Advances in Education, Humanities and Social Science Research ICCCED 2023

ISSN:2790-167X Volume-6-(2023)

Expanding the Cross Cultural Communication Strategy of

Chinese Animation Movies: Drawing on Japanese Experience
Liliang Wan
School of International Journalism and Communication, Beijing Foreign Studies University,
Beijing，100089，China
wll@bfsu.edu.cn
Abstract. Chinese cinema is an important way to creatively transform and innovatively develop
excellent Chinese ideology and culture. It promotes the cross-cultural dissemination of China's
excellent traditional culture and is a necessary part of China's international communication system.
At present, Japanese animated films are an important medium and successful case for international
communication of Japanese culture. This article takes the successful case of cross-cultural
communication "Your Name." as the research object, analyzes the reasons for its huge audience
and high-quality reputation in China, and summarizes its inspiration for cross-cultural
communication of animated films in China.
Keywords: "Your Name.”; Cross cultural communication; Animated movies; International
communication.

1. Introduction
In recent years, with the release of high-quality animations such as "The Lion Boy", "Nisha’s
Demon Child Descends", and "Journey to the West: The Return of the Great Sage", the
development of animated films in China has shown a trend of recovery. But these highly acclaimed
works in China have reaped rewards overseas, such as "Nisha’s Demon Child Comes to Earth",
which grossed 5.034 billion yuan domestically and only reached 43 million yuan overseas, a huge
difference. As an original Japanese animated film, "Your Name." broke through 500 million at the
box office about a week after its release in Chinese Mainland, becoming the highest box office of
Japanese films in China after "Spirited Away", and there is no later work that can surpass it at
present. It can be said that 'Your Name.' has become a classic case of the successful dissemination
of Japanese animated films in China. Chinese cinema is an important way to creatively transform
and innovatively develop excellent Chinese ideology and culture [1]. It promotes the cross-cultural
dissemination of excellent traditional culture and is a necessary part of China's international
communication system. How to make China's animated films go global and become one of China's
international business cards? This article takes the successful case of cross-cultural communication
"Your Name." as the research object, analyzes the reasons why it has gained a huge audience and
high-quality reputation in China, and summarizes its inspiration for cross-cultural communication
of animated films in China.

2. The reasons for the success of cross-cultural communication of 'Your Name.'

2.1 Cultural commonalities
At present, the phenomenon of "cultural discount" in cross-cultural communication is still very
obvious, and many of Japan's traditional culture has been inherited and developed from Chinese
traditional culture, that is, the two cultures have homology, which is beneficial for Chinese
audiences to understand the large number of phenomena in Japanese cultural elements. As in "Your
Name.", when the meteor from Shishouzhen arrived, Sanye wore a kimono, which was adapted
from the clothing of the Tang Dynasty in China. Chinese audiences can appreciate this way of
dressing more; In the anime, San Ye and her sister Si Ye engage in a series of complex rituals

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ISSN:2790-167X Volume-6-(2023)
(wearing specific clothes, wearing specific headscarves, and dancing specific dances) before sealing
their mouths and chewing alcohol. China has always been a country that values a sense of ritual. In
the cultural context of China, this seemingly useless and complex behavior does not lead to
confusion among the audience. Moreover, "Your Name." incorporates universal themes such as
love, family, friendship, and dreams, allowing the film to shine with a human touch through the
themes, which is beneficial for the audience to accept this positive energy anime.
2.2 The existence of cultural differences
To stand out in an excellent work, cultural differences are essential, which come from the
absorption and utilization of local culture. When Shin Haicheng created "Your Name.", he utilized
many elements of traditional Japanese culture and perfectly integrated these elements into the
narrative. In "Your Name.", the male and female protagonists exchange their bodies through dreams
and eventually meet in reality. The inspiration for the story comes from a harmony song by Ono
Komacho - "If you meet someone in a dream and don't see them, why wake up if you know it's a
dream. Even if you often have a tryst in a dream, how can it be like seeing them once?" Moreover,
Japanese people also have special emotions towards names, and in Shinto, language is believed to
have the power to control others, And the way is by controlling the names of others, by modifying
and cursing their names, one can change one's thoughts and behavior. Therefore, names symbolize
everything of an individual in Japanese culture. "Your Name." The male and female protagonists
from the beginning to asking each other's name and later forgetting each other's name are a
reflection of this culture.
2.3 Extensive subculture groups
No matter how good a work is, if it cannot meet the needs of the audience, it naturally cannot
have good box office or ratings. Several generations of Chinese people have been influenced by
Japanese anime, from the original "Astro Boy" to "Sakura" and now "Pirate King", Japanese anime
has left many popular works for Chinese audiences and cultivated generations of Japanese anime
fans. Japanese animation exerts a subtle influence on Chinese audiences, creating a group of loyal
Japanese animation subculture groups. China is one of the countries with the most extensive
subculture in the world, which has created a good audience base for the spread of Your Name in
China.
2.4 Excellent marketing and promotion strategies
Your Name. "adopts a multi-dimensional marketing strategy that combines online and offline,
which is conducive to good interaction between the official and audience, covering all aspects
comprehensively. In terms of online marketing, "Your Name." adopts a strategy of linkage
promotion. The official announced the entire production and cast team early on. Director Shin
Haicheng is highly renowned in the industry, Ryunosuke Kami is a well-known figure in the voice
industry, and RADWIMPS is a veteran Japanese band. The strong production team has attracted a
lot of attention. In terms of movie music, Mayday's "Good" was used as a promotional song, which
attracted a large number of fans and audiences through Mayday's popularity. After the release of
'Your Name.', the official media did not remain silent, but instead adopted a method of linking with
other animations to achieve traffic sharing. In terms of offline marketing, it has collaborated with
many brands and created many classic cases. For example, it cooperated with Station B of the
anime Gathering Platform to carry out the "new contracting plan", which chartered some sessions of
Wanda Cinema to give back to fans; And Super Groupies have launched many peripheral co
branded products, including watches, umbrellas, and so on. At the same time, we are actively
collaborating with the largest ACG original peripheral brand in China, "Manzong MONZON," to
release related anime characters and scenes.

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2.5 High quality story content
New Haicheng's previous works, such as "Five centimeters per second" and "Yan Ye Zhi Ting",
only focused on portraying characters and scenes, neglecting the significance of the story content,
making it difficult for many viewers to understand the inherent meaning of his works, ultimately
presenting a polarized online evaluation. However, "Your Name." has changed its past complex and
chaotic storyline style. In the anime, Shin Haicheng portrays the story lines of Takashi and Miya
respectively, connecting them through intentions such as dreams, tying ropes, and dusk. The drama
presents the love story of Takashi and Miya in a classic syllogism of "contradiction appears -
contradiction climax - contradiction ends", indicating that Shin Haicheng has completed a
popularization transformation, with twists and turns in narrative, ups and downs in plot, and the
story begins to become a three-dimensional picture, Compared to the previous two-dimensional
stories of New Haicheng, they are more attractive to the audience and do not make people feel that
the storyline is peaceful and unclear.

3. Inspiration from Cross Cultural Communication of 'Your Name.'

3.1 Create products that combine localization and internationalization
The nation is the world, and the success of "Your Name." stems from its full integration with
traditional Japanese culture. China has many spiritual treasures that have been passed down, and
there are many materials worth exploring as materials, but it seems that they have not been fully
utilized in domestic animation. Hollywood in the United States gave us a vivid and vivid
demonstration. "Kung Fu Panda" not only uses the Chinese national treasure - the giant panda, but
also fully combines the long-standing "Kung Fu" theme from China, achieving great success.
"Mulan" also draws inspiration from the story of "Mulan joining the army for her father". These
animes have all borrowed from classical Chinese culture, but on the contrary, high-quality works in
China rarely appear, ultimately due to insufficient exploration of ancient Chinese traditional culture.
In the process of emphasizing localization, it is also important to pay attention to the importance of
internationalization. As a high context country, when spreading to low context countries, it is
necessary to pay attention to the cultural understanding of the people of other countries, and use
some global themes of dreams, courage, and love to facilitate audience understanding.
3.2 Shape personal work style
After animes such as' Five Centimeters per Second ', Shin Haicheng basically laid the foundation
for his artistic style, which was as beautiful as wallpaper, with a plot of teenage long-distance love,
and a fictional worldview preference. After its popular transformation to strengthen the storytelling
of anime, "Your Name." still hasn't abandoned its original style. The formation of a style is
conducive to creating its own label, but domestic anime still lacks ethnic labels. In the 1980s, "ink
and wash animation" became a well-known Chinese label. On the path of cross-cultural
dissemination, domestic anime in China must adhere to the basic position of traditional Chinese
culture and adapt appropriately to the development of modern society on the basis of inheritance,
Label your own style.
3.3 Cultivate creative talents and teams
The successful dissemination of movies ultimately depends on the quality of their content, and
the output of high-quality works is inevitably inseparable from high-quality teams. There are many
excellent animation designers abroad who can send well-known animation talents from China to
exchange ideas and learn from their experiences; On the other hand, China should also create
favorable conditions for the cultivation of high-quality talents, pave the way for the industrialization
of animation, reduce resistance in the animation industry, and promote more capital inflows. Of
course, we also need to pay attention to the necessity of teamwork. In modern society, many talents

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are so-called "experts", and the high-quality output of an anime requires "generalists", which are
naturally rare. At this time, team collaboration is needed to make up for it. However, the number of
members is not always better, and it is necessary to adhere to the principle of moderation.
3.4 Build an all media communication platform
The promotion and marketing strategy of "Your Name." is also worth learning from, and its
comprehensive, multi-level, and multi subject linkage promotion provides inspiration for our
promotional activities. Firstly, in the early stage of anime promotion, we can collaborate with
well-known celebrities to create theme song MVs, leveraging their exposure to drive anime
promotion, such as the collaboration between "Yesterday's Blue Sky" and You Changjing to
produce theme songs. Secondly, transforming anime into an industrial chain should not end its
career just after its release, but rather explore its more industrial value. For some anime locations,
tourism projects can be developed in cooperation with local partners to restore the corresponding
scenes of anime, allowing tourists to truly experience the relevant plot offline. You can also
collaborate with relevant brands to develop anime peripherals and achieve a second value
conversion.
3.5 Innovative animation forms
Your Name. "has broken through the basic forms of many romantic dramas, fully combining the
sense of loneliness and the topic of time and space travel. On the contrary, there are many
high-quality works in cross-cultural aspects of Chinese anime, but most of its forms belong to the
type of martial arts anime. For example, the well-known martial arts anime genres such as "Da Nao
Tian Gong" and "Ne Zha Nao Hai", which once went abroad, and now "Da Sheng Hui Hui" and
"Ne Zha's Demon Child Comes to Earth", are all types of martial arts anime. This shows that the
forms presented in cross-cultural communication in China are relatively monotonous, while
Japanese anime in its dissemination to China includes various forms of anime, including daily life,
idol drama style, passionate, and fantasy, The complexity of the situation is conducive to attracting
audiences from different social classes and promoting Japanese concepts and cultural ideas in a
more comprehensive manner. Therefore, it is a long and arduous task for China's animation to go
global, and it is imperative to change the existing single form of animation that dominates the
market.

4. Summary
The success of the dissemination of 'Your Name.' in China comes from various factors, and the
achievement of some of them requires years of effort. The path of domestic animation's external
dissemination still has a long way to go. The key to the success of external communication is still
the construction of anime content. Although there are still shortcomings, some domestic anime has
already achieved good results at this stage, such as works such as "The Lion Boy", which provide
valuable experience for later generations. The anime teams such as Mystery and Painting the
Jianghu have also built their own brands and established a certain level of popularity through
continuous practice. The future path of China's animation will start from these emerging enterprises
and works, and ultimately move towards the world.

References
[1] Hou Guangming, Li Xiaoyun, Du Ruofei. Inheriting Chinese excellent ideology and culture, leading the
international dissemination of Chinese films [J]. Journal of Beijing Film Academy, 2022 (02): 82-88.

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