Caption / The Evil King Pursues His Wife
This article is original by ACGx, please indicate the source when reprinting.
Only by understanding the audience and understanding the market can we produce high-quality content that meets the audience's aesthetics and meets the market demand.
In the traditional mode of thinking, the proportion of Chinese men who prefer two-dimensional culture has always been higher than that of women, in fact, this proportion has long been reversed. In the report released by Aurora Big Data in 2018, the proportion of women in animation applications has reached 67.3%, and the animation market has shown a more obvious "female orientation" characteristics.
In 2021, the scale of China's secondary users will reach 403 million, which is 1.43 times that of 2018. Young female quadratic enthusiasts who are also doubling in volume need more quadratic content to satisfy.
ACG content, which carries a two-dimensional culture, is quickly adjusted and changed through subdivision to adapt to the content desire of female users. In the game market, two-dimensional women have long risen to the game. In the animation market, content creators have dug deep into the preferences and needs of female secondary users, and several outstanding female-themed animations have appeared on the Internet for the audience to pay attention to, share and discuss. The birth of these works is not achieved overnight, but the result of continuous experimentation and innovation of the producers and producers behind them.
In line with the aesthetic tone of women, domestic female animation establishes a unique style
In the field of cultural and entertainment content, in the development process from online novels to live-action film and television dramas, sweet love and female struggle have become popular themes for women's films and television, and have also formed mature creative routines. In the domestic network animation market that has developed for less than 10 years, although there is no shortage of female animations, there is no shortage of such themes, but it presents a rich imagination in creation. This can be seen in the development and evolution of women's theme animation.
The early domestic animation audience was small, male audiences accounted for a large proportion, and there were few animation works tailored for women on the market. However, at that time, the full and three-dimensional character image created by some animation works could be recognized by female audiences.
For example, in "Qin Shi Mingyue", the popular characters Gai Nie and Wei Zhuang each have a large number of male and female fans. Male audiences like Gai Nie's chivalrous detachment and inner strength, how Wei Zhuang steps by step, while what impresses female audiences is the relationship between Gai Nie and Duan Mu Rong, and Wei Zhuang's character of both good and evil.
From the point of view of film and television content to meet the psychological needs of the audience and self-projection, men are more rational and women are more emotional. Even for the same character in the same work, the focus of men and women is very different. This is true in live-action content and in animation. Therefore, in the increasingly large audience of the national comic market, it is very necessary to produce more subdivided animation works for female audiences.
Around 2017, female-themed animations tailored to female audiences appeared, including many adaptations of popular novels, such as "National Husband Brings Home". This animation focuses on showing the sadistic plot of the male and female protagonists through delicate lines and details, attracting many female fans of the original novel. In the embryonic period of women's theme animation, this work is accurate to the audience's preferences.
In the national comic market, where the core animation audience had the right to speak at that time, "National Husband Brought Home" did not receive too many positive reviews. However, this animation clearly reflects the needs of male and female audiences for animation. In male-themed animation, the audience is often attracted by the fine picture, the bloody fight, and the protagonist's process of passing through the level, or using intelligence or force to defeat the enemy, and finally embark on the peak of life. It satisfies the male audience's desire for heroism. The female theme animation provides an emotional breakthrough through the meticulous portrayal of the character's psychology to attract a sensual female audience.
With the increase of female two-dimensional fans, there are also more and more female theme animations. During this period, this type of animation took love as the main story line, due to the pattern of the original story and human setting, many animation content creators tried to combine the popular elements in the network animation and the elements such as the network meme into the work, and made a drastic adaptation to meet the tastes of the animation audience.
For example, the adaptation of the animation "Psychic Princess" and "Cute Wife Eater" based on the Mary Sue story, the main line of love in it is obviously for the taste of female audiences. On the other hand, core animation viewers can also find their favorite elements in it. The intensive use of sand sculpture network memes in "Psychic Princess", the transformation of the kitchen lady and the food production plot in "Cute Wife Eater", which are both exaggerated and imaginative, and completely different from live-action dramas, have made the work gain a more positive reputation on the Internet. These two animations first ensure the viewing needs of animation audiences, not only allowing the spontaneous dissemination of animation audiences to reach a wider range of female secondary fans, but also lowering the threshold for the latter to contact female theme animation.
In the past two years, domestic women's theme animation is still based on the unique story structure and character settings of various genres, but it has been significantly improved from story to production. Whether it is an adaptation of animation or an original animation, we strive to have a story that is outstanding, and the character shaping has highlights, followed by more bold exploration and innovation, so that all aspects of animation can meet the audience's viewing demands.
It is worth noting that with the improvement of the aesthetic requirements of female animation audiences, love has been difficult to become the main theme of the story, and now they are more concerned about the presentation of truth, goodness and beauty in the story. In terms of character building, female characters with silly white sweet and Mary Sue as the label are being abandoned, and female animation audiences are eager for characters with independent female consciousness that are sassy and free. For example, the independent and kind Tu Li in "Thoughts on The Measure", the heroic Xu Yu in "Two Doubts", the powerful Su Luo in "The Evil King Chases His Wife", and the ordinary but happy Lu Fan in "I Had to Betray the Earth", are all impressive characters in the female theme animation in recent times.
Although it is only a few short years, the creative characteristics of domestic female theme animation works have gradually become traceable: the portrayal of characters is more accurate, more adept at emotional expression, especially the female characters in them are no longer facial and labeled, and the creators use the storyline to strengthen the character shaping, and finally achieve the purpose of "guiding women to become better themselves".
Love is no longer the only one, what does female theme animation rely on to attract the audience?
When love is no longer a necessity to promote the storyline, what elements should female animation have to expand the audience? Let's take the animation "The Evil King's Wife" as an example to illustrate. The third season of this animation has been launched, whether it is the scale of the original story adaptation, or the integration of animation elements and plot details just right, it can become a model of the current domestic female theme animation adaptation.
"The Evil King Chases His Wife" tells the story of su luo, a killer who crossed to the Biluo Continent, became a cultivation waste material, met and knew Nangong Liuyun, the prince of the Jin Dynasty, and in the process of finding the truth of his life, he constantly made himself more powerful, and finally counterattacked as a goddess. In terms of theme, "The Evil King Chases His Wife" has several popular elements for women to online novels: crossing, xiuxian, Mary Sue, and big heroine; from the story line, Su Luo's growth is the main line of the story, and love is the side line. The themes, stories and characters of this IP are basically in line with the expectations of contemporary young female audiences.
The next question is the balance between adaptation and restoration.
The story of the original novel sprinkled with tens of thousands of chapters cannot be fully presented in the animation, and a major change is a must. In the face of the huge high-sticky female readership of the original, it is necessary to make an adaptation that not only meets the needs of the fans of the original work, but also conforms to the rhythm of the animation narrative, and accurately grasps the core of the story and the expectations of the audience, which is the most important issue in front of "The Evil King Chases His Wife".
Based on the relationship between the characters, the changes in the stages of the heroine's growth, and the points that readers care about most in the original work, the animation production team made targeted adaptations based on the length of each season of animation, and determined the main story plot of each season.
The story of the first season mainly unfolds between the female protagonist Su Luo, the male protagonist Nangong Liuyun and the female second Li Yaoyao. Under the emotional entanglement between the three people, Su Luo, who was abandoned by his family, abandoned by the prince of the dingqin, and lost his maid, recognized the facts step by step, and finally chose to be forced to grow up in order to survive.
The production team established the tone of the animation in the first season: on the one hand, it is necessary to quickly establish Su Luo's personality characteristics, such as designing a simple short skirt for Su Luo; on the other hand, it gives full play to the advantages of animation, and creates a lot of brain-opening plots to enhance the entertainment of the work, such as the plot of Su Luo's sister who has become "King Kong Barbie", and the use of many network memes in the character's dialogue, which makes the audience can't help but be funny. At the same time, for the "sugar" plot that female animation audiences like more, the animation is also "enough to manage", and it has also won the praise of the author of the original novel.
In 2019, during the broadcast of the first season of the animation, not only the search index remained at an average of about 50,000 per day, but also ranked in the top 10 of the animation hot search on the Baidu wind list. Its female audience accounts for more than 56%, of which 60% of the female audience is in the age group of 19 to 35 years old, which is highly overlapping with the female two-dimensional enthusiast group.
In the second and third seasons, which have doubled in length and are more well-produced overall, the animation still maintains the compact story and distinct theme of the first season, while adding to the interest of the work with a large number of interesting adaptations. The arc portrayal of the heroine's growth has always been the core of the story of the animation, in the second season, Su Luo strives to cultivate in order to become a better self and is not attached to anyone, and in the third season, Su Luo chooses to embark on a more dangerous road in pursuit of the truth of his life.
In the third season, the male eryun debuted, when the audience thought that the plot setting of the second episode of "Shuluo Field" was only used to "sprinkle sugar", what they did not expect was that this was the foreshadowing of the subsequent attack on nangong Liuyun by the snow fall fox. By ambushing the fierce beast and grabbing the two details of the initiator Yao Jia, the animation establishes the image of Su Luo who is both bold and strong, and has a high IQ to skillfully resolve the crisis, which is more full than the first season's character. With the deepening of the plot season by season, the animation's portrayal of the heroine's self-knowledge, growth significance and life value is very clear, and she can be described as a "sober heroine in the world".
When the hero and heroine arrived at the palace, the king used a song and dance to illustrate the relationship between him and the heroine's mother. This comedic musical performance and the identity of the king form a contrast, and the presentation does not make the audience feel abrupt in the costume fantasy story, which once again highlights the expressiveness of the diversity of this content form.
In addition, the character portrayal of other characters in the story is also very full. The male protagonist Nangong Liuyun is not a "hegemon" in the traditional sense, he is single-minded about the female protagonist, and at the same time he has brother and sister feelings for the female second who is a master sister, and his own dark bloodline shows that he has an unhappy growth experience; Li Yaoyao, the female second who has always regarded herself as a "fairy", is too attached to the feelings of Nangong Liuyun, once unscrupulous for love, after being disfigured, through Su Luo's persuasion, she found that giving up her obsession can make herself happy; as Su Luo's maid, Lu Luo is loyal to Su Luo. Once inferior because he didn't have spiritual power, after seeing Su Luo's efforts to grow, he also began to try to cultivate and make himself better. These vivid and three-dimensional characters not only help to shape the heroine's image, but also make the story real and believable.
As an excellent female theme animation, "The Evil King Chases His Wife" skillfully combines the original story content and animation form, breaks the stereotype of Mary Sue animation since the strength of men and women is weak, focuses on the delicate portrayal of female images, and brilliantly reproduces the essence of the text with the charm of audiovisual language, which is in line with the female animation of the new female image, and Su Luo, who has an independent and free personality, is also the projection of the ideal image of contemporary women.
epilogue
In the Internet era, users' choice of content has changed from passive to active, and the evolution of domestic women's theme animation in story themes and character intentions has rapidly coincided with the current social needs of young women pursuing self-independence. Although in the live-action film and television drama market, from costume dramas to fashion dramas, the "big heroine" dramas that touch all walks of life are very rich, but the vertical content form of women's theme animation has found a unique creative idea through continuous attempts: based on fully meeting the audience's viewing demands, combined with the exaggerated and brain-opening characteristics of animation forms, and at the same time enriching the narrative ability of animation works from a female perspective, and finally creating animation works that meet the aesthetics of female two-dimensional enthusiasts at present.
Under this trend, the works also show a colorful state at the level of content expression. Platforms such as iQiyi have long been insightful into this trend, and in recent years, they have increased the layout of this track, successively launched the youth inspirational animation "Start to Be a Star Today", the costume hilarious animation "There is medicine", the love bubble noodle fan "Had to betray the earth", etc., together with the costume inspirational animation "Evil King Chasing Wife" and other multi-genre female works, to meet the needs of different types of female audiences. For example, "There is Medicine", with excellent adaptations, skillfully integrates the funny elements that can be seen everywhere with the bloody storms and dangers, making it a masterpiece that must be mentioned in 2020. The currently broadcast "I Have to Betray the Earth" focuses on the daily life and love emotional world of contemporary "drifting" youth, and successfully evokes a strong resonance with female audiences of Generation Z.
Love, everyday, funny, inspirational... The theme of women's animation is constantly being broadened. The female theme animation with diversified themes and diverse forms of expression has continued to open up the audience of the second dimension, and the female two-dimensional user group has continued to grow, gradually forming a positive cycle. The video platform represented by iQIYI is constantly deeply linking high-quality IP and good stories with the audience with its accurate grasp of the spiritual needs of contemporary female users and the ability to integrate its own resources to integrate the industry online game chain. Domestic women's theme animation has become the spiritual echo of women of the times, with the layout of the network video platform increased, what kind of more interesting female theme animation will appear in the future, which will be a more exciting topic.