2026 Trend Report on Domestically Produced Animated Series
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.
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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.
