China Daily Global Edition (USA)
Wang Kaihao
It is difficult to define which genre he belongs to — scifi, historical, adventure, fantasy, or even others. All these elements are usually found intertwined throughout his works.
Nicknamed “Prince” by his fans, author Ma Boyong is renowned for his skill in creating grand, majestic worlds in his novels.
The 38-year-old writer repeatedly insists he knows nothing but “how to write characters” during an interview with China Daily in Beijing on Aug 10. But his recent change of tack has shown that this “prince” is happy to embrace change and expand his horizons with his recent foray into animation.
An animated series adapted from his popular adventure novel, Beyond the Ocean — or Sihai Jingqi (riding whales across the seas) in Chinese — will be released on the video-streaming platform iQiyi on Aug 16, with new episodes airing each week.
“I grew up watching Ma says.
“You can imagine how excited I was when my works were turned into animations for the first time.
“I even wanted to join the dubbing cast,” he says with a giggle. “It’s pity that the producers refused my offer and asked me to focus on what I do best.”
The 3D series will also mark the maiden voyage of a Chinese animated production that centers around a naval battle.
The story, which is set in a fictional dynasty in ancient times, follows Jianwen, a timid crown prince who is haunted by his fear of being killed. He has an adventure with a group of whale riders, who undertake a journey in search of a lost, mythical Buddhist island.
Of course, he is accompanied by several maverick friends of different nationalities. He grows stronger through the long voyage, just like Jack Sparrow in the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise or Monkey D. Luffy in the animations,” Japanese Piece.
“Ancient China is traditionally known as a terrestrial civilization, which has led to many legends about our oceans being marginalized in our culture,” Ma says. “I wrote the story because I wanted to create a chemistry between our terrestrial and maritime civilizations.” manga
Internet origins
One
It will come as no surprise that the story translated readily into an online animated franchise, given that it was originally launched on the internet. Beyond the Ocean was initially released on Sina Weibo in 2016. It wasn’t published in print until 2017.
The franchise has attracted more than 200 million clicks on the social-network platform to date.
“Chinese people are able to not only play supporting roles in Pirates of the Caribbean (like Sao Feng and Mistress Ching),” Ma says. “They can be heroes, who lead their own adventures.”
When it comes to developing his ideas, Ma was keen to borrow any interesting cultural elements he could conceive of — whether from China or abroad, ancient or futuristic — to create the myriad hybrid worlds that occupy his books.
In his previous novels, he sent a fleet from China’s Shang Dynasty (c.16th-11th century BC) to a rendezvous with the Mayan people of South America. He also playfully saw to it that the ancient Chinese inhabitants of Chang’an (today’s Xi’an in Shaanxi province) rode underground dragons as part of their daily commute, just like taking the subway.
His unrestrained imagination has earned him a strong fan base among younger generations. An analysis of search engine Baidu’s results shows that more than 40 percent of Ma’s fans are ages 15 to 24.
Call to action
series,
“To be popular with young people, a successful historical story has to easily connect with modern life,” he says. “Jianwen was born into a royal family. He is indecisive and weak. He doesn’t know what to do in the future.
“These problems also bother many young people today. I’ll be glad if Jianwen can inspire them to find their own solutions.”
Ma’s knowledge of history is proven. Even though he is often labeled as a maverick, he won the People’s Literature Award — one of China’s highest and most orthodox book awards — in 2010, through his work exploring An Ode to the Goddess of Luo, a well-known poetic prose from the Three Kingdoms period (220-280).
In Beyond the Ocean, the lead role of Jianwen and its background
Scenes of the 3D animation,
Beyond the Ocean, which follows Jianwen, a timid crown prince in a fictional dynasty, who’s haunted by his fear of being killed. He undertakes an adventure with a group of whale riders in search of a lost Buddhist island. story make it easy for contemporary audiences to connect with the events of the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644). In the early Ming era, the young Emperor Jianwen was overthrown by his uncle Zhu Di (later known as Emperor Yongle) in a civil war, but his whereabouts after the war remain a mystery.
One theory suggests that the reason Yongle sent mariner Zheng He on a long voyage overseas was to search for his longlost nephew.
“But I can only say it’s about ancient China,” Ma says of his novel. “I will keep drawing a conscious line between actual historical events and my own fiction.”
For example, many cultural elements from the Tang Dynasty (618-907) also get mixed into the plot of the book. In his story, Empress Wu Zetian built the Buddhist island.
“The purpose of my books is not to tell young people what happened and in which year, as you would in a history book,” he says.
“Instead, I want to raise their interest in our traditional culture, like ancient music or hanfu (a form of traditional Chinese clothing dating back thousands of years).”
He cites the case of one reader, who was so inspired by the book that he felt compelled to study Zheng He’s voyages in detail.
“He is now something of an expert on ancient Chinese ships,” Ma says. “That’s what I want. Readers should be inspired by the stories to study the real history behind them.
“And they will spread this knowledge through ways that are accessible to young people.”
Ma says he is also confident about receiving positive feedback for the animated version of Beyond the Ocean. After all, he has been a kind of “animator” for a long time. The difference is that he “draws” through his use of highly descriptive words.
“My novels are often exaggerated fantasies,” he explains. “I am always thinking that the power of words is sometimes limited, so people also need scenes with a strong visual impact.”
Picture perfect
But it is no easy feat to turn a few words into a breathtaking 3D scene. And Ma jokes that he also worries his imagination had run too wild to be portrayed in simple pictures.
“Say I write ‘The fleet blocks out the sky and the sun, and swarms over the horizon,’ in the novel,” he explains. “It may take a month’s work to realize this one sentence on screen.”
It took animators 15 months to make the first 12-episode season of Beyond the Ocean.
“It was really tough to make the first episode, for example,” Liu Weicong, a co-director of the Beyond the Ocean, series, says. “I had to quickly introduce the characters to the story, make the details vivid and portray the big scenes from the novel all at once. But it’s worthwhile to take on such a challenge.”
Yang Xiaoxuan, vice-president of iQiyi in charge of animation, says that 15 months is a short time frame for adapting a story that contains such complex worlds. But she believes the end result is a meaningful attempt at raising the bar for production levels in the Chinese animation industry.
“We initially considered making it in the 2D format, but we finally chose 3D because we thought it was better to get the whole animation industry to adopt this technique,” Yang says.
Although Beyond the Ocean was initially planned to run for two seasons, Yang aims to make more.
“If we want our own influential animation brand in China, we will have to make it a longrunning franchise like Disney,” she says.
Yang also says many derivative products will be developed after the animation is released as a way to promote traditional culture.
“Maybe our first highlight will be hanfu,” she reveals.
As Ma is often hailed by the media as “one of the most lucrative authors in China”, will he prolong cooperation with internet giants like iQiyi to make more tailored scripts for online viewers?
His answer is tactful: “Only if I really like what I write and if it really resonates with people.
“You never try to secondguess the commercial angle when you begin to write something. I will keep making my stories attractive. As for any followup plans, I’ll leave that to Yang.”