3 posts tagged with "2026"

This article is authorized for reprint from “KaoPu ErCiYuan”

The development of domestic animated films is unstoppable.

From Ne Zha: Birth of the Demon Child in 2019, to 30,000 Miles from Chang'an in 2023, to Langlang Shan Xiao Yao Guai in 2025, and this year's Ba Xian!, domestic animated films have repeatedly served as the box office主力 for the summer period over consecutive years, achieving both critical and commercial success and becoming a universally recognized cultural hotspot in the market.

The Spring Festival period is no exception. Ne Zha: The Sea of Devils shattered people's perception of the ceiling for Chinese film box office with its phenomenal domestic box office of 15.446 billion yuan, while the Boonie Bears franchise has firmly established itself as the gatekeeper for Spring Festival box office, becoming the top choice for family viewing. No one underestimates the cultural significance and immense commercial value that domestic animated films can unlock.

The overall market is growing, and the industry is thriving, but that doesn't necessarily mean every individual film will succeed.

The box office boom of top-tier works can easily create the illusion that “making animated films equals getting rich.” In reality, achieving a high box office for an animated film is still extremely difficult and requires the right timing, location, and people. Aside from a few animated films with special purposes, mid-range commercial animated films continue to face challenges in quality assessment, breaking out of their niche, and simply surviving.

Recently, Niu Lai unexpectedly went viral due to its internet novelty appeal, successfully boosting its box office. This stands in stark contrast to the numerous films that withdrew, delayed, or underperformed during the summer season, sparking polarized evaluations within and outside the industry. Although Niu Lai is just an isolated case and its luck is not replicable, the market's fervent reaction demonstrates the audience's aesthetic fatigue with mediocre mid-range works and their extremely high expectations and consumption potential for different, “dopamine-driven” films—a new way of thinking about viewing that differs from past consumption habits.

The survival rules for veteran players are changing, and the influx of new players is accelerating. Traditional film and television companies, video platforms, copyright holders, animation series production companies, and AI film and television companies are all trying to enter the scene. The story of domestic animated films on the big screen is being rewritten.

But where will the tide of domestic animated films ultimately flow? There are many variables at play, with both opportunities and risks. At this important juncture in 2026, we have decided to write this 2026 “Domestic Animated Film” Trend Report, hoping to use past data and unique insights to discuss the direction of domestic animated films in the next phase with industry professionals and those looking to enter the field.

The primary focus of this report is commercial animated films. Box office is a core criterion for evaluating the strength of a commercial film and serves as a comprehensive assessment of the capabilities of the production company, distributor, producer, marketing team, and fan base.

The data coverage for this report spans from January 2009 to August 16, 2026, encompassing domestic animated films that had a wide theatrical release in the mainland market and achieved a box office greater than 10 million yuan. Data sources combine Maoyan Pro and Beacon. Due to limited public information for some older works, data discrepancies between different ticketing platforms, and rounding calculations in this report, slight fluctuations in individual film box office figures are within normal error range.

​Note: The 2026 “Domestic Animated Film” Trend Report has no commercial sponsorships and no PDF version, All content is free and open to the public, This does not provide investment advice and is not authorized for sale by any individual or organization. Please do not be misled.

From 2009 to 2026, domestic animated films can be broadly divided into four different stages, marked by several milestone high-box-office films. Each stage corresponds to different market viewing perceptions and participant mindsets.

After the hiatus of traditional art films, the return of domestic animation to the big screen began with theatrical films based on TV series. Pleasant Goat, Boonie Bears, Mole's World, Seer, LocoRoco Kingdom… Children's IPs dominated. Before 2014, most films were traditionally 2D; afterward, 3D increased significantly. These films typically grossed tens of millions, with relatively low investment, providing the impetus for continued production. Among them, the Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf series repeatedly broke 100 million, strengthening the industry's confidence in children's animated films.

Monkey King: Hero Is Back shattered the stereotype that “domestic animated films are for kids.” Its 955 million yuan box office fired the first shot for all-age animated films. Generation Z used internet word-of-mouth to help set new box office records, and also added new labels and selling points for domestic animated films, such as “non-childish,” “original,” “traditional culture,” “word-of-mouth,” and “rise of Chinese animation.”

Monkey King: Hero Is Back became a peak that domestic animated films could not surpass for the next three-plus years. Breaking 100 million remained an unattainable goal for most animated films. Many adults who entered theaters to support domestic animation were disappointed by poor stories or shoddy production, sparking concerns that the rise of Chinese animation might be a flash in the pan.

But it was during this period that domestic animated films began to attract long-term “angel investors.” For example, Wang Wei of Light Chaser Animation, Yi Qiao (then at Enlight Media), and Ding Liang of Fangte. Their persistence ensured the output and development of top-tier domestic animated films over the following decade. At the same time, domestic animated films saw continuous improvement in art and visual quality, laying a solid technical foundation for later visual spectacles on the big screen.

Ne Zha: Birth of the Demon Child is a milestone in domestic commercial animated films. Its 5.035 billion yuan box office proved that besides the Spring Festival children's market, family-oriented films also have consumption potential in the summer period. Beyond making the film and its director famous, Ne Zha 1 inspired subsequent animated films in terms of CP character creation. Shipping CPs and fan content became another highly effective entry point for word-of-mouth promotion.

Also in 2019, White Snake: The Origin and The Legend of Hei sparked another wave of enthusiastic word-of-mouth for the “rise of Chinese animation” thanks to their high acclaim. Over the next five years, we saw more and more excellent animated films related to non-children's audiences, original screenplays, and traditional culture, such as 30,000 Miles from Chang'an, Jiang Ziya, Deep Sea, I Am What I Am, and Cha Er Zhong. Light Chaser Animation's White Snake and New Gods series also validated the audience development value of series animation.

During this phase, children's animation developed steadily. The most representative Boonie Bears series successfully experimented with shifting from fantasy to science fiction genres. Through increasingly mature production and word-of-mouth, it became one of the top choices for family viewers during the Spring Festival period in Chinese cinema.

Sustained market exposure and box office revenue accumulated a stable group of dedicated and improving creators for domestic animated films, creating opportunities beyond just creation. The era of zero-marketing films relying entirely on word-of-mouth has passed. Domestic animated films can now have online and offline promotional resources and can compete for higher screen share during distribution.

Creation, technology, sentiment, market… Domestic animated films officially entered mature development in 2025, with the industry entering an acceleration phase.

Ne Zha: The Sea of Devils brought a nationwide carnival during the Spring Festival, raising the box office ceiling for the Chinese film market. It proved the replicability of mature commercial animated films, the feasibility of telling Chinese stories, and the globally leading level of Chinese animation technology.

Beyond the theaters, the commercialization of Ne Zha 2—advertising partnerships, merchandise development, etc.—was quickly implemented. During its hot run, many co-branded products were “impossible to find.” Leveraging the increasingly mature supply chain of the 2D/fandom consumption market, Ne Zha 2 also became a top-tier case study in IP derivative licensing.

Two summer blockbusters from 2025-2026, Langlang Shan Xiao Yao Guai and Ba Xian!, attracted audiences into theaters with high word-of-mouth, boosting the overall box office base for domestic animated films. They also represent that the general box office threshold for competitively strong domestic animated films has risen from 100 million a decade ago, to 400 million five years ago, and now exceeds the 1 billion mark. Together with the Ne Zha series, they form a competitive market landscape for non-children's domestic animated films characterized by “one superpower and multiple strong players.”

Children's animated films also have their own “superpower.” The Boonie Bears series, with a long-term accumulation of 12 films over 12 years, has a total box office exceeding 9.6 billion yuan and is about to break the 10 billion mark. Its core audience has also expanded from the original children and family groups to a wider all-age audience. After all, over the years, the Boonie Bears IP has accompanied and witnessed the growth of more than one generation of children, making it one of the longest-running and most consistently productive series among original Chinese animated films.

What is certain is that domestic animated films, which have already entered the mainstream, will face fiercer competition, more releases, and a larger potential box office pool in the coming years. Market expectations also place higher demands on all aspects: writing, marketing, distribution, word-of-mouth management, and commercial development.

The performance of annual box office over the years indirectly confirms the changes in each phase of domestic animated films. From January 2009 to August 16, 2026, the 197 domestic animated films with box office over 10 million yuan within our report's scope accumulated a total box office of over 51.1 billion yuan. Among them, 47 films broke 100 million, 8 broke 1 billion, and 1 broke 10 billion.

From 2009 to 2013, the cumulative box office over five years was only 1.247 billion yuan, with 21 films exceeding 10 million and 5 exceeding 100 million. From 2014 to 2018, the annual cumulative box office for animated films was consistently above 1 billion yuan. Although the number of films exceeding 100 million was not large, the average number of films exceeding 10 million per year was over 15. After Monkey King: Hero Is Back in 2015, the annual champion of domestic animated films saw its viewership rise from the millions to the tens of millions.

Between 2019 and 2024, although the overall box office of domestic animated films fluctuated due to the pandemic, the annual box office was generally above 2 billion yuan, reaching 5 billion in some years. While the number of top-tier works did not increase significantly, their box office range clearly rose, demonstrating stronger revenue-generating power. The 140 million viewership of Ne Zha 1 elevated the typical viewership for subsequent annual champions to over 40 million.

Box office data in the post-Ne Zha 2 era is still in a growth period, but it is clearly felt that during the hot run of animated films, there are more IP licensing deals being implemented, commercial derivative developments being sold simultaneously, and audiences' recognition of animated films has extended from the story to the characters, from the screen to consumer goods, and from the cinema into daily life.

The current mainstream industry chain for domestic animated films is mainly divided into four segments: animation production, production and distribution, marketing and promotion, and commercial development. A few works have third-party copyright holders, while for most original works, the copyright holders are the production companies and production parties.

Unlike platform-led or thematic projects, domestic animated films typically start with the work, followed by investment. The animation creators act as one of the core investors and are deeply involved in every subsequent stage. Only a very few domestic animated films are produced entirely by a single production team that handles the full pipeline. This model has high labor costs and requires stable profit-generating projects to sustain the team, such as Light Chaser Animation and Fangte.

Most animated films adopt a model similar to a director's studio plus outsourced production. That is, the in-house team handles core roles like director, screenwriter, and pre-production. Then, through their own or the production party's producer team, the production process is distributed to dozens or even hundreds of outsourcing companies across the country. This model offers more flexibility in project timelines and more options, but requires higher coordination skills from the director, producers, and other roles. For example, works under the Enlight Coloroom system often use this model.

Different animation teams and directors produce different styles. After over a decade of development, a few companies have begun to see initial success in templated creation, and have accumulated loyal fan bases willing to pay for their brand.

Apart from the animation production, the audio portion (dubbing, music, sound effects) and promotional materials (posters, PVs) are mostly completed by outsourcing to professional teams.

The production logic for domestic animated films is more like a production committee. Pure financial investments are rare. Projects with profit potential release limited shares, while those with high profit risk have few willing to gamble. Among the production parties, in addition to the animation creation team as the core, most domestic animated films' production parties mainly handle distribution and promotion work, such as Maoyan, Enlight, Ruyi, China Film, Damai, etc. Some production parties invest in exchange for rights to online streaming, derivative development, etc., such as Bilibili Pictures, iQiyi Pictures, and Pop Mart.

Historically, marketing and promotion have not been emphasized in the field of domestic animated films. Reasons include: on one hand, animators tend to be introverted and less skilled at marketing; on the other hand, the effectiveness of marketing is difficult to quantify, making its value easily underestimated. Most animated films handle their own promotional work, either by the production or distribution side. In recent years, some professional film marketing companies have participated in the promotion of animated films, but the number is small. Examples include Xiaozhuo Culture, Bole Marketing, Loop Play, Infinite Freedom, Bukong Culture, and Kaola Bear.

Commercial development around domestic animated films has grown rapidly in recent years. Outside the cinema, the current revenue sources for domestic animated films include selling online streaming rights, developing derivative merchandise (guzi), and brand collaboration products. The popularity of hit characters extends the life cycle of the work, allowing for long-term commercial value even after release.

Currently, only a few works can generate revenue outside the cinema. Typically, a film needs to achieve a box office of 500 million or even 1 billion yuan or more to attract audiences to buy its derivative products. Therefore, there are almost no professional copyright agencies in the industry that specialize in the licensing development of animated film IPs; this is still led by the production parties.

Overall, the development of the domestic animated film industry chain is a continuous process of learning from and complementing traditional film and online animation. It learns from traditional cinema the anthology model, distribution methods, and production management approaches, and from online animation the non-box-office business models and fan content creation of popular characters. In the future, some film IPs will also come from traditional online literature, novels, games, animation, and comic adaptations, adding the role of IP copyright holders upstream in the industry chain.

Geographically, the initial industrial landscape for domestic animated films has taken shape. Beijing is a resource center gathering companies involved in production, distribution, promotion, and production management. Shanghai, represented by the Shanghai Animation Film Studio, explores new creative directions for traditional art films. Guangdong is both a stronghold for powerful children's IPs and a source of high-quality, original works with personality and style. Chengdu is driven by genius directors who have stimulated local industry development. Other regions such as Suzhou-Wuxi-Changzhou, Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei, Northeast China, and Central China have numerous production companies involved in making, contributing to the development of Chinese animation.

The director is the core of domestic animated film creation. Talented directors have their own distinct creative styles. Even in a series, different directors can produce significantly different quality. Among the 197 animated films with a box office over 10 million yuan that we analyzed, over 160 directors were active, and a total of 50 directors had cumulative box office exceeding 100 million yuan for their works. The director's ability sets the lower limit of a work's quality and also defines its upper limit to some extent, making them a key focus in animation project investment.

Among the TOP 20 directors by box office, one type is directors who have deep roots through multiple series works, developing long-term in the animated film field. They typically release a new film every 1-3 years, with improving quality and stable teams, and often mentor new directors to create together, such as Ding Liang, Lin Huida, and Lin Yongchang of the Boonie Bears series. Another type is genius directors with single works achieving high box office. They prefer independent creation, with each work's production cycle taking 3-5 years or even longer, such as Tian Xiaopeng, Jiaozi, Yu Shui, and Mou Zhengyang.

Although domestic animated films have a long development history, there are currently not many directors in the market capable of creating high-quality animated films. Established directors come with their own audience appeal, but audiences will not develop prejudice against high-quality works just because the director is a newcomer. The box office performance of Langlang Shan Xiao Yao Guai and Ba Xian! has validated the explosive potential of new directors. It is believed that more genius new directors will emerge in the future, alongside continued deep cultivation by veteran directors of series films.

From a long-term perspective, rather than betting on a single blockbuster, it is better to build a serialized reserve within an extensible worldview. Turning a single film into a growing IP is a prudent strategy for many companies. However, making an IP is clearly not easy. Releasing multiple films tests the team's overall strength, content creation ability, and the temperament of the core team. Long-term IP development requires not only passion but also more patience and income support.

Serialization is a conventional choice for high-box-office films and IP adaptations. To date, 17 series IPs with cumulative box office exceeding 100 million yuan have emerged in domestic animated films. They have a certain national recognition and stable viewing audience, and are often supported by revenue streams beyond box office, such as derivative products, brand licensing, animated series, and offline theme parks. The performance of each new release in a series fluctuates depending on its own content quality and the competitive environment of the same release window.

The highest box office is achieved by Jiaozi's Ne Zha: The Demon Child series, with two films grossing over 20.481 billion yuan in the mainland. The largest number of films is the Boonie Bears series, with 12 films accumulating over 9.61 billion yuan. The cumulative total box office of other series IPs is below 1.5 billion yuan. The Little Submarine series is the IP with the longest life cycle within the scope, though its box office is not outstanding; since the first film's release in 2008, new works continue to appear on the big screen.

Most serially IPs are children's oriented, with over 10 years of accumulation, intervals of 1-2 years between installments, and 5-10 films each with cumulative box office over 10 million yuan, forming a stable business model. Examples include the GG Bond series from Winsing Animation and the New Big Head Son and Little Head Dad series from CCTV Animation.

Non-children's animated films have a shorter development history in the domestic market. Not many have completed multiple films and been successfully released. The number of films in series IPs is mostly 2-3, such as Light Chaser Animation's White Snake series and New Gods series, Mu Tou's The Legend of Hei, and Yidong Culture's I Am What I Am series.

What will the domestic animated film market look like in the next 3-5 years? The slate of upcoming films is an important basis for analysis. We have compiled 445 works that completed script registration at the Film Bureau from January 2024 to July 2026. Although only the film title, registration entity, screenwriter, and a brief script summary are available, they are sufficient to draw some conclusions.

Breaking down the script registration numbers by year, there were 132 in 2024, 161 in 2025, and 152 as of July 2026. It is evident that the Ne Zha 2 effect has spurred more project filings and more participants entering the game. Although the number of registrations is high, very few will actually be completed and receive wide theatrical release. The final stories of many films will also be adjusted from the registration information, and the 445 registered projects of recent years will be no exception. For commercial animated films with wide releases, the production cycle from script registration to release is typically around 2 years, which may be shortened to 6-8 months for children's series films, while a few projects may extend to 3-5 years after registration.

From the film titles and synopses, the animated films in preparation have several characteristics: A high proportion of children's content, including new films in classic series IPs, animal protagonists, fairy tale adaptations, and historical stories; traditional culture IPs are also a mainstay, with new interpretations and mashups still being the mainstream. The sources of inspiration are wide-ranging, from Han Yuefu poetry to Yuan Dynasty drama, from the Four Great Classical Novels to contemporary literature, from Fengshen Bang to Classic of Mountains and Seas, from landmark buildings to intangible cultural heritage—everything is covered. In terms of specific characters, the value of Wukong is self-evident, and Erlang Shen, Red Boy, Chang'e, Mulan, and Mazu also appear frequently. Three Kingdoms has become one of the most frequently referenced works aside from Journey to the West.

After reviewing the information on these works, one truly feels the profound depth of Chinese traditional culture. Even with so many diverse script registrations, they can still maintain freshness for the audience. There is absolutely no impression of “not enough traditional culture”; rather, one wants to exclaim, “This can be made into an animated film too?”

Fantasy and science fiction remain the mainstream for the domestic animated film market in the near future. There are also a small number of historical, war, and xuanhuan (mystical) animations, while realist subjects are very rare. After all, the advantage of animation lies in creating visual spectacles; realist stories test the screenwriting skills too much. But which projects will ultimately become true blockbusters when the final results are submitted is still unknown. Among seemingly unremarkable story outlines, there are bound to be hidden gems that surprise the market.

Besides stable series IP sequels, sequels to blockbuster films or top directors, random appearances by genius directors, and new works from established animation film companies, the registration information also reveals the participation of two major groups worth noting. First, the deep involvement of traditional filmmakers and traditional film and television companies. For example, registrations include Tiangong Kaiwu (The Exploitation of the Works of Nature) scripted by renowned director Lu Chuan, The Great Human Battle by renowned director Tsui Hark, and Half-Demon Si Teng registered by Lianrui Pictures. There are also adaptations of traditional novel IPs into animated films, such as The Trouble with the Celestial Secretary and Battlefield Flowers. Their works may bring new creative concepts and more solid promotion and distribution resources to the animated film industry.

Second, the adaptation of online-born IPs, including online novels, anime series, and domestic manhua. For instance, The Outcast, Douluo Continent, Cangyuan Tu, The Legend of Hei, The Bizarre Tales, etc. Moving from the internet to the big screen, they bring not only the art style of online anime series but, more importantly, introduce new IP copyright holders and investors from internet companies. They also differ from the traditional habit of theatrical films relying too heavily on a short release window, attempting to combine multiple media for long-term IP operation and commercial development concepts and ideas.

Of course, there are also some domestic animated films that have been officially announced but have not yet completed script registration. Among them will certainly be blockbuster works released within the next 5 years, and we leave room for more anticipation for these works.

After reviewing information on 197 released domestic animated films and 445 registered ones, we boldly predict the top ten development trends in the domestic animated film field over the next 3-5 years, which also include our thoughts and expectations for the industry.

In the next five years, domestic animated films will undoubtedly be a sunrise industry with many excellent works, box office growth, audience recognition, and broad commercial prospects, driving the common development of both the domestic film and domestic animation fields. The current number of registered works, talent reserves, mainstream media attention, market word-of-mouth feedback, and attractiveness of derivative licensing development all provide objective preparation conditions for the upward period of the domestic film market.

A sunrise industry means fiercer competition, more new players entering, each with their own strengths and resources. The influx of capital and talent exacerbates the Matthew effect in the industry: resources will gather towards the stronger side, the strong get stronger, and box office polarization becomes the new normal.

Competition in the content industry ultimately boils down to the quality of the work, and this is especially evident in domestic animated films. This relatively immature field has not yet seen too many phenomena like popular directors/actors carrying the box office, resource monopolies through competition, or malicious fandom infighting. The general attitude of the audience is to support by buying tickets, and the original intention of creators is to make Chinese animation better.

Although there is competition among creators, there is more collaboration: mutual help in production capacity and mutual appreciation in creation. Audiences don't necessarily avoid one film just because they watched another; they mostly support with an inclusive attitude. As long as good works continue to be produced, there is still plenty of room for growth in domestic animated films.

Creators and audiences jointly maintain the growth of the overall market. Audiences are willing to enter theaters and actively give feedback, and distributors are willing to adjust screen share based on market feedback—this is a sign of healthy industry development. However, the true quality of a work cannot be faked, and box office polarization will become more pronounced. As more films are released, competition within popular slots like Spring Festival and summer will become fiercer, requiring increasingly higher comprehensive capabilities from film production and distribution parties.

In the next five years, the market for children's animated viewers will remain stable for a long time. While children's films find it difficult to contribute blockbusters with box office over 1 billion, they will remain the mainstay in the 50 million to 100 million range, and there will also be films breaking 100 million during key slots like Children's Day and winter/summer vacations. Children's animated films have relatively lower investment, allowing them to be profitable and sustain long-term development within this box office range.

Youth-oriented animation has been the mainstay of high-box-office animation in recent years. The audience is made up of viewers who grew up watching children's animation over the past decade, and are also internet-era natives who have accompanied the “rise of Chinese animation” along the way. They are pure and passionate, expressing their likes directly and rebelliously, and are willing to discuss and share on the internet. Most importantly, this group has both content consumption ability and purchasing habits for derivative licensed products outside the theater. They will also be the core audience for online-born IP-adapted films in the next few years. If a film's quality satisfies this group, it will generate a certain fan effect, with box office revenue typically exceeding 500 million yuan, along with steady non-box-office income.

To truly achieve box office of 1 billion yuan or more still requires meeting the viewing needs of family audiences. That is, the film must be understandable and appealing to viewers of all ages and genders, triggering emotional resonance, rather than stubbornly clinging to niche, personalized, stream-of-consciousness styles. Production and art must also be top-notch. In recent years, top children's series IPs have also been trying to move towards family-friendly directions, including upgrading stories and production. But breaking the public's stereotype of an existing IP is not easy, and this will be the core challenge for children's IP upgrade.

What impact will the entry of new players have on domestic animated films—more positive or more negative? The films that will be released intensively over the next two years will provide the answer.

Traditional filmmakers bring experience and characteristics different from animation in terms of big-screen storytelling, camera work, and art style. They will certainly bring new inspiration to animated content creation. They come with their own audience base, topic potential, promotion and distribution resources, and capital. Some have animation professional backgrounds and are using established IPs for animation adaptation. The high starting point brought by these advantages is worth looking forward to. However, production capacity is the first hurdle to overcome. Traditional filmmakers making animation need a bridge between live-action films and animation—people who understand both—and such talent is rare in the industry. Domestic animation production capacity is relatively fixed, and past collaboration with the film and television circle has been limited. A filmmaker's animation debut may not be able to use top-tier domestic animation production capacity. Outsourcing partnerships will face many adjustments in creative and communication habits, and the final visual presentation may differ greatly from the director's vision. Building in-house production capacity is unlikely, and the film and television CG companies they have worked with usually lack full pipeline capabilities or have different art styles. These conditions will all affect the production cycle and quality of a traditional filmmaker's first animated film.

In contrast, the problems faced by animation series companies and video platforms are the opposite. They have sufficient and mature production teams, IP sources, and a fan base. What they lack is the ability to control 120-minute big-screen narratives, the high-density promotion and distribution capabilities required for a short release window, and the word-of-mouth management skills needed to compete in the same slot. Although video platforms can get support from their internal film business teams or seek external professional support, facing a new field still requires time for exploration and adaptation.

Traditional culture remains the main source of inspiration for domestic animated films. Eleven years ago, Monkey King: Hero Is Back smashed the market's stereotype of domestic animated films with a single blow, and it still needs to occasionally make cameo appearances in new films to move audiences to tears. This is also an inevitable result influenced by various objective factors.

Currently, the screenwriting ability of most domestic animated films is insufficient to support purely original works, and investors are unwilling to take such high risks. Top films in box office history are all adaptations of traditional culture. Mythological IPs familiar to audiences can avoid a cold start in the title and PV, attracting the first wave of viewers, and can also gain public support during the box office rise. Compared to realistic daily-life subjects, fantasy, science fiction, and xuanhuan stories are more suitable for presenting visual spectacles through animation. Most importantly, China's traditional cultural content reserves are rich and diverse enough, with countless high-quality materials to support creation, adaptation, and new interpretations. Although most current script registrations are still limited to sources like Journey to the West, Three Kingdoms, Fengshen Bang, and Classic of Mountains and Seas.

Online-born IPs will move to the big screen with the entry of new players. The first challenge for trial adaptations of online novels, anime, manhua, and game IPs is creating original or adapted film screenplays. Whether the script quality satisfies IP fans and attracts a broader audience will determine the impact on the entire IP's reputation.

Unlike traditional animated films, for online-born IPs, the film is just one link in their content development. While they hope for high box office revenue, they also hope to use the film's heat to nourish the IP and develop richer derivative content and products. This business logic may bring downstream resources and experience to the film industry, achieving complementary advantages.

Whether children's, youth, or family-friendly, most domestic animated films today have similar narratives, showing signs of templating and formulization. This is an inevitable path during the early stages of industry development. It provides the market with a stable and predictable base.

This phenomenon is mainly reflected in: Single genre: children's films are either science fiction or fantasy adventure; non-children's are fantasy emotion or traditional culture new adaptations. Similar core elements: children's films always involve team adventures, time travel, happy endings; youth films always have depression, pain, and family of origin issues; family-friendly films are likely to be funny in the beginning, miserable in the middle, and inspiring at the end. Stereotypical character development: for example, the protagonist must save a cat at the beginning, the main team always consists of two people forming a CP, the protagonist is always arrogant, rebellious, and fighting, new characters are always good at first and later turn into villains, and villains often reflect real-world groups.

Of course, this is not entirely a bad thing. Creating following successful market cases is better than writing blindly. But when formulaic stories become too common, audiences will start to experience aesthetic fatigue and need freshness, deeper emotional resonance, or a unique perspective different from the past. At this point, the core of the story becomes particularly important. Compared to traditional animators who bury themselves in work, the future of domestic animated films requires more creators with keen market insights, who, during creation, think about who they are telling the story for, which groups to attract, what emotions and feelings to evoke, and how they differentiate from past works.

The entry of traditional filmmakers and series animators into the domestic animated film industry brings the most direct impact not only in IP sources but also in changes to art style. Over the past decade, the art of domestic animated films on the big screen has still been concentrated in Japanese-style 2D animation and American-style 3D animation. In terms of facial features, body proportions, color, texture, and lighting, they lean more towards overseas creative habits. Terms like “ugly,” “pointy chin,” and “chopstick legs,” which differ from traditional Chinese public aesthetics, have become prevalent. This is also related to many animation talents having overseas study or work backgrounds.

Even in the past three years, some works have promoted themselves as “de-Americanized and de-Japanized,” but they still retain many Western traces in character modeling, which is not truly Chinese-style modeling in the traditional sense. There is even a mix of Chinese subject matter, American 3D style, and Japanese-style anime narrative.

The participation of new players will bring a batch of Chinese-style 2D animation and works under China's animation industrial system (3D) to the big screen. There have already been successful cases like Langlang Shan Xiao Yao Guai and The Legend of Hei moving from online animation to the big screen. Next, many online-born 3D animation projects will be released, bringing freshness to the market with differentiated Chinese-style 3D and Chinese-style art effects.

With more people and money flowing into domestic animated films, the improvement of the promotion and distribution system is an inevitable trend. Although many films currently do not hire professional marketing companies for support, when a film is not good or faces a serious word-of-mouth crisis, marketing companies indeed cannot solve the root problem. However, high-box-office films must have support from multiple professional marketing companies. The promotion window for films is short, and the tasks are very fragmented; non-professional companies can hardly cover everything.

Even if many creators believe their film is good and doesn't need promotion, to rely on word-of-mouth communication, they must first attract the first batch of audiences into theaters. Most domestic animated films tend to start cold; only a few have a fan base. Even with a fan base, there are plenty of failure cases where promotion was not done well. Pre-release positioning, word-of-mouth management, and material placement are all very important. In today's film market, even if the wine is good, the alley is deep. Therefore, animated films with significant investment and confidence in their projects will be increasingly willing to spend money on promotion and marketing. However, there are not many talents and companies that understand animation, film, and marketing simultaneously. The selection of marketing companies is important.

The domestic film market distribution is very sensitive. Theaters follow the box office: if people are watching, they get screen share. Although many animated films are not strong in distribution, as long as the work has quality, buzz, and paying audiences, distribution is not a worry. However, non-top-tier works with acceptable distribution capabilities should be cautious with sneak previews. If early small-scale sneak previews destroy word-of-mouth, it can directly affect the official release's screen share and attendance.

Overseas distribution is still a blue ocean. Works that gain mainstream recognition domestically have every opportunity to compete for more global box office when going abroad. Cultural differences raise the threshold of understanding, but the values conveyed by the work can resonate universally. Courageously going abroad is the first step to being understood, and even more, the starting point for cultural exchange. Domestic animated films will inevitably become an important medium for cultural confidence and a cultural business card for a major country.

In the past, when domestic animated films left the theater, they could only earn additional income from selling online streaming rights, at most some plush toys for children's films. Today, IP-based animated films can penetrate all aspects of consumers' lives—clothing, food, housing, transportation—and maintain a long-term development cycle after leaving theaters.

There are two main reasons for the rapid growth of commercialization of animated films: first, high-box-office, high-heat works break out and spark discussion; second, the growth of 2D/fandom consumption in recent years, with a mature and complete industry chain that can quickly integrate IP for product monetization. Based on this, the creation of domestic animated films can also consider shifting from a work-focused mindset to an IP-focused mindset, preparing for product development from the content creation stage, and adding developable design elements.

Animated films that leave the theater will also return to the theater, promoting the transformation of theaters from single screening spaces to super entertainment spaces. From basic derivative product sales and limited product sets to deeper interactive immersive experiences, commercial expansion based on blockbuster content will continue to grow.

Animated films often reflect the individual heroism of the director and the collective portrait of the vast, unsung production team. Even with industry growth, there will not be a massive talent increase in a short time. Making animation has its thresholds. Although overall, the national animation production capacity is limited, the films delivered by different director teams vary vastly. In the coming years, domestic animated films will maintain the creative habit of a director-centric system. Scarce genius directors determine the number and completion degree of blockbuster works.

Although the director determines whether a work is outstanding or mediocre, a broader range of production staff supports the director in realizing the visual presentation. Technological progress across the entire industry and the improvement of industrial processes help more directors realize their dreams, and also give more creators the opportunity to become directors after accumulating experience. The quality of domestic animated films on the big screen improves year by year, and visual progress never stops. The industry's development also relies on more creative people who invest long-term and specialize in their areas, bringing China's animation production capacity in line with the world's top level. The rapid development of domestic animated films will also attract more top talents from different fields to participate, bringing new ideas to existing production teams.

The biggest risk for domestic animated films is the mismatch between word-of-mouth and work quality. Social media dissemination and increasingly complex fandom dynamics mean many animated films face a trial of word-of-mouth upon release. Films with poor quality but inflated word-of-mouth are easily exposed, while works of good quality that fail to promote their word-of-mouth effectively may suffer losses due to low box office.

Beyond the content itself, the statements of core creators, online and offline marketing activities, collaboration partners, and co-branding brands all require greater caution, especially for works of higher quality, to avoid backlash from non-content reasons during the hot release period, which could affect audience attendance and harm excellent creators and works.

Some works exhibit “overreactive” behavior due to excessive word-of-mouth management, labeling any objective criticism as troll attacks, even pursuing online harassment, which adversely affects neutral viewers. Allowing normal audience opinions and recognizing that different people have different tastes are lessons that more creators and promotion teams need to learn.

​Conclusion: The industry is a sunrise, but for individual films, it presents layer upon layer of challenges. Yet we still prefer to look at the future of the domestic animated film market with a more optimistic mindset, hoping that every creator can find an audience that resonates with their work, and that domestic animated films can step onto a broader world stage, spreading the beauty and kindness rooted in the Chinese spirit.

Best wishes to Chinese cinema, and best wishes to Chinese animators!

This article is republished with authorization from "Kepu 2Yuan" (Kepu ErCiYuan)

IP collaborations are evolving from a hot topic in the content industry into a key KPI in brand commercial competition. The most notable development in this shift is the full-scale rise of domestic ACGN IPs.

Ten years ago, the industry's vision of building IPs and making money from IP content itself has, through thousands of collaboration deals each year and over fifty commercial cases during peak seasons in a single week, gradually become an attainable reality. IP collaborations have been upgraded from occasional marketing events into a hallmark of brands' cyclical operations.

It can be said that today, the most intuitive measure of an IP's popularity is which brands it has partnered with, how much sales it has generated, and how many fans have voted with their wallets. Likewise, the most direct measure of a brand's market acumen is whether it can precisely capture trending IPs and quickly convert traffic into sales through high-quality execution, thereby further building its brand moat. IP collaboration is a three-way pursuit in which IP holders, brands, and consumers each get what they need and enjoy the process.

Kepu 2Yuan (WeChat official account ID: kpACGN) has been continuously following two-dimensional lifestyle consumption, and through multiple trend reports has witnessed emotional value reshaping the consumer market. We believe that pan-two-dimensional consumption is sufficient to support a hundred-billion-level industry, and "IP+" will indirectly unlock a trillion-level consumer market. As the "three pits" (Lolita, JK uniforms, Hanfu), designer toys, trading cards, and "goods" (merch) economy move from niche trends into everyday consumption, market attention is collectively shifting toward the IP licensing industry, which has a higher barrier to entry, broader reach, and greater commercial potential. There is no doubt that IP collaborations will be the most certain growth story in content and consumer sectors over the next two years.

However, for many industry practitioners, IP collaboration remains a familiar yet unfamiliar concept. We have seen it flourish offline in first- and second-tier cities and participated in discussions of related trending topics on social media, but when it comes to hands-on cross-industry execution, there is still no clear entry point. What industrial logic underlies this rapidly rising prosperity? And what replicable success paths exist?

In May 2026, Kepu 2Yuan (WeChat official account ID: kpACGN) attempted to systematically map out the development logic of the domestic IP licensing industry at its current stage, producing this 2026 "Domestic IP Collaboration" Trend Report. Starting from a macro overview of the industry and an in-depth interpretation of the industry chain, combined with analysis of current market conditions, this report focuses on dissecting a case library of 100 representative domestic ACGN IPs and 100 consumer brands that love IP collaborations, ultimately distilling trend insights into the development of domestic IP collaborations over the next two years.

Through this report, we hope to help IP industry practitioners and enthusiasts more clearly grasp this opportunity closely tied to "real money," find concrete entry points for commercialization, and enable more IPs to achieve a positive self-sustaining cycle from "content to commerce"; at the same time, we aim to help more brands deeply understand the enormous commercial potential within ACGN IPs, unlocking more new possibilities for cross-industry win-win outcomes in the future.

IP licensing refers to a commercial cooperation model in which the IP owner licenses its image, name, design, and other content rights to another party under contract in exchange for a licensing fee, covering forms such as digital goods, physical goods, themed spaces, and content adaptations.

IP collaboration specifically refers to short-term or project-based cooperation between two or more brands or IPs from different fields to jointly launch co-branded products or conduct joint marketing campaigns. Its essence is cross-industry co-creation that ignites the market within a short time, achieves mutual traffic generation and brand rejuvenation, and ultimately creates a "1+1>2" effect.

All IP collaborations are essentially IP licensing deals. But not all IP licensing takes the form of a collaboration. The IP collaborations this report focuses on are the most active and commercially promising form in today's IP licensing industry.

Over the past three years, collaborations around domestic ACGN IPs have developed rapidly and matured. Especially in 2025-2026, IP collaborations have become normalized, continuously generating industry buzz and becoming a required course for content operations and brand marketing. Their forms are increasingly diverse, integrating online and offline across all channels, covering all kinds of IPs and consumer brands, and successfully reaching consumers of all age groups who are happy to pay for them.

The vibrancy of IP collaborations is driven by market demand. As emotional consumption has become a topic of shared focus in the mass consumer market, products that provide emotional value more easily receive positive market feedback. Combining ACGN IP imagery with traditional products creates novelty while satisfying needs for personalization and emotional identification, making IP collaboration one of the most direct and efficient ways to fulfill emotional consumption.

For the content industry, IP monetization has long been a difficult problem to solve. Collaborating with brands to break out of the core fan circle and achieve commercial returns is a path that domestic IP copyright holders have explored for the past decade. In recent years, domestic IPs represented by Black Myth: Wukong, Ne Zha 2, LABUBU, and Honor of Kings have successfully broken through, ending the monetization deadlock and establishing IP collaboration as a widely recognized new-generation commercial growth opportunity.

For brands, partnering strongly with IP holders is a must if they want to embrace youthful trends and meet the demand for emotional value consumption. IP collaboration has gradually evolved from an early-stage marketing gimmick into a routine tool of brand strategy and product innovation, its operation is developing toward professionalization and scale, and it is driving growth across the entire licensing market.

IP licensing and IP collaboration are not entirely new concepts; their cooperation models and execution logic resemble traditional merchandise development and celebrity endorsements. Looking at the global market, overseas IP collaborations are also common. What's different is that this time, the market focus has shifted to domestic ACGN IPs. With the rapid rise of China's pan-two-dimensional content industry, domestic IP collaborations are receiving unprecedented attention and possibility, and are redefining the cross-industry commercial story belonging to Chinese culture.

The realization of IP collaboration activities depends on the coordinated cooperation of multiple parties across the industry chain.

IP holders, also the licensors, provide the IP resources needed for collaborations. Representative companies include Tencent Games, NetEase Games, miHoYo, and China Literature.

Brands, as the licensees, are responsible for combining the IP with their own products and completing design, production, and execution. Representative companies include KFC, McDonald's, Luckin Coffee, Master Kong, and Alipay.

Channel partners are mainly responsible for the marketing and sales of co-branded products. Typically, marketing and sales channels are led by the brand, while IP holders also participate in promotion and do a small amount of distribution. Promotion is mainly online, including official social media accounts, influencer marketing accounts, and IP content ad placements.

Sales channels fall into two broad categories: online and offline. Online channels are mainly official e-commerce platform stores, distributor stores, and livestreamer shops. Offline channels include distribution networks at various levels, themed stores, pop-up events, and more.

Social media is the signature communication channel for IP collaborations: IP holders, brands, and channel partners use social media to rally target consumers to participate in IP collaboration consumption, and use social media to gather market feedback and engage in more communication with consumers.

Based on over 500 collaboration cases from the past decade, we selected the 100 most valuable and representative domestic ACGN IPs at the current stage. Based on this Top 100 Domestic IP list, we summarized the characteristics shared by currently standout IPs.

The top 100 IPs mainly come from five categories: games, animation, comics, novels, and character IPs. Games account for the largest share and have denser collaboration cases with first-tier brands; among animation, comic, and novel IPs, those widely recognized by brands are mostly top-tier original works or IPs with multi-format content derivative development capabilities — in other words, novel IPs that have gone through comic and animation adaptations are the most favored, which is consistent with the head structure of China's domestic animation content industry. Character IPs are few in number but frequently produce phenomenal hit cases, mainly originating from designer toys, sticker/emoji packs, and short video; such IPs generally possess strong operational capabilities.

​Click to jump to the detailed Top 100 IP list: 2025 Top 100 Domestic Two-Dimensional IPs

The top 100 IPs fall into three mainstream types: explosively popular, nationwide viral hits such as Ne Zha 2, Black Myth: Wukong, and LABUBU; evergreen national IPs with broad fan bases such as Honor of Kings, Havoc in Heaven, and Happy Landlords; and top titles in niche categories with strong fan purchasing power, such as Love and Deepspace, Heaven Official's Blessing, and Fei Ren Zai.

Successful IPs share many common traits: first, they have stood the test of time, content, and user accumulation. Over 90% of these IPs have life cycles exceeding 5 or even 10 years. New IPs find it hard to start collaboration deals in the short term, unless they have a resource-rich, powerful producer, or an extremely high profile plus market favor from business teams plus bundling with classic IPs.

Second, quality IPs have high recognizability and strong symbolization. Rather than collaborating on the work itself, brands mostly collaborate on popular characters, and at minimum on iconic items. IP collaboration places particular emphasis on distilling content into symbols, facilitating the conversion from visuals to physical products. IPs with hard-to-distinguish faces, rough art, or unclear personalities find it hard to complete collaborations even with some popularity — even producing a basic IP style guide can be a challenge. Excellent IP collaboration cases rely on high-quality customized design; simple sticker-slapping models will soon be eliminated.

Most importantly, IP collaboration depends on the driving force of mature copyright holders. At the current stage, doing IP collaboration well most likely requires a strong, resource-rich, experienced copyright holder to lead and drive. For example, game IPs are concentrated among publishers with multiple hit games such as Tencent, NetEase, miHoYo, Hypergryph, and Papergames; anime and web novel IPs rely more on platform holders such as Bilibili, Tencent Video, Youku, iQIYI, and China Literature; character IPs are commonly found under copyright holders with massive professional IP operation capabilities, such as Pop Mart, Qizhongji, Dayu Network, and Seventh Impression Culture. IP collaboration heavily consumes a brand's capital and resources, and strong copyright holders can complete resource matchmaking, communication coordination, and product supervision more efficiently.

At the execution stage, brands' main considerations in choosing an IP for collaboration fall into three areas: first is popularity and reputation — everyone wants to chase hit IPs, because traffic equals sales; second is decision-maker preference — at present, the information gap between brands and IP holders is large, and they don't understand each other's industry operations well, so “like = understand = easy to work with” becomes a common mindset, and except for a very few top IPs, most collaboration decisions still hinge on gut feeling; another important factor is herd mentality — brands naturally prioritize IPs with successful cases and positive reviews and sales buzz searchable on the internet, which allows them to quickly match needs, reduce cooperation risk, and improve efficiency.

Shifting perspective to the brand side, from among over 200 popular brands that have run IP collaborations, we selected 100 brands with three or more collaboration experiences with domestic ACGN IPs, forming the Top 100 Brands list.

​Click to jump to the detailed Top 100 Brands list: 100 Brands That Love “IP Collaborations”

The industry distribution of these brands shows certain patterns, with slight changes from a similar roundup we did four years ago. First, the food service industry has grown significantly and become the sector most fond of collaborations — mainly fast food, new-style tea drinks, and coffee, such as Luckin Coffee, Cotti Coffee, HEYTEA, Nayuki, Pizza Hut, and KFC. This category has many and dispersed store locations and fierce competition, requiring periodic product updates. IP collaboration has become an important way to create freshness, provide emotional value, and enhance the consumption experience.

Food and beverage categories were early entrants into IP collaboration and have maintained a high level of recognition for it over the past five years. Compared to food service, these products have longer cooperation cycles, with main models like custom packaging, themed gift boxes, and limited-edition merchandise. Brands such as Oreo, Master Kong iced tea, Master Kong, and Cornetto have launched “classic product + IP collaboration” offerings beloved by consumers. Also, food and beverage brands love setting up booths at anime and game conventions — they are the FMCG category doing youthful marketing best.

Games that love collaborating with brands also like to link up with other IPs as the brand side. Especially Tencent Games and NetEase Games, with titles like Honor of Kings, Peace Elite, Eggy Party, and Yuanmeng Star. Casual games and cultivation-themed games also like to collaborate with domestic animation IPs. Common in-game collaboration forms are virtual assets such as skins, items, and themed events.

Internet platforms, beyond basic virtual asset collaborations like app skins and voice packs, prefer large cross-category or multi-IP projects, such as Alipay's card-collecting event with 18 IPs, Meituan/Taobao Flash Purchase + food service + IP events, and JD/Taobao + FMCG + IP events.

Many 3C digital brands have long maintained product lines tightly bound to ACG, but due to high unit prices, relatively long production cycles, and more complex purchase decision paths for premium 3C products, collaboration cases are relatively few compared to FMCG. Common collaboration outputs include co-branded gift boxes, custom shells, system themes, and ad placements.

Overall, brands that love IP collaborations share these commonalities: first, they operate in fiercely competitive tracks with fast product marketing iterations, strong personalization demand, and high market sensitivity — "IP+" becomes their means of differentiated competition; additionally, their consumer bases and internal teams are young, knowledgeable about ACGN culture, and greater understanding facilitates collaboration.

Although IP holders don't always lead when collaborating with brands, they still have basic considerations, such as budget and cooperation model, brand tone, and user fit. For IPs just starting with collaborations, categories like input methods, app skins, transit cards, milk tea, and fitness apps are entry-level brands that can serve as breakthrough points for initial trials. They have rich collaboration experience, high acceptance of various IPs, and relatively low barriers to cooperation. Notably, brands that previously preferred overseas IPs have steadily increased their acceptance of domestic IPs in recent years, making them an alternative for top-tier IP business development.

Who pays for IP collaborations? Behind the trillion-level market is a diverse audience, and each brand, each IP, and each collaboration event will have a different consumer profile. Based on multiple data sources and case observations, we summarize the group's characteristics as follows:

IP fans are the foundation of IP collaboration consumption, especially willing to pay for limited-edition bundles that include IP merchandise. Brand-loyal essential consumers are active participants in IP collaboration events, whose purchase decisions are influenced by the novelty of the collaboration, leading to conversion. Herd-mentality consumption is a scenario IP collaboration events hope for, commonly seen with viral IP collaborations, such as multiple cases involving Ne Zha 2 and Black Myth: Wukong. These consumption scenarios satisfy personalized consumption needs, especially allowing consumers to share experiences on social media and gain emotional value and social capital.

IP fans are a double-edged sword. They are tolerant but opinionated: toward IP collaboration events, they will actively support, sincerely cheer, and spontaneously spread the word, but they will also voice dissatisfaction at collaboration events that disrespect or mishandle the IP, potentially triggering a group reputation crisis for the brand. They are doting yet professional: carrying fan identities, they are relatively conscious of how individual behavior represents the group; they are willing to pay a small "IP+" premium for love, but not blindly. Most core ACGN consumers have rich experience with IP collaboration purchases and can distinguish sincere collaborations from cash grabs, taking cost-performance into account.

Overall, the core consumer group for IP collaborations is concentrated in first- through third-tier cities and the 15-35 age bracket, with an overall female proportion higher than the male one; specific figures vary considerably depending on the IP's attributes.

Based on multiple channel sources and data from over 500 IP collaboration cases, we believe the IP collaboration consumer market has an estimated potential of reaching the trillion level. Over the next three years, IP collaboration will become an indispensable marketing model for first- and second-tier consumer brands, especially in FMCG, deeply integrated into product design, marketing promotion, user operations, and other links.

Over the past three years, the total number of IP collaboration cases has exceeded the sum of the previous decade. According to statistics, since 2025, the number of collaboration cases per quarter has maintained roughly 20% year-over-year growth. Over 50% of IPs and brands with multiple collaboration experiences have continued to increase investment in the past two years, and the frequency of IP collaboration rollouts has risen significantly. Meanwhile, about 30% of new brands and 50% of new IPs have launched IP collaboration business and completed their first attempts within the past three years, with more brands and IPs currently in ongoing negotiations for collaboration business.

The main collaboration formats of IP collaboration include virtual assets such as skins, items, and digital card faces; physical goods covering food service, food and beverage, cultural/creative merchandise, and themed gift boxes; themed stores, integrated spaces combining dining, interactive experiences, and product sales; pop-up events focused on emotional value and immersive experiences, mainly limited interactions and product sales; and themed cultural tourism — large offline immersive experience projects with richer content integration.

Currently, the relatively dominant party in IP collaboration remains the brand. Cooperation cycles usually divide into short cycles of 7-30 days and long cycles of 1-3 years, depending on the brand's category and marketing goals. Co-branded products generally carry a premium, commonly 10%-30% above the original product's price. Average transaction values vary significantly by category: FMCG and food service are mostly under 100 RMB; virtual goods range from 9.9 RMB to several thousand RMB; offline experience events often use a combination of 100-300 RMB tickets plus product sales.

Successful IP collaboration requires a good match between IP, brand, and consumer group — positioning and caliber determine the cooperation model and who holds pricing power. Common cooperation models include resource exchange, licensing fee buyout, guaranteed minimum + revenue share, and IP holder buyback. According to reports, for IPs on the market with popularity, case history, and fans, licensing fees for a single deal in a single category generally range from 500,000 to 3 million RMB; the exact amount fluctuates considerably based on cooperation content, matched resources, exclusivity, public opinion risk, popularity timing, and character preference — top IPs cost more, with prices exceeding 5 million or even reaching the tens of millions. As the industry matures and breakout cases multiply, IP holders' bargaining power continues to rise.

Breakout events around popular IPs can often drive a cognitive upgrade across the entire IP licensing industry, stimulating brands' and IP holders' willingness to engage in IP collaboration activities.

Counting the representative classic cases of recent years: there are nationwide spectacles, like Luckin Coffee x Black Myth: Wukong's “the whole internet is the Destined One” and Mengniu x Ne Zha 2's must-watch Spring Festival ad film; there are niche-category sensations, like Redmi earphones x Genshin Impact's Klee mini backpack that got hotly traded on secondhand markets, HEYTEA x Light and Night sparking social buzz about otome game girls “registering marriage” with their “2D husbands,” and 2233-chan x Wujiang pickled mustard's pink mustard-tops-rice contrast meme; and there are cases with breakthrough significance within the domestic animation circle, such as McDonald's x The King's Avatar, Cornetto x Mo Dao Zu Shi, and Pop Mart x Fei Ren Zai.

Collaboration events don't always achieve the idealized mutual pursuit; more often they are a process of both sides seeking understanding and respect through磨合-style adjustment. Due to insufficient preparation, loose channel-end management, or poor fan communication, quite a few negative breakout events have occurred. Some collaboration deals run into unpleasant situations, such as material leaks, insufficient stock, internal reselling, improper messaging, and pricing controversies — “public apologies” to fans and consumers have become a high-frequency move.

Collaboration failures hitting trending searches are also common, such as the most notorious incident where a Hushang Ayi customer service agent mocked players of Light and Night during their collaboration, and this year's China Post x Snowbreak: Containment Zone collaboration suspended over content controversy, with the game even being reported and shut down. Collaboration is not simply traffic amplification; it is more about joint management of brand reputation and IP value, requiring more professional operations investment across multiple fronts.

In 2026, whether IP collaboration can be done, what to do, and how to do it has become a topic of shared concern for IP holders and brands — it is also, besides games, one of the IP content industry's tracks closest to money. Kepu 2Yuan (WeChat official account ID: kpACGN) approaches from multiple industry perspectives to outline ten major trends for domestic IP collaboration in 2026, hoping to provide reference for all parties' practice.

Over the next two years, IP collaboration will enter a new stage of explosive growth: more IP holders and brands will enter the arena, more new collaboration projects will accelerate their rollout, and repeat deals and re-runs will become more frequent. IP collaboration activities will shift from randomness to normalization, further developing toward scale and serialization. Multiple consumer brands are expected to establish dedicated teams to efficiently develop IP collaboration business, and IP holders will strengthen their commercialization departments or entrust third-party professional agencies with deal negotiations.

The explosion of IP collaboration comes with calm: high-quality development becomes inevitable, reflected in continuous optimization across cooperation models, product design, marketing, public opinion management, and other links. With more cases, data, and accumulated participant experience, IP collaboration will professionalize while differentiating. IP holders and brands have clearer needs and more room for choice; the matching precision between product positioning and IP audiences' purchasing power is improving, and the era of blind experimentation is ending.

The head effect in IP collaboration will persist long-term: fan scale and stickiness are directly tied to purchasing power. Except in rare cases, top consumer brands with capital, resources, and supply chain management capabilities will usually prioritize head IPs for collaboration, and IPs with existing success cases are also the safe choice for newer brands starting collaborations. For new IPs to get a slice of the IP collaboration pie, they currently can only rely on hard content and word-of-mouth strength or leverage from a powerful producer. During a period of rapid industry growth, head concentration is normal — only with top-tier, comprehensively powerful IPs breaking through can more IPs be given the possibility of collaboration.

The total number of head IPs is limited after all — we've tallied repeatedly, and there are only around a hundred selectable IPs at present; some top IPs have collaborated with over 50 brands, and there's a bit of aesthetic fatigue. IPs are running short, but demand from brands across industries keeps growing, so the nostalgia wave for classic IPs is becoming an important supplement to the collaboration market. Examples include CCTV Animation and Shanghai Animation Film Studio's classic IPs like Journey to the West and Calabash Brothers. Classic IPs have high national recognition, broad audiences, and appeal to all ages; tested by time and relatively low-risk, they are excellent options for brand collaborations.

Brands with high market sensitivity cannot avoid the topic of IP collaboration. In an increasingly competitive consumer market, brands face the test of upgrading differentiation strategies. IP collaboration satisfies the dual needs of sales growth and brand building simultaneously; its cost-effectiveness, replicability, and market feedback have been repeatedly validated.

Over the next two years, more brands will upgrade IP collaboration from a routine marketing tool to brand strategy, thinking at the early product design stage about how "IP+" can meet core users' needs, ensuring the co-branded product's design, quality, and details both attract core fans and fit mainstream market aesthetics. By choosing IPs with matching tones to build unique brand perception among consumer groups, they will seize the initiative in market competition oriented toward youthfulness, personalization, and emotional consumption.

Although the concept of emotional consumption has been discussed in the industry for years, the current pace of consumer product development still fails to adequately meet consumers' strong demand for emotional consumption. So-called emotional consumption has long gone beyond simple sticker products, photo check-ins, and social media showing off — it requires deeper spiritual resonance with consumers. Therefore, whether IP collaboration, emotional consumption, or immersive experiences, more IP-integrated creative expression is needed.

Consumers long to be understood, recognized, and accompanied — not to be clout-chased or exploited. For most domestic IP holders and brands, IP collaboration is a trend they've only joined in the past couple of years. But the core pan-two-dimensional consumer group, as natives of the mobile internet era, has already witnessed over a decade of IP collaboration development in China's consumer market — from overseas IPs to domestic games, then to novels and domestic animation; consumers have paid for all kinds of collaborations and naturally stepped in many pitfalls along the way.

It's fair to say that the growth rate of today's mainstream consumers outpaces the supply side. Facing the potential flood of collaborations in the coming explosion phase, they possess relatively professional and rational discernment and will pay for emotional value more precisely. For different collaboration projects, consumers will weigh IP background, product quality, and brand sincerity simultaneously; impulsive consumption driven purely by doting will drop sharply. "IP+" can only catch the eye — it's no longer a guaranteed buy; product quality itself will return to the core of purchase decisions.

The industry's trailblazing phase is over, and IP collaboration's viability has been broadly validated. Head brands and head IPs have essentially worked out their own stable cooperation models, and will next explore more flexible, more innovative deep cooperation on the basis of continuously improving efficiency. What attracts consumers in IP collaboration is not only the IP itself, but the IP-integrated creative expression.

As the early head players' experience spreads, the whole industry's cooperation processes will accelerate their formalization, significantly shortening new entrants' adjustment cycles. This will be another core driver of the market's explosive growth to come.

IPs benefit from the internet's wide reach, and co-branded physical goods are destined to move toward online-offline integration. Currently, IP collaboration is still in a trial phase for many brands; considering cost and geographic constraints, most IP collaboration activities' offline investment is limited. But past cases show that viral IP collaboration cases cannot do without the boost of offline immersive experiences. Retail stores can also try using "IP+" to attract traffic and break through. Take the recent transformation results of "goods" (merch) stores in many Chinese commercial complexes — although some merch stores now show fatigue, the core reason is that small standalone retailers struggle to secure more IP endorsements; non-essential merch alone can't sustain long-term operational vitality, and the IP + everyday consumer goods model can precisely break this limitation.

Currently, IP collaboration offline activities are concentrated in first-tier cities and second- and third-tier cities with relatively strong two-dimensional atmospheres, but in reality, whether urban white-collar workers or small-town youth, demand for emotional consumption keeps growing. ACGN, spread through the internet, has a huge fan base in lower-tier markets; this group's needs have not been met, and most of them still feel freshness toward IP collaboration. As more brands enter and accelerate channel penetration leveraging supply chain advantages, a true nationwide IP consumption wave can be expected.

IP collaboration depends extremely on word of mouth; social media has undoubtedly become the main battlefield, carrying the dual possibility of word-of-mouth fermentation and crisis eruption. Mastering social media communication logic helps successful IP collaboration cases ride the wind; at minimum, one needs proper public opinion monitoring to avert brand crises.

The channels for voicing opinions about IP collaboration online are increasingly diverse: IP holders and brands announcing collaboration news, news bloggers aggregating collaboration information, review bloggers purchasing co-branded products, vent-account bloggers reporting collaboration problems… In an era where everyone is a self-media creator, every consumer can speak up online and, thanks to IP tags, spread rapidly within their circles.

Going forward, IP collaboration remains an important metric for various fan communities to discuss, chase, and even compete over and judge. But that's not a bad thing — for brands, sincerely treating IP fans, carefully ensuring product quality, and pricing reasonably will yield returns far beyond expectations.

IP collaboration is a two-way empowerment of brands and IPs. IPs give brands a differentiated edge and reasonable premium space in fierce competition. As cases accumulate and baseline data on consumer purchasing power and acceptance is gathered, subsequent IP collaboration premiums will also become more rational. Pricing will be calculated comprehensively based on multiple factors such as collaboration creative depth, product quality, emotional resonance, and value-added services, maximizing efficiency.

For IPs, long-term value management demands particular attention. Every collaboration's outcome affects its future pricing power. Although some IP holders remain relatively weak in negotiations today, the scarcity of head IPs will gradually grant them bargaining power, and quality IPs will become increasingly valuable.

The commercial logic of IP collaboration as a whole is shifting: previously it was more that IP holders wanted to partner with brands for exposure and revenue; now brands equally need the empowerment of IPs' popularity and tone. Amid the shifting pricing power between IPs, both sides can move from clout-chasing toward becoming better versions of themselves.

Rapid market growth comes with multiple risks, mainly concentrated in the following areas: first is copyright protection — many details not discussed during negotiation later produce disagreements that interrupt projects, increasing costs and creating hidden dangers for future cooperation. Pirated products related to popular IPs replicate quickly, requiring effective control to reduce losses.

Public opinion management is a major test, especially the backlash from negative publicity that harms both IP and brand. In this regard, watch for issues like material leaks caused by excessive hype, pricing controversies, homogenized sticker designs, hunger marketing, rampant scalpers and daigou, and false advertising.

For IP holders and brands, the timing and rhythm of collaboration deals deserve serious attention now. If collaborations are too frequent, each deal's memory cycle may be extremely short, making it hard to accumulate brand equity. Meanwhile, too many collaborations cause aesthetic fatigue, make quality hard to guarantee, and erode consumers' trust and patience for future collaborations.

The growth significance of IP collaboration has long extended beyond commercial interests themselves.

Looking back over the past decade, the domestic ACGN IP collaboration industry has transformed from seeking cooperation to choosing partners, and from passive licensing to mutual co-creation. Once, many domestic IPs with sufficient popularity had to grope through merchandise development alone, self-funding manufacturing, with cross-industry collaboration deals hard to come by. Now, we see numerous head IPs competing to collaborate with consumer goods giants at home and abroad, sparking heated discussion across the global internet; we see traditional culture IPs entering young people's daily consumption with a brand-new posture; we witness global brands paying for domestic IPs and promoting IP collaboration projects as flagship brand marketing events.

Behind all of this is the growth of China's young generation of consumers. They have propped up and supported domestic IP collaboration products with real money. Expressing attitudes through purchases and spreading love through sharing, they have built the market's recognition of the value of domestic IPs. Their choices are quietly changing global brands' perception of Chinese culture — no longer confined to stereotyped element tags, but toward a more vivid, richer, and more meaningful contemporary Chinese narrative.

IP collaboration is not only a commercial achievement co-created by Chinese culture, consumer brands, and consumers; it is also a deep fusion of traditional cultural genes and contemporary context. From online to offline, from industry to culture, from commercial value to emotional connection, and further from the Chinese market to the world stage — in the future, IP collaboration will continue to demonstrate the global value of Chinese IPs, steadily widening the narrative radius of Chinese stories.

Author / Kaopu Erciyuan Industry Research Group

This article is republished with permission from “Kaopu Erciyuan”

The spring of 2026 still carries a lingering chill, and the field of domestic animated series feels it too. The just-ended 2025 was the year with the fewest newly launched animated series in the past five years; even counting over ten year-round series, the total barely exceeded one hundred, far from the peaks of over 140 titles in 2023 and 2024.

“Cost reduction and efficiency improvement” and “long-termism” have become the keynote, while the clamor of the “first year of AI manga dramas” diverted the attention and resources of rights holders and long/short-video platforms. The explosive hit of the year's opening, Seedance 2.0, pushed AIGC competition to new heights, and P/UGC derivative creations are challenging the long-cycle, capital-heavy animation production model. In the mass market, the 2026 Spring Festival slate lacked a blockbuster like Ne Zha 2, with only gatekeeper Boonie Bears holding the line, and discussion around Chinese animation sank into silence. On the other hand, fandom quarrels around animated works never cease — plagiarism accusations, drastic alterations, ranking wars, ideological callouts and other negative buzz frequently break out of the circle, making creation and promotion a walk on thin ice.

Despite an environment riddled with uncertainty in capital, technology, business, and public opinion, we remain cautiously optimistic about the field of domestic animated series in 2026. As we said in our report a year ago, the core word for Chinese animation in 2025 was “integration,” reflected in cross-genre content, the collision of technology and aesthetics, audiences breaking out of circles, linked business models, and broader explorations of talent convergence. The fruits of this integration are now beginning to show. Today, we believe the core word for Chinese animation in 2026 will be “transformation.”

Farewell to the wild growth of the Hundred-Series War and excessive dependence on theatrical breakouts to attract new audiences — domestic online animated series are groping toward their own independent path: we no longer blindly chase scale anxiety over minutes and title counts, but focus on the core value of visual quality and story substance; we no longer limit ourselves to homogeneous, formulaic stacking of elements, but choose the most suitable creative grammar among many options; we no longer fear or avoid AIGC tools, but face their potential squarely and turn them into aids for efficiency and innovation; we no longer work for love with no way to monetize, but explore IP licensing and diversified development to achieve a positive loop between content and commerce.

The vision is beautiful, but reality still requires steady steps. This is the fifth “Domestic Animated Series” trend report produced by Kaopu Erciyuan (WeChat ID: kpACGN). Many trends from past annual reports have come true one by one, and at this critical juncture of industrial transformation, we hope this “Domestic Animated Series” trend report can, as before, analyze industry dynamics and glimpse the future through ten major trends.

Before detailing the trends, we first systematically reviewed nearly ten dimensions of data on domestic online animated series in 2025, comparing them with the 2023 and 2024 cycles to interpret the subtle changes in mindset and action among industry players.

To improve the accuracy of trend forecasts, this time we also compiled public information on over 120 unaired IPs from the launch events of the four platforms — Bilibili, Youku, iQIYI, and Tencent Video — as of February 28, 2026. Although there are occasional surprise additions, these reserves still form the basic stock of S-level to A-level works in the 2026–2027 cycle, and each platform's strategic differences will directly determine the platform landscape and industry direction in the coming years.

Below is the full text of the 2026 “Domestic Animated Series” Trend Report. It rewards repeated reading. May Chinese animation flourish forever.

According to statistics from the Kaopu Erciyuan Industry Research Group, in 2025 the total number of domestic animated series on air throughout the year just exceeded 110, with 92 new launches, 76 platform-exclusive IPs, involving 62 production companies, plus 8 year-round series on air, and 10+ works with twice-weekly updates or more continuing across the year. The total number of works was far below the 140+ of 2023–2024, and overall minutes also decreased somewhat. For the first time since 2020, the production capacity of animated series saw a double decline in both title count and minutes in 2025.

Despite the contraction in quantity, overall quality steadily improved, and the industry still provided audiences who love Chinese animation with content worth watching, discussing, and spending on. Below we analyze from multiple dimensions: platforms, formats, genres, IP sources, production companies, and release windows. Considering that year-round series are nearly fixed assets for platforms, and that quality gaps in series airing across the year have limited industry impact, the following data takes the 92 newly launched domestic animated series as the main analytical subject.

92 new domestic animated series launched in 2025; the figures for 2022, 2023, and 2024 were 98, 123, and 112 respectively. It is foreseeable that most of the following objective figures will decline to varying degrees compared with previous years. Of these, only 77 were co-produced with platform participation, below 2024's 104, but in 2025 only 28 were platform-exclusive productions, roughly flat with the previous year. This shows that although platforms have contracted overall resources, investment in top-tier works remains relatively stable. The model of platforms trading investment for exclusive streaming rights is nearly over; current project cooperation increasingly concentrates on two options: “strong-alliance” deep binding and “platform-wide release” with self-responsibility for profit and loss. As for who paid for animations without platform co-production, in 2025 it was game companies and the likes of Ruohong Culture.

With overall output down, there is inevitably a bit of a content drought. So production is no longer tied to exclusive rights; platforms exchange non-top-tier and completed works, sharing streaming rights, which gives non-top-tier works more exposure opportunities — after all, such titles never had much promotional budget and basically relied on the platforms' organic users to open them.

The release of exclusive streaming rights is a signal of intensifying head concentration. Tencent Video and bilibili, which produced more animations in previous years, both contracted notably this year. From around 40 titles in 2023, to 30+ in 2024, to 20+ in 2025 — the main reason is that head concentration on these two platforms has essentially formed, with funds and resources concentrated on year-round series and S+ IPs, making it hard for new works to break out. Youku's production count dipped slightly from 16 to 10, partly for the same reason and partly because the platform strategy is shifting its focus from “new guofeng” to “original Chinese animation,” still in transition. iQIYI's production count was 20, basically flat with the year before, mainly because the platform's head IPs are still being explored, with some results possibly in 2026.

Although fewer new titles launched, the highly anticipated works on each platform were no worse than previous years, each with its own highlights: Tencent Video's Jian Lai 2, bilibili's To Be Hero X, Youku's Yun Shen Bu Zhi Meng, and iQIYI's Mo Fa Gong Zhu De Xiao Fan Nao. Beyond these new launches, the quality of year-round series on air also improved, such as Tales of Herding Gods, Battle Through the Heavens, and Renegade Immortal.

Looking at the data from 2022 to 2025, four consecutive years: 3D animation launches have kept rising, 2D has kept declining, 3-rendered-as-2 has grown ever more marginal, and the overall industrial capacity landscape is stabilizing and adjusting. The gap in minutes is more obvious: year-round series and multi-weekly-update animations are all 3D, and top 3D works are slowly growing per-episode length; apart from A Will Eternal, which updates every other year yet manages year-round status, no 2D production capacity can sustain a long series, and short-form “noodle” series are almost all 2D.

3D animation technology and industrialized pipelines have advanced too fast; spectacular visual presentation raised market acceptance, so platforms and production companies prefer greenlighting 3D. Most 2D animation still lags 3D in both visuals and capacity, but the polish of top-tier 2D is also stunning, such as Sumei Pictures' Lord of the Mysteries.

The market space for 3-render-2 keeps narrowing, mainly because its costs aren't as low as 3D and its visuals aren't as natural as 2D — its advantages are up for debate. Also, few companies in the industry do 3-render-2 in the first place, such as Shengying Animation and 2:10 AM Animation; these companies have also experimented with full-2D and full-3D animation in recent years, with decent competitiveness. Perhaps going forward, rather than 3-render-2, exploration of format fusion will show up more in 3D animation using 2D freeze frames and small animations to add visual tension and guofeng aesthetics, or in 2D animation leveraging 3D technology to cut costs and depict worldbuilding and multi-character scenes.

The quality of domestic 3D animation rose steadily in 2025; the wide application of UE and other technologies improved model precision, facial detail, scene complexity, and more, raising the average level a whole tier over previous years. Story remains relatively weak; under industrialized pipelines, many works began applying the formulas of past hits, with heavy traces of element stacking and weaker coherence. Top works perform well across the board, such as A Record of a Mortal's Journey to Immortality and Ling Cage 2.

Platforms' cost-cutting contraction affected the profit model of 3D animation of average quality. Production companies were “forced” to raise production quality to win platform investment — a phenomenon increasingly obvious after summer 2025. Overall, domestic 3D animation is getting ever more competitive; companies whose hearts aren't in creation have stagnated in quality and are about to be eliminated by the market.

2D animation's 2025 performance was somewhat surprising: from Lord of the Mysteries and Chao Neng Li Fang: Chao Fan Pian in the first half, to Mo Fa Gong Zhu De Xiao Fan Nao and Gu Wei Nan Ting in the second half, plus summer's guoman fandom king Fei Ren Zai 3, the quality and storytelling of 2D animation achieved new breakthroughs over previous years. On one hand, some top domestic comic IPs belatedly got anime adaptations, guaranteeing a quality floor; on the other, some 2D production companies avoided gimmicks and earnestly polished their visuals; accumulated experience met works suited to the teams' temperaments, achieving win-win results.

But both 2D and domestic comic IPs carry a touch of tears of the times; even when quality is good, most received lukewarm responses, leaving a wistful feeling of “had this been animated a few years earlier, it would surely have been the light of guoman.”

In terms of subject matter, xuanhuan (Eastern fantasy) still dominates, matching the 56% share of the 2023/2024 cycle in proportion, with fewer in absolute count, while the share of fantasy works increased. We mention this in every annual trend report: xuanhuan homogeneity is a problem facing the whole industry; platforms and producers are seeking novelty and change, but constrained by IP availability and teams' production inertia, they can only make slow, fine adjustments.

Slice-of-life/comedy/short-form is shrinking: apart from a few fixed popular IPs still being made to accompany book and merchandise monetization, few new projects exist. Low-capacity works from newcomers appear more often in platforms' short-animation anthologies, such as Yao-Chinese Folklore, Jiao Nang Ji Hua, and Mao Xing Dong Fang. Sci-fi has always existed, never more nor less; Chinese animators' exploration of sci-fi has never stopped, but apart from Ling Cage and Swallowed Star, no breakout hit has emerged.

In truth, it is getting harder and harder to strictly categorize animation genres; layered settings have become the norm. Audiences' choices aren't heavily constrained by genre; their core pursuit is visual beauty and impact, and story scarcity and completeness. Rather than agonizing over which genre to make, what matters more is choosing works that fit the team's DNA and can score highly on overall quality — after all, even a blue-ocean market doesn't need bad films.

By IP source, novel adaptations still exceed 60%, but this is the first decline after years of continuous growth — change has begun. The root cause is that few of the previous generation's top web novel IPs remain developable, popular, and non-homogeneous, while the new generation of S-level web novel IP adaptations are still in development cycles.

In fact, the stock of popular web novel IPs ran out long ago; the maintained output of recent years owes much to newly joined IP holders like Tomato Novel, Qimao, Shuqi, and Douban, who supplied a large volume of mid-tier novel rights, satisfying platforms' and producers' content-filling needs. However, since platforms began reducing demand for low-quality animation in 2025, cutting some highly homogeneous xuanhuan web novel adaptations, overall numbers will keep declining.

Comic adaptations held steady at 17%, with actual counts falling, because Tencent Comic, which used to do many comic adaptations, launched few new projects after its acquisition, while Kuaikan Comics released quite a few quality rights; the adapted animation was of decent overall quality, but born at the wrong time, underperforming market expectations. Game adaptations have always been stable, a self-indulgent niche of around 5% per year, a small hobby of a few game companies, such as NetEase Games, Seasun, and Tencent TiMi's Honor of Kings project.

Original animation's share has rebounded, with relatively stable numbers. Under years of pressure from a web-novel-adaptation-dominated market, still producing around 15 originals annually shows the persistence and resilience of Chinese animation creators. The average quality of original animation is decent; popular sequel projects win fans galore, such as the original sci-fi Ling Cage 2 and Hua Fei Hua Bu Liang Ren 7? — no, the口碑-crashed but still hot Bu Liang Ren 7; new IPs are also distinctive, like the highly experimental To Be Hero X and the big-female-lead Yun Shen Bu Zhi Meng.

Wait, I need to correct: Bu Liang Ren official is "The Outcast". Let me redo this paragraph properly:

Original animation's share has rebounded, with relatively stable numbers. Under years of pressure from a web-novel-adaptation-dominated market, still producing around 15 originals annually shows the persistence and resilience of Chinese animation creators. The average quality of original animation is decent; popular sequel projects win fans galore, such as the original sci-fi Ling Cage 2 and The Outcast 7, whose reputation crashed yet heat remains high; new IPs are also distinctive, like the highly experimental To Be Hero X and the big-female-lead narrative Yun Shen Bu Zhi Meng.

On new works versus sequels, the share of new works, which had declined for over three years, rebounded for the first time — this figure was 70%-64%-59%-66% across 2022-2023-2024-2025 — but 2025's absolute count did not grow much. There are contradictory reasons: on one hand, greenlighting new IPs is hard, good IPs aren't enough, and people are less willing to experiment and fail; on the other, many aired IPs have mediocre popularity with no value for sequel development, so when works run short, new ones must be made. Overall, both platforms and producers choose their investments more cautiously.

Some examples of 2025 new launches: new IP works like Kai Ju Di Tan Mai Da Li, Shan Hai Jing Mi Ma, Gu Xiong, Ke Jin Wan Jia, and IP sequels like Martial Universe 5&6, Fairies Albums: Luoyang Pian, Year Hare Affair 7, Stellar Transformations 6.

Year-round series attract much attention; as we analyzed in previous trend reports, it took only three years for the market to go from “chasing year-round series” to “year-round series failing” to “year-round series anxiety.” In 2025, only 10 high-quality year-round series were on air, and only 1 newly launched; some former year-round projects paused intermittently due to insufficient capacity. This is normal — the creators are human, not gods; even with IP adaptations, even with increasingly mature industrial pipelines, core creative content still takes human time. The market's high expectations for year-round series correspond to high pressure in creation and operations; any wobble in reputation can trap an IP in a long downward spiral of public opinion, making it hard to attract new viewers.

Year-round series still represent the top level of the animated series industry, and their accumulated long-term heat is an advantage in IP commercialization. However, multiple year-round series will hit a completion wave in 2027–2028; “can we land smoothly” has become the most pressing anxiety for these series. Whether they “flop the ending” directly determines the IP's future value — whether it becomes a benchmark IP with long-tail heat, or is discarded by the market through a funnel of core fans, all parties must consider. Developing side stories, web films, even theatrical films have become new growth points platforms seek for year-round IP, but if the flagship series can't hold, original plot quality is even more dubious, and whether promised pies can be realized or are even worth investment is a big question.

In 2025, domestic animated series' release windows no longer followed the quarterly rhythm of January/April/July/October, but concentrated in the July–August summer window and the December–February winter break window. Overall, Q3 had slightly more titles, while the other three quarters were fairly balanced. Examples: Q1's Red Bean: Food World and Shi Ye Mo Wang; Q2's Kun Tun Tian Xia: Zhang Men Gui Lai and Da Yuan Hun; Q3's Zichuan 2 and Zhe Ge Nian Ji Hai Neng Dang Da Xia Ma 2; Q4's San Xian Lun Hui and Jiu Yang Wu Shen.

Month by month, compared with rushing to hit windows in previous years, early release has become the consensus in scheduling: summer window slotted in late June, National Day window in September, winter window in December. This scheduling pattern reflects, on one hand, the normalization of audiences' demand for domestic animation — watchable year-round — and on the other, unsaturated viewing demand: weekly episodes of 10–20 minutes can't satisfy viewers; stockpiling several episodes before airing provides both recommendation resources and content accumulation, which better cultivates follow-through.

Beyond quarterly and monthly scheduling, weekly update times also shifted slightly: apart from a Monday drought, Tuesday through Sunday were fairly balanced. Platform scheduling strategies adjust dynamically every year: in 2022 the most launches were Friday–Sunday, in 2023 Thursday–Friday–Wednesday, in 2024 Saturday and Thursday, and by 2025, Wednesday and Friday. Platforms do want content every day to draw viewers, but early-week updates do get “buried at the bottom”; heavy hitters and year-round series still concentrate in the latter half of the week, making it convenient for users to binge on weekend openings. With total output shrinking, whether to pursue daily content or concentrate resources on capturing users' weekend viewing time is a question platform operations must weigh.

Of the 92 new domestic animated series launched in 2025, excluding sprawling outsourcing capacity, 62 animation companies handled main production, below 2023's 80+ and 2024's 66; 24 companies released more than one work, up from 22 in 2024. This shows the industry landscape is basically stable, the current round of elimination largely complete, head companies' industrial pipelines keep improving — but some companies are one-offs whose business focus isn't animation.

The maturing of 3D companies' industrial pipelines is also reflected in replicable capacity: over three high-capacity companies successively split into multiple entities and teams. Apart from Ruohong Culture and Suoyi Technology, animation companies maintain annual output of 2–4 titles; apart from Sparkly Key Animation running 4 year-round series simultaneously without breaks, top capacity generally keeps 1 year-round series plus 1 premium seasonal series. Industry capacity, like the works, continues trending toward head concentration. 2D capacity is also accelerating; head companies can deliver 1 premium S+ or 2 A+ works per year — mostly familiar faces like Sumei Pictures, Colored Pencil Animation, Big Firebird Culture, and Luoshui Huayuan.

Directors are the core asset of the Chinese animation industry, a view we've expressed repeatedly in articles like the 2025 “Chinese Animation Directors” Review (Series Edition). This year's report also lists selected “boutique-type” directors of hit works or high-output “workhorse-type” directors, as a brief macro summary.

For instance, directors of premium 2D works: Lord of the Mysteries' Xiong Ke, Dragon Raja and Love Between Fairy and Devil's Wang Xin, Chao Neng Li Fang and Kun Tun Tian Xia's Wei Tianxing, Fei Ren Zai's Zhong Ming, Mo Fa Gong Zhu De Xiao Fan Nao's Zhang Yingying; and in 3D, the universally known Shen Leping, Wang Yuren who persevered until A Record of a Mortal's Journey to Immortality saw the moon, Suoyi Technology's workhorse Li Tinghe, Cang Yuan Tu's Zhang Yili who brings new surprises every time, and Shen Yimo, striving to turn around the reputation of Battle Through the Heavens.

As storytelling grows ever more important, screenwriters have stepped from behind the scenes into the spotlight. But since writing teams are generally large — some works credit nearly 20 screenwriters — large-scale statistics aren't practical. So this report simply highlights a few writing teams for industry and outsiders alike; we'll also publish a more detailed Chinese animation screenwriter review article this year. Most animation companies combine writing and directing, such as Sparkly Key Animation's Shen Leping team, Wanweimao Animation's Wang Yuren team, and Shenman Culture's Zeng Yuanjun team; some have long-term stable writer-director pairings, like Sumei Pictures' screenwriter Liu Xing team with director Xiong Ke; original writing teams are few and tend toward writer-director unity, like Li Haolin's and Dong Xiangbo's teams; there are also dedicated writing teams that long-term collaborate with multiple production companies, mostly in 3D animation, such as Ma Hua's, Liu Shipeng's, and Gao Yang's teams. These teams usually have 1 lead writer, 1 deputy writer, and 2–5 writers and assistants, with collaboration models varying by project.

With industrial capacity scaling and platforms' central role in industry investment, the slates of the four launch events — Bilibili, Youku, iQIYI, Tencent Video — basically outline the content backbone of the animation industry over the next two years. Even with occasional surprise or stalled projects, ratings will adjust upon release, but the overall trend won't change much.

According to the Kaopu Erciyuan Industry Research Group, combining the 2025 slates of the four platforms, as of the end of February 2026, excluding year-round series on air and their special theatrical editions, 121 IPs' animated works have yet to premiere — the main force of the 2026–2027 cycle. Given platforms' differing announcement habits — some put up just a poster to pad the event, some announce only when projects reach early-mid production — this article won't break down the four platforms separately, only aggregate analysis.

In the genre most watched by the market, upcoming works are dominated by fantasy, especially urban fantasy, fantasy suspense, and fantasy-magic; over 40% of upcoming works are fantasy, with other genres containing fantasy elements too. On one hand, the new generation of web novel super-IPs skews fantasy; on the other, fantasy is a market-validated category with proven breakouts, breaking xuanhuan homogeneity. Notable upcoming projects include Shi Ri Zhong Yan, Huo Wang, Yong Bing Tian Xia, plus sequels like Link Click 3 and Zhan Shen 2.

Classic xuanhuan projects are fewer, around 23%, mainly IP sequels like A Will Eternal 4 and Full-Time Magister 7, or series-IP universe linkages under the same author, such as Battle Through the Heavens/The Great Ruler author Tiancan Tudou's Yuan Zun Year-Round Series and Wan Xiang Zhi Wang, Chen Dong (author of Perfect World and Zhe Tian)'s Sheng Xu, and Qingluan Feng Shang's Wo You Yi Jian. The core reasons are still homogeneity and fierce competition in xuanhuan year-round series — non-heavy-investment new works lack competitiveness, deterring greenlights.

In recent years, the sci-fi category of web animation has never produced a breakout hit — a shared regret of market, creators, and audiences — so all four platforms have sci-fi projects planned. Unlike the previous original-heavy slate, two-thirds of this batch of sci-fi projects are novel adaptations; whether the category can redeem itself remains to be seen. Also, sci-fi projects commonly suffer long, stalled cycles — a risk to face.

Another 20+ titles span miscellaneous genres: traditional romance/comedy/slice-of-life, school/esports/sports, supernatural/mystery, wuxia/xianxia, etc. Examples include The King's Avatar 4, Nan Hong, Cheng Ye Xiao He.

By IP source, novels still exceed 50%; original works' share rose sharply versus regular broadcast to nearly 30%, and comic adaptations are few. Several reasons: originals generally have long development cycles, making them perpetual residents of upcoming slates; and with platform strategies, insufficient adaptation IPs, and increasingly mature production teams, industry resources are tilting toward originals. But whether good stories can be told awaits the finished product.

Developing original animation and telling Chinese animators' own stories is the inevitable path of a maturing industry and a key turning point for creators establishing their styles. The biggest change in this cycle's slate: beyond companies with original animation experience, like Hanmu Chunhua, YHKT Entertainment, and Rosen Pictures, many top-tier production companies famous for adaptations are testing original projects, such as Sparkly Key Animation, Shenman Culture, Original Force, and Qingxiang Culture. On top of mature 3D industrial pipelines, whether this batch of originals becomes formulaic assembly of familiar elements or “the light of guoman” with both spirit and personality will be a key industry spectacle in coming years. How to do original stories well is the inevitable assignment of the new stage of domestic animation, and the key turning point for Chinese animators to blaze their own path.

By production format, upcoming slates are mostly 3D, more than double the 2D count. Given 2D's long production cycles and short runtimes, 3D's actual market share on air will be even higher, but premium S-level 2D and small-but-beautiful shorts will keep drawing market attention and affection. 3-render-2 has almost vanished; likely, once current sequels finish, no new projects will be greenlit.

121 upcoming IPs involve 79 production companies, with over a third of projects handled by 11 head companies. Head companies' two-year plans are basically around 4 projects each, matching expectations of stable capacity growth; they also have 1–2 year-round series, 1–2 seasonal series/theatrical editions in parallel production, plus multiple projects in pre-production — safeguarding the basic stock of sustainable development for Chinese animation.

Synthesizing the four platforms' strategies: bilibili is positioning in the female-oriented market, Youku is increasing original animation investment, iQIYI is building a grand xuanhuan IP universe, and Tencent Video drew a 10+ year pie for xuanhuan year-round series, but new works concentrate in the fantasy market. Despite differentiated strategies, the core of competition converges: the contest for premium production capacity and core creative talent.

Production companies' leverage keeps rebounding; the era of binding capacity through investment is over. Many production companies work with multiple platforms, even all four — both a choice to diversify revenue and the result of long-term mutual bargaining; after all, cases of companies being squeezed or even crushed by a single platform's owed payments are not rare. However, the same company's works perform differently across platforms: the studio's brand secures the floor of a work's quality, while the core team's ability and supervision determine the ceiling.

By reviewing 2025 broadcast data and the 2026–27 upcoming slate, comparing years of industry history, and drawing on years of in-depth exchanges with practitioners, Kaopu Erciyuan (WeChat ID: kpACGN) distilled the “Ten Trends” of domestic animated series for 2026, analyzed one by one against the current industry situation.

Multiple key data points in 2025 ran opposite to the past three years: title counts and minutes fell instead of rising, novel adaptation share fell instead of rising, original share rose instead of falling, new-work share rose instead of falling. Given animation's production cycles, platform policies always lag actual industry conditions somewhat; today's industry situation is the direct result of platforms' earlier cost-cutting and efficiency drive.

The animation industry's industrialized system is initially established; scale is no longer the challenge — premium quality is the core pursuit of coming years. No longer indulging in absolute quantity, the competition between platforms and production companies is over the influence and monetization of head works, and IPs' long-tail heat. Low-quality, highly homogeneous works will be eliminated or pivot to the hotter AI manga-drama track. After this round of reshuffling and transformation, the domestic animated series industry will perfect a mature IP chain of “production–operations–derivatives” and move toward the broader mass market. Content industries have strong historical cycles: from guoman's rise ten years ago, to the capital winter five years ago — in the next five years, the upswing is about to begin.

In 2025–2026, all platforms saw major internal personnel changes; shifts in mid-to-senior staff and power structures directly affect strategic pivots and determine each platform's future industry standing. Over the next 2–3 years, the animation business landscape of Bilibili, Youku, iQIYI, and Tencent Video may be reshaped.

The main opportunities are several. First, competition for new tracks amid homogeneous content: while defending the basic stock of web-novel-adapted 3D xuanhuan, which track becomes audiences' second choice — female-oriented, fantasy, sci-fi, original, or the big screen? Second, competition for S+ works: multiple year-round series of this cycle will conclude in 2027–2028; viewers' habits are formed — who inherits that demand? Theatrical editions of year-round series, new year-round series, or new seasonal series? Currently, too early to say. To retain users longer-term is building a work matrix: platform paywalls still restrict audience mobility; heavy users subscribing to all four platforms are a minority, and subscribing for one work with nothing else to watch doesn't work either — after all, piracy can't be fully cleaned up — so ideally there are both audience-acquisition works and retention works for viewing time, both demanding more capital and resources.

The underlying logic of content competition is competition for production capacity. The era of platforms binding single-line to production companies is over; even investment or acquisition ties can't outweigh companies' need for risk resistance. But core creative teams are limited, and genius parachutes are extremely rare — whoever wins over head creators secures quality assurance. At this stage, production companies' leverage will rebound, and the old problem of amateurs directing professionals will ease.

With industrialization and mature work experience, production itself is no longer the challenge, so making originals and telling one's own stories is every content creator's natural pursuit; every platform's slate leaves windows for originals. Everyone knows originals aren't easy, yet animation audiences' expectations, tolerance, and support sometimes exceed imagination. Going forward, the domestic animated series market will surely see more and more brilliant original stories — no longer limited to small-beautiful experimental works, but also bigger, first-line investments.

Mature companies making original animation projects must consider the risk of 1–3 years of the whole team's time; may core creators decide more maturely and not over-consume creative resources and inspiration. If a completely new story isn't possible, applying some formulas isn't out of the question. Innovation can be disruptive or incremental; content is inherently a slow industry — optimization and growth matter most. Also, business models now exist, so originals must still consider monetization, to survive without depending on third parties.

Beyond original stories, female-oriented content is a topic of extremely high social attention in recent years, and a track all platforms have tacitly positioned in. Unlike traditional xuanhuan, this track demands front-loaded consideration of public-opinion risk, creative definition, and business models. Gender is a sensitive and contentious topic; some female-oriented works sparked opinion storms right after announcement, so opinion management before and after launch is crucial — don't label too early and create opposition, making good works bear infamy. While the female-oriented label naturally earns some viewers' goodwill, overusing such selling points can backfire; audiences' tolerance is limited. We do not advocate crude gender segmentation of potential viewers or presupposing opposition — otherwise harsher critical treatment follows.

Female-oriented works are also a test for creators. What exactly is female-oriented? Traditional romance, slice-of-life, cute things, the multi-hit-record BL, or big female leads? And what is a big female lead? A woman as strong as a man, a female ensemble with few male characters, or narrative and growth from a female perspective? Even the gender ratio of the creative team is a detail audiences scrutinize — how should companies coordinate internally?

Positioning in the female-oriented track, platforms and production companies, beyond chasing the trend and filling the so-called blue ocean, should consider converting women's consumption power. Women are the mainstay of IP consumption; female-oriented works must devise reasonable monetization strategies to keep long-term development opportunities and achieve a positive loop — not the cycle of “made it — got flamed — gone — lost big,” which is bad for everyone.

Urban fantasy is the backbone genre of every platform's slate; guofeng xuanhuan is the market's hottest mature genre. Since year-round series have carved up the xuanhuan market share, urban fantasy, which has produced recent breakouts, has become everyone's new bet, and the fantasy share will keep rising.

Worth noting: the new generation of web novel fantasy IPs — or many of the heavyweight fantasy animations in the upcoming slate — involve folklore, tomb-raiding, suspense, and other themes requiring careful handling; their creative limits and promotion models will affect broadcast results and reputation, and filter users of different ages and viewing needs. Which sub-genre of fantasy can produce the next breakout is a test for both platforms and producers.

Everyone wants to bid farewell to homogeneity, but teams' creative inertia isn't easily adjusted, so multi-genre, multi-element fusion will continue — including cross-pollination of 2D and 3D visual expression, and richer blends of fantasy and xuanhuan settings. There must be highlights to satisfy audiences' demand for novelty.

After visual and underlying-setting renewal, sound design has become the production环节 receiving increased investment in recent years. High-quality voice-acting creativity and personalized music and SFX have appeared across works, winning market and audience recognition; diverse music is part of content innovation. As an audiovisual art, animation's long-ignored “sound” is finally being heard. Domestic Animation: The Overlooked “Sound”

Cost-cutting plus long-termism led platforms to concentrate limited resources and funds on a few head works. Head effects will keep intensifying; middle-tier works face heavy cost pressure, and tail works are forced to raise quality to compete with former middle-tier works.

This is also the market's choice: scaled, homogeneous capacity created information overload, reinforcing the scarcity of head content. Users follow top IPs; the feasibility of commercialization and industry-chain operation concentrates on a few head works. Other casually-watched works no longer possess IP attributes, let alone the possibility and value of monetization through derivative development. As of now, more and more low-cost, zero-promotion surprise launches never appear on platforms' annual upcoming slates, still less in the sights of operational investment.

When distribution negotiations go well, a series can air complete, release all episodes at once with advance paid previews, and earn something. When cooperation is thin, it airs quietly without even a banner — worse off than AI manga dramas and fan creations.

Head works siphoning funds and resources carry risks too: negative opinion during broadcast gets infinitely amplified; underperforming sequels get downgraded and rescheduled. And there's the common problem facing today's most head year-round series: only by landing smoothly and concluding properly can the IP's long-term value continue; a botched ending could squander massive early investment and shrink the IP.

Works are becoming head-concentrated, and marketing too. Under platforms' routine scheduling, average promotion windows keep shrinking — from 3 months to 1 month to 7–15 days or even surprise drops — but competition among works only intensifies with homogenization.

Promotional investment still concentrates in platforms' hands, and in the industry transition period platforms need new stories — head works are the best material. Core resources concentrate on few works; the wine is equally fragrant, the alley equally deep, so out-marketing the competition is an inevitable choice. As the saying goes, out in the world, your identity is what you claim: Jian Lai 2's year-end launch, via massive promotion, self-proclaimed itself “king of series,” successfully sitting at the same table as classic year-round series A Record of a Mortal's Journey to Immortality and Renegade Immortal for audiences to compare; despite negative buzz over plagiarism and incomprehensibility, it kept its core fandom actively recruiting new viewers across social media.

At this stage, animation promotion still relies heavily on word-of-mouth and user initiative; pre-launch warm-up and audience mindshare cultivation are especially important — “positioning” a work well looks great on the surface. Works that get as much platform money and love as Jian Lai are a minority; as a success case, Jian Lai marks animation marketing entering a new stage of “defining a work's identity” through high-intensity resource investment and topic operations.

Many platforms and animation companies are conservative, shy of touting their works and achievements, let alone proactive marketing. In truth, most viewers' judgment is limited and their viewing volume isn't that large — only with promotion is there a chance to be remembered a little fondly. Relying quietly on fan loyalty and organic advocacy over-tests both, is hard in today's market, and betrays the efforts of hundreds of production staff. With mouths of one's own, whether and how to speak is becoming a key competitive metric of the industry's new stage — the market, platforms, and creative teams all need positive feedback.

​**Forbrand promotioncooperation, contactKaopu Erciyuan & Kaopu Gamebusiness contact: Qiesi (WeChat: kp_ACG)**

Technology's leaps startle and delight, and inevitably cause anxiety. AI's impact on the domestic animation industry is slowly shifting from all-negative. The mass market's rising acceptance of AI means AI use is no longer reviled, and animation companies needn't hide their experiments with and accommodations of new technology. On social media, users' evaluation of AI-using works is slowly shifting from “it used AI — avoid!” to “using AI is normal; admitting it and using it sensibly is understandable.”

For animation creators, normalized AIGC tool use both raises efficiency and breaks mental ruts, yielding new results. Actively embracing technological progress is a key reason China's 3D animation industry developed so rapidly in recent years, leaping to the world's front ranks.

Of course, the media's talk of change faces enormous resistance and talent gaps in the actual capital-heavy animation industry; a boss saying “we're all in on AIGC” doesn't retool the pipeline overnight. Tool iteration, talent learning, platform recognition, audience acceptance all take time — only that time is shrinking fast, and the window for normalized application is drawing near. What animation creators should consider more is how to counter the uniformity of AI content generation — combining their own production experience to produce content with personal advantage and character amid highly similar information.

As AI tools' entry barriers fall, for platforms and production companies, how to handle the copyright issues of netizens' AI derivative creations right now is more urgent than whether or how to use AI themselves.

As trendy toys and merch economies cool from fad to normal consumption, IP licensing has become the more solid business model. IP collaborations permeate every industry, and the market will keep growing in coming years. On one hand, domestic content now has enough head content assets that qualify as IPs, each mapping to different consumer profiles; on the other, more and more brands recognize the value of domestic IPs, making IP collaboration a cost-effective marketing event.

With platforms' cost-cutting and intensifying head concentration of content, IP licensing is both a new opportunity and new challenge for rights holders. Whether licensing revenue can feed back into content and commerce becomes a key factor determining an IP's life cycle. Though most middle-tier content lacks IP attributes, the rights holder's commercialization capability is the biggest factor. Short-term, IP licensing remains a platform-business-led industry link; professional licensing intermediaries and execution companies are equally suited to handle this on behalf of producers.

For production companies — especially amid shrinking platform budgets and resources tilting toward originals — it's time to rethink how animation works monetize. Working for love and being limited to production fees can't grow the industry; commercialization is nothing shameful. We believe that within ten years, every company and practitioner who makes good animation can earn a living from the cause they love.

Social media is too developed; public opinion gives creative teams feedback that is fast and sharp, and pressure spikes. When a carefully crafted work premieres, everyone wants to see audience reactions, hoping positive feedback fuels persistence and overtime — reading the comment section and bullet comments under one's own work after broadcast is a habit of many production staff.

Sometimes people can hardly understand each other: perhaps the creators' conception was good but the execution mediocre; or the creators meant A while audiences understood B; or no matter what the creators do, audiences are unsatisfied… These situations happen widely. Many creators engage willingly, opening personal accounts or livestreams, falling into spirals of self-justification; many engage passively, being asked by platforms and rights holders to adjust, or even being doorblocked by irrational fans at the office, doxxed, or mailed razor blades.

Animation is getting more popular, with audiences trending younger and more fandom-like; the problems are more complex than imagined. How to manage audience communication and opinion guidance is a shared challenge for creative and operations teams in coming years. Audience feedback can't be ignored — subjective creation has limits — but not all feedback can be heeded, since creators need their own convictions and creative autonomy, and some comments really are just laypeople's offhand remarks. Creators' mental health also needs attention: depression, anxiety, and sleep disorders are common among practitioners; if the creative process itself isn't joyful, it's hard to convey energy, joy, and passion through animation and heal more viewers.

Facing opinion controversies, there are more extreme approaches too: in recent years some platforms and creators' opinion-guidance tactics were rather malicious — obviously plagiarizing yet denying it, even livestreaming to direct fandom cyberbullying against audience members who raised questions, causing negative impact on the work.

Overall, the animation industry's talent base is fairly stable: despite mobility, most core talent stays deep in creation, continuously producing works and polishing quality. With the industry's breakout into the mass market, fresh blood keeps joining.

Worth noting: while the director-centered production model persists, the separation of director and screenwriter roles has become increasingly evident in recent years, including reverse experiments of screenwriters taking director seats — especially in 3D, where industrial pipelines are mature. This helps let professionals do professional work, gives more people chances to participate in core creation, and reduces work risk.

Though industry survival-of-the-fittest continues, platforms' demand for and investment in AI manga dramas absorbed some low-to-mid-tier animation capacity and talent, giving many people and companies the chance to transition smoothly rather than face survival crises from cost-cutting and head concentration.

Industry demand for high-quality works and multi-model commercialization is rising, and so is the gap for versatile talent. The market needs more people who understand both script and visuals, both creation and business, both aesthetics and technology, working in concert. The establishment of commercialization models and increased original investment will strengthen the appeal to versatile talent.