touching," "Whose whole life is this," "This is exactly the scene everyone wanted to see."

The Great Ruler Annual Season 2's bold faithfulness to the novel's setting caused its viral clips across all platforms to directly blow up iQIYI Anime's heat, with positive word of mouth at launch triggering a site-wide binge-watching wave. According to official data, The Great Ruler Annual Season 2 hit #1 on iQIYI Anime's trending chart upon premiere, with in-platform heat breaking 5000, setting a new all-time record for male-oriented Chinese animation on iQIYI.

Worth noting is that the appearance of Xiao Yan and his daughter alongside Yao Lao doesn't stop at a simple Easter egg — the crossover is deeply woven into the main storyline. The crisis facing the Luoshen Clan both leaves ample clues for Xiao Xiao's later appearance and foreshadows the growth arcs of The Great Ruler's protagonists Mu Chen and Luo Li, giving new and old viewers plenty to look forward to.

If the "IP universe crossover" strategy of The Great Ruler Annual Season 2 was the catalyst for this return's smooth explosion, then production quality is the hard currency ensuring annual-series audience retention.

Building on the strengths of the first season, The Great Ruler Annual Season 2 achieves a double upgrade in production and storytelling. The long-term development model of an annual series is perfect for the production team to pursue technical improvement and optimize production quality through continuous creation, while also understanding the content more deeply and mining its depth.

In terms of production, the team has clearly put great care into optimizing the main cast's models — from clothing material textures to hair simulation, from body movement details to micro-expressions, the new season is far more realistic. The visual effects are maxed out, with budget burning in every episode, breaking past Chinese animation's clichéd line-based fight effects. The spirit arrays and Luoshen Sword Art in episode two are richly varied, and episode three visualizes sound-based attacks in a vivid, immersive way.

Judging from the three episodes released so far, The Great Ruler Annual Season 2 sits firmly at the top tier of the industry in production, and its main storyline is equally max-level. Overall, this season's pacing is faster and full of satisfying moments — revenge is never postponed, and the protagonist never stalls. The powerful duo CP of Mu Chen and Luo Li constantly delivers sweet moments, with their pure-love interactions winning audience approval. Especially when Mu Chen buys the stone for Luo Li and confesses with a straight shot: "Because you wanted it" — the everyday emotional delivery had the danmaku screaming that they "ship it."

Annual-series audiences are devoted — they lack nothing in patience, only in quality. They witnessed Xiao Yan's growth from youth to Flame Emperor in Battle Through the Heavens, and accompanied Lin Dong's maturation into the Martial Ancestor in Martial Universe. As long as the production team puts their heart into it, audiences surely have the patience and enthusiasm to watch The Great Ruler's Northern Cang crew head toward a bigger world — the new generation of protagonists in the Potato universe is bound to shine just as brightly.

After this battle, The Great Ruler Annual Series has won over its core audience through respect for its characters and emotions, entering the mainstream view of platform annual-series competition. Its status as a new industry benchmark for annual series is preliminarily established, and its future long-term operations are worth anticipating.

Annual series are always slow burns — most first-tier annual series in the market only hit their stride after a hundred episodes. The Great Ruler Annual Series got off to a great start in only its second year on air, thanks to the foresight of iQIYI Anime's annual-series strategy and its solid production and broadcast capabilities. It is reported that iQIYI Anime's second annual-series project, Against the Gods Annual Series, is already on the way and will premiere in the first half of this year.

Looking back at the 7-title annual-series slate announced at the 2025 iQIYI World Conference: amid white-hot platform competition in annual series, iQIYI may not have been the earliest, but the industry wisdom accumulated through years of深耕 its animation business helped it catch up quickly and ultimately overtake on the curve.

First is the choice of production partners. iQIYI Anime's annual-series partners are mostly studios with proven experience producing successful annual series. For example, Motion Magic, the studio behind the two annual series The Great Ruler and Yuan Zun, also produced the Battle Through the Heavens annual series, another adaptation of a Heavenly Silkworm Potato web novel IP. Foch Films, the studio behind Against the Gods Annual Series, and WonderCat Animation, the studio behind Night Without End, previously led the production of the Perfect World and A Record of a Mortal's Journey to Immortality annual series respectively.

By partnering with experienced studios, iQIYI effectively reduces trial-and-error costs, quickly connecting with and integrating into the industry's first tier of technical and creative capability.

In IP selection, the explosive premiere of The Great Ruler Annual Season 2 has confirmed the high feasibility of deep crossover across a web novelist's universe. This model delights production teams, web novelists, and audiences alike. Secondary spreading driven by emotional resonance not only lowers a work's marketing reach costs, but also objectively enhances the extensibility and discussion volume of topics related to the work.

According to public information, in iQIYI Anime's new-project roadmap, beyond the vast world showcased by the "Heavenly Silkworm Potato universe," there is also the "I Have a Sword universe" from web novel great Qingluan Fengshang, with four works including I Have a Sword Annual Series in development, to be linked together through the shared destiny of "bloodline," presenting the theme of the protagonist's understanding of "responsibility."

Judging from the slate, the remaining 33 seasonal series, backed by promising IPs and quality production capacity across fantasy, wuxia, romance, adventure and other popular genres, can serve as a reserve force to be upgraded into annual series after market validation, effectively supplementing the annual-series matrix. iQIYI already has a precedent for this path from seasonal to annual series based on market feedback. The soon-to-premiere Against the Gods Annual Series is exactly this: after its 2023 debut delivered both strong data and word of mouth, it was upgraded to an annual series. Comprehensively assessing IP value and flexibly adjusting is also a reflection of iQIYI's production and broadcast capabilities.

From The Great Ruler Annual Series to the upcoming Against the Gods Annual Series, and then to the five annual-series works currently in production, iQIYI Anime has completed its full annual-series strategic layout in three years. It is clear that iQIYI Anime is serious about annual series, and its animation content boasts solid quality on par with iQIYI's film, TV, and variety content.

Now that iQIYI Anime's annual-series strategy is in place, it will run even faster going forward. Competition in the annual-series race has never lacked players, and homogeneous Chinese animation content has raised audiences' expectations for annual series. Only platforms that keep improving content quality, make the works audiences want, and optimize the user experience can build their own differentiated advantage. Through its forward-looking annual-series layout and solid production and broadcast capabilities, iQIYI has not only consolidated its influence among core animation users, but also provided a successful model for the industrialized, long-term development of the Chinese animation industry.

In this annual-series contest that tests content reserves and long-term operational capability, iQIYI has drawn first blood in 2026.