Written by Cassie, 2021 Cohort
Recently, while working on Jason’s final project to explore Chinese-style anime, I discovered an underestimated Chinese anime called “Fog hills of five elements “. Surprisingly, this work has attracted 6.3 million followers in just three episodes. And when I watched it, I realized why so many people appreciated this animation, which also made me see it as a massive breakthrough in the Chinese animation industry.
For a long time in the past, Chinese animation has been studying and imitating Japanese and American animation. This has resulted in many styles lacking the Chinese brand.
Although there have been many excellent animations to express Chinese traditional culture and art in recent years, “Fog hills of five elements” explores a new form. It perfectly integrates the ink painting style and martial arts, opening up a new horizon for Chinese anime.
Similar to this work, the animation series and movies we have designed for Jason’s project are also based on ancient Chinese myths and legends. And this freehand Chinese art style has become our perfect study object and inspired our visual design of the whole project a lot.
Ink painting style + Chinese martial arts
In the picture production, the team broke the traditional animation method. They used the traditional ink painting and water-colour staining techniques to make the visual more smooth while enhancing the three-dimensionality of the characters with lines, making the whole movie more vivid.
In the fighting plot, the production of the characters’ actions is not a traditional simple fighting action. It incorporates elements of Chinese martial arts, including the traditional yin and yang and five elements, unicorn mythical beasts, ancient weapons, etc., showing the charm of martial arts and the spirit of the gang.
Why is such a popular anime only a total of three episodes?
You may not be able to imagine that such high-quality, gorgeous ink and water style anime works, which can be used as wallpaper in every frame, come from a small company of only a handful of people. The production staff has multiple responsibilities, and even the theme song requires the art director to sing in person. But the shock that ” Fog hills of five elements ” finally presented to us is more charming than the works of some large companies, in the same period.
It is because of those who keep persisting and persevering in the path of creation that such works will be seen by future generations like us, who will come to learn and continue to create. They are the ones who brought up the rise of Chinese ink animation in a blank space.