Cartoon and game expo attracts colorful characters

ig, small, scary and silly characters come to the expo for fun. Photo: Yang Hui/GT

A boy in a mask moves through the exhibition area. Photo: Yang Hui/GT

The 10th China International Cartoon & Game Expo (CCG EXPO), organized by the Ministry of Culture and the municipal government of Shanghai, opened at the Shanghai World Expo Exhibition & Convention Center on Thursday. First staged in 2005, the CCG EXPO is the biggest comic and animation industry event in China.

Covering 40,000 square meters, the 10th CCG EXPO, which ran for five days, welcomed many of the world's major players in the industry including Walt Disney, Bandai and Shueisha, alongside domestic giants like Shanda Games, Sparkly Key, Shanghai Animation Film Studio and Oriental DreamWorks, the brainchild of DreamWorks and the Shanghai Media Group. Foreign exhibitors took up more than 40 percent of the exhibition space.

The Sparkly Key Animation Studio, based in Hangzhou, delighted hundreds of fans with updates, previews and information about its animated feature The Legend of Qin, which will premiere on August 8 in the Chinese mainland. Originally a popular 3D animated television show about a legendary master swordsman and hero in ancient China, since the show began broadcasting in 2007 it attracted a huge viewing audience with its clever animation, absorbing plots and colorful details.

Industrial parks

One of the first-time exhibitors at the CCG EXPO this year was the Nanxi Creative Animation Industrial Park from Yibin, Sichuan Province. Work on the park began in February, 2013 and it is scheduled to open at the end of 2015 when it will be one of Southwest China's premium amusement park attractions.

Covering 67 hectares, the park aims to include a range of key animation studios, making it a hub of culture and creativity.

"By participating in CCG EXPO, we hope more people will get to know about our park. Animation fans can visit the park in the future as tourists and industry insiders could be partners one day," explained Yang Yuqiu, the deputy director of the park's service center as she distributed brochures to visitors on Thursday.

As well as Sichuan, the Henan Provincial Department of Culture and the Hangzhou Digital Entertainment Industrial Park in Zhejiang Province were also exhibiting, looking to attract partners for their cultural and creativity areas.

According to the 12th Five-Year Plan for the Animation Industry (2011-15) released by the Ministry of Culture in 2012, the industry was worth 47 billion yuan ($7.58 billion) in 2010 with an average annual growth rate of more than 30 percent from 2006 to 2010. The plan also set a target to build up to five major animation industrial parks to serve as industry models by 2015.

The Xinhua News Agency reported that more than 30,000 attended the expo on Thursday and the enthusiastic visitors included 15-year-old Yinyouhuan (pseudonym), a Shanghai school student. Dressed as a character from the Japanese comic series Rozen Maiden, she said she had been to four expos and played a different character each time.

Throughout the expo scores of teenagers, many of them girls, were dressed and made up as favorite characters. "It's like an annual celebration for me and my friends in cosplay clubs," Yinyouhuan explained.

Giant screens

Fang Qiujie, a 19-year-old Shanghai man, was a first-time visitor to the CCG EXPO and was transfixed for some 30 minutes in front of a giant screen displaying a Warcraft game in detail. He has been playing video games for more than 10 years and this was one of his favorites, he said. Still an enthusiastic game player he enjoys trying new games and spends about half of his leisure time on games, he estimated.

"This is a great event," he said. "All the major players are here and there are so many interesting things to see."

During the expo, animators, artists and production teams working on games like The Legend of Qin and Dragon Nest met fans and spent time with them and the fans had a range of animation-themed products to take home with them.

Marking the CCG EXPO's 10th anniversary outside the venue was a free exhibition - Ten Years of Glory: A Retrospective of China's Comic and Animation Industry's Development.