Why is donghua less popular than anime?

Runasius said:
Why is donghua less popular than anime?

Lucifrost said:
What, you think I'm reading Tokimeki Tonight in Italian or something? Here's a hint: I have no understanding of Italian. If YOU had any understanding of Japanese, you would know a single kanji can have several different pronunciations. They're not phonetic.

DEMSpirit said:
Italian is roman tongue and enough listening you will have no trouble reading it. Most people learning language don't take anything seriously and think any langauge is hard.

thehornedrat said:

Lol. Racist.

I watched Asterix the Gaul.....in French once....I thought it sounded weird....It doesnt sound right in Fremch....Shouldnt it be in English? Because I read and watch Asterix in English.

Later I found out it was a French cartoon. Author and artist are French.

So I pray you break out of your brainwashed state, zombie. If you ever can.

Kays90 said:
🔸Unlike some platforms that stream animes for free legally like Muse Asia on Youtube, Cruncyroll, etc to attract viewers, there is no such platform for Donghua. Infact the studio wouldn't even use Youtube officially for the same due to Chinese Govt.

xkazutox said:
Like massive isekai, they specialized in Chinese cultivation that doesn't make any sense to western viewers and expect us to know it all about they're technique or leveling system.

SleepySera said:
It's rare for something more regular-looking to come out, and when it does, it gets a decent enough fanbase, I'd say? Stuff like Link Click for example.

JojoUchiha said:
Name me 5 masterpieces that came out of china

SleepySera said:
I always manage only a bit at a time because their way of writing female characters is absolutely rage-inducing to me. Everyone is a helpless damsel with zero mind or agency of their own, only there to get rescued by the strong, manly hero, even in the ones with a female protagonist.

katsucats said:
Anime watchers aren't necessarily more open-minded than the general populace. Somehow they got put onto anime and got used to Japanese. They'd raise a stink about anime being specifically "Japanese". Just because white people watch Japanese anime doesn't mean they're going to be more open minded about works from other countries. That's why you see people complain about the language, which is just a crutch in my opinion. Aside from a few sounds, Mandarin is pronounced exactly like the pinyin, so I don't even know where that idea comes from.

Lucifrost said:

Neither involves "cultivation" either, whatever that is.

Lucifrost said:
You already asked this.
https://myanimelist.net/forum/?topicid=2090394&show=0
My answer remains the same: A lack of exposure. Can you name even a single Chinese animation that has been dubbed into a western language?

APolygons2 said:
you're right, but the second half of what you said is cap.

I can name you 2. both link click and legend of hei have English dubs.

katsucats said:
Your experiences of racism does not really invalidate (or even comment on) whether anime fans are more or less xenophobic than the general public they came from. Attitudes towards media do not exist in a vacuum. One of the reasons people dislike something is because they dislike the people that produce it. It's not an accident that jazz, blues, rock n roll, etc. were considered "the devil's music" for a large part of American history -- it's because black people were the progenitors. Of course, some people just don't like rap, which is all good. But not if they love rap when it's being appropriated in country music.

The crux of the argument to the bullet point you quoted is that opinions on languages in the context of liking media reveals attitudes about a person towards that culture in general. I can't claim that definitively, but there is enough anecdotal evidence in my opinion that shows that it is true for some of the people making that argument (e.g. that "Chinese doesn't sound good"). For you to not even recognize the possibility of bias being born from racism shows shallow analysis.

But I mean like considering you see Chinese propaganda in every donghua as if all the characters are just subliminally communicating economic theory to you doesn't really make you the impartial party you claim to be.

katsucats said:
This is a huge one in my opinion: Racism, and anti-communist hysteria. You can easily see this in the forums whenever donghua is mentioned.

katsucats said:
"Xian xia" and cultivation is a more recent thing and is largely based off MMORPG video games.

APolygons2 said:
yeah, but no. 

the amount of people who would not watch a show because of "Racisms" is very little. this is probably a case where the vocal minority feels big due to the thing itself not being popular. 

case and point, I have seen a lot of discussion around link click, and I have not seen a single person say they aren't watching it because it came from china.

I have seen some people not like the "sound" of Chinese as much as Japanese or English, I would know cause I am one of them. but that's not because I'm freaking racist lol

languages have different tones and sounds, and naturally, you may find some languages more pleasing than others. It's just a preference there  is no racist intent behind it.

JojoUchiha said:
Name me 5 masterpieces that came out of china

katsucats said:

San Ti (Three Body Problem)

ColourWheel said:
I am not saying that Racism doesn't exist within a community but it's hardly a huge cause as to why Donghua is not as popular as Japanese Anime. I don't like country music because I find twangy voices annoying to hear when listening to music as well as simply just don't like the sound of twangy guitars and people singing about their lost lovers, this doesn't mean I am racist against white people. I simply do not like country music which is just a matter of taste. Either way your Argument doesn't prove just because people don't like hearing animated characters speak mandarin equates to racism. I am sure there are likely examples of real racism that can be found on MAL when it comes to Users talking about Donghua but your examples prove nothing and hardly prove it being a huge cause as you claim.

The core behind Donghua being Chinese propaganda is the fact the CCP controls everything that gets produced. Nothing ever gets produced in China when it comes to Donghua that contradicts Chinese moral and cultural norms or anything that the state finds to be contrary to its official state beliefs. State Media is Government propaganda in itself.

katsucats said:
Of course people wouldn't admit it, but prod them further and they will start to reveal all kinds of cultural attitudes such as communist paranoia, etc. I've seen people say all kinds of things here. And as I amended to my previous post, the "ch" sound is not that common in Chinese. It's kind of hard to quantify, but for example, take a look at this video of a typical conversation for beginners:


There are only 3 words with "ch" in it here: qiou2 (ball), qing3 (please), qi1 (seven). If you were to translate this to English or Japanese, there would be a similar number of "ch" sounds. I counted "change" and "Chinese" for English.

ThorLL said:
Fanservice is what lot of people here are watching shows for.

Take that away and they will leave.

Welcome to the real world where men love their cute adorable moeblobs and there is nothing you can do about it.

ThorLL said:
Better animated and written?

katsucats said:
My "argument" is not an argument, it's an assertion. I wasn't trying to prove anything, nor is it possible to definitely "prove" anything, which is why Trumptards are still saying that "there is no quid quo pro". Nor did I even say that everyone who dislikes Chinese is racist. A correlation is not an equivalence.

Your final assertion (also not an argument, you can't prove it) isn't even true. It's just a convenient catch-all for you to have prejudicial attitudes against all things Chinese, like how Ben Shapiro says nobody is homophobic if they dislike people acting gay and they don't dislike people being gay. That's a dishonest argument if I ever heard one, which reminds me of why I blocked you in the first place. It takes a little bit of common sense to realize the CCCP does not shut down every instance of an expression contrary to their values. They wouldn't even have the resources to do so. The fact is that 99.9999% of all donghua has no mention of the CCCP in them at all, and they commonly promote values that are antithetical to dictatorship. In fact, the underdog fighting against absolute power is the most played out trope in cultivation donghua.

I have nothing further to say on this topic that I haven't repeated ad nauseum. If you're not racist yourself, you're almost there. I know there are a lot of older Chinese and Korean people that still hate each other so it wouldn't even be socio-politically surprising or out of the ordinary. I could tell you that the Korean media is owned by a predatory culture that caused the suicides of numerous celebrities, that Korean women sell themselves for sex after they lose popularity, but unlike you, I know better than to generalize.

katsucats said:
Again, xenophobia, but people get "confused" about the whole cultivation thing. How is that xenophobic? Because every Japanese battle shounen is practically cultivation. How does Goku shoot out balls of light, get stronger with sensu beans, upgrade super saiyan levels? Nobody ever gets confused about that, interestingly.

katsucats said:
Everyone knows what "leveling up" means in a video game like Diablo, or learning spells and techniques from tomes, or forging weapons from materials, etc. Nobody ever gets confused about why a Tonic heals hit points in Final Fantasy, but they claim to be confused when a tonic pill causes a cultivator to regain energy.

SainBlank said:
Most are not familiar with the language

SleepySera said:


Because it's explained. That's the big difference. When you start watching Naruto for the first time, you aren't just expected to know what chakra and ninjutsu and shuriken and whatnot are, they literally give lessons on the powers and techniques of that fictional world, even with simple, easy to understand presentations on stuff like how a different capacity affects techniques, and so on. When you start watching Demon Slayer, they explain the breathing techniques. When you start watching One Piece, they...well, they don't actually PROPERLY explain the devil fruits until much later, but their mysterious nature and our lack of knowledge about them is shared by the characters in-universe.
That isn't the case with cultivation stories usually. Nothing is ever explained, because the base understanding for how it works is just EXPECTED of the viewer. Pointing out how that isn't newbie-friendly isn't xenophobia (also, please stop throwing buzzwords around just for the heck of it, or at least learn their full meaning before you go around accusing people randomly), it's simply a fact. OP asked why donghua is so much less popular, a major, popular category of it being newbie-unfriendly is a valid answer to that question.


"Everyone" doesn't actually know, which is exactly why games continue to have tutorials that explain stuff like that. And even with said tutorials, there's been a growing discussion in recent years about how newbie-unfriendly games are starting to become, because developers do take SOME knowledge for granted in the player. But that's exactly my point - it's natural (though somewhat inadvisable, especially if the goal is to expand into new markets or demographics) to just skip over the explanations when most people you create a piece of media for already have the knowledge in their heads. Gaming is a much more popular hobby in our society nowadays, so game devs are becoming lazy in explaining things. Cultivation lore is pretty common knowledge amongst the main target group of donghua watchers, so why bother explaining it? But in both cases, it's hurting their accessibility for people new to the medium.

Now, ofc that's just one particular category and people have a myriad of small reasons that keep them from watching, but ultimately, they pile up to making it unappealing to Western audiences. I find it kind of silly that you are trying to make this a race or nationality thing, when you have stuff like Chinese games like Genshin Impact or TV dramas like that whole Untamed thing that are taking the world by storm, which shows that, as long as it's appealing to Western audiences and well-accessible, people have no qualms about consuming Chinese media whatsoever.

I'm not saying prejudices against anything China don't exist in reality, and Japan and SK have traditionally been allies to the Western world so they are definitely held in higher esteem by most people, but I'd argue most people are also able to tell politics and entertainment apart 🤷‍♀️

katsucats said:
There are several reasons:

1. Until recently, donghua had mostly bad translations that were never checked. Even now, when people stream donghua, the subtitles are often littered with errors.
   
2. Anime fans tend to have a bias against 3D titles, even Japanese 3D titles. The 3D donghua industry releases more often than the 2D donghua.
   
3. Generic seasonal anime are bad and have grating tropes, but they put in the minimal amount of effort in the dialog, giving shows more individuality. Donghua often have the same lines over and over, owing to the fact that a lot of web novels don't include specific dialog (I think?), just descriptions, and the producers don't bother hiring skilled professionals to rewrite the script.
   
4. This is a huge one in my opinion: Racism, and anti-communist hysteria. You can easily see this in the forums whenever donghua is mentioned.
   
5. Anime watchers aren't necessarily more open-minded than the general populace. Somehow they got put onto anime and got used to Japanese. They'd raise a stink about anime being specifically "Japanese". Just because white people watch Japanese anime doesn't mean they're going to be more open minded about works from other countries. That's why you see people complain about the language, which is just a crutch in my opinion. Aside from a few sounds, Mandarin is pronounced exactly like the pinyin, so I don't even know where that idea comes from.
   
6. Again, xenophobia, but people get "confused" about the whole cultivation thing. How is that xenophobic? Because every Japanese battle shounen is practically cultivation. How does Goku shoot out balls of light, get stronger with sensu beans, upgrade super saiyan levels? Nobody ever gets confused about that, interestingly. Everyone knows what "leveling up" means in a video game like Diablo, or learning spells and techniques from tomes, or forging weapons from materials, etc. Nobody ever gets confused about why a Tonic heals hit points in Final Fantasy, but they claim to be confused when a tonic pill causes a cultivator to regain energy.
   

katsucats said:
There are several reasons:

1. This is a huge one in my opinion: Racism, and anti-communist hysteria. You can easily see this in the forums whenever donghua is mentioned.
   

Lucifrost said:
You already asked this.
https://myanimelist.net/forum/?topicid=2090394&show=0
My answer remains the same: A lack of exposure. Can you name even a single Chinese animation that has been dubbed into a western language?

APolygons2 said:
I can name you 2. both link click and legend of hei have English dubs.

Lucifrost said:
Oh wow, 2 whole titles. Now how many more Japanese anime have English dubs?

KuroudoAkabane said:
bcz the language sounds shit to listen to.

of all the languages I heard, like 25 ~ I only disliked hearing one.

Lucifrost said:
Oh wow, 2 whole titles. Now how many more Japanese anime have English dubs?

APolygons2 said:
I just said you were exaggerating by saying there are NONE that one can name.

Zerem said:
Japan has a monopoly on Anime and is keeping the Chinese down!

Zerem said:
Japan has a monopoly on Anime and is keeping the Chinese down!