China sells AI anime as its vertical drama export. Its ad data shows lifelike AI leaving instead

<p>Yi Fengping (易锋平) founded an AI manju studio in Hangzhou. Short dramas sent abroad have grown very fast since the first half of the year, he <a href="https://www.21jingji.com/article/20261031/herald/b064eeb2c2f8b8868cc1073dab38600e.html">told CCTV Finance</a>, the business channel of China's state broadcaster, in a report aired on 31 October. "Every day, 100 can go online," he said. Most go to Southeast Asia. Some now go to Europe and the US.</p> <p>The report was about AI manju (漫剧, literally "comic drama"): vertical series drawn as animation or comics, now generated by AI from a script to images, then from images to video. CCTV called them a new growth engine for the industry and said more than 150 million people outside China watch them.</p> <p>The September advertising figures from DataEye, a Chinese ad-tracking firm, describe a different export. Of the AI ads Chinese vertical drama apps ran abroad that month, about 4% showed anime. The rest showed AI characters made to look like live actors.</p> <h2>What CCTV counted</h2> <p>About 10 Chinese companies now run their own short-drama platforms abroad, <a href="https://www.21jingji.com/article/20261031/herald/b064eeb2c2f8b8868cc1073dab38600e.html">CCTV reported</a>. More than ten export apps have opened a channel dedicated to AI manju. The report gave no period and no method for the 150 million active users.</p> <p>CCTV detailed the costs. A minute of AI manju can cost as little as 350 yuan, about $52 at <a href="https://tradingeconomics.com/china/currency">the 5 November rate</a>. A series takes about 10 days to make, against 90 before. AI dubbing costs 300 to 500 yuan per title, more than 80% less than human dubbing, according to the same report.</p> <p>Sun Hao (孙豪) founded a Shanghai company that started as an animation contractor. In the first half of the year, about 90% of its business was in China. It is now 30%, he <a href="https://www.21jingji.com/article/20261031/herald/b064eeb2c2f8b8868cc1073dab38600e.html">told CCTV</a>. The report set the revenue gap next to that shift: 10,000 views pay between 1 yuan and a few dozen yuan in China, and between $1 and $10 abroad.</p> <p>CCTV did not name either company. It also quoted a forecast from an institution it did not name: $4 billion in 2026 for AI manju outside China, with Chinese companies holding more than 90% of it. One CCTV figure is broader than the report's subject. Nine of the ten highest-grossing paid short-drama apps abroad are Chinese, the channel said. That ranking covers the whole format, live action included.</p> <h2>At home, 95% of releases are AI</h2> <p>In the first quarter of 2026, about 128,000 microdramas were released in China, and about 122,000 of them were made with AI. The China Netcasting Services Association, the industry body for online video, published those numbers in a creation guide on 30 April, <a href="http://ent.people.com.cn/n1/2026/0502/c1012-40712801.html">Guangming Daily reported</a>. Its count of AI microdramas covers both animated and lifelike series. The same guide carried a counter-figure. During the Spring Festival holiday, live-action releases numbered about one fiftieth of the AI ones. Their total views were 25 times higher.</p> <p>A white paper on China's online audiovisual industry put the fall in live-action short-drama shoots at 67%, <a href="https://www.163.com/dy/article/LADOIPRU0530KP1K.html">Time Finance reported</a> on 29 October, without giving the period compared. Hengdian, the studio town in Zhejiang, received 4,016 new vertical drama crews over 2025. In early October, 33 vertical crews and 26 horizontal ones were shooting there, according to the same article. The first figure counts a year of arrivals, the second a snapshot of early October.</p> <p><a href="/apps/hongguo/">Hongguo</a>, ByteDance's free short-drama app, cut its top popularity bonus for a single manju from 200,000 yuan to 80,000 yuan from November, <a href="https://www.juduanduan.com/2026/1103/7246.shtml">the trade site Juduanduan reported</a> on 3 November. A finished series longer than 300 minutes, or shorter than 30, now earns no bonus at all. In October, Hongguo released more than 30,000 manju. Fewer than 500 passed 50 million on its popularity score. Revenue sharing, which pays per view, is unchanged, Juduanduan wrote. I have not seen Hongguo's own text of these rules.</p> <h2>What leaves the country</h2> <p>DataEye counts the ad creatives that vertical drama apps run outside China. In September, AI series and AI manju accounted for more than 1.7 million of them, <a href="https://www.moomoo.com/hans/news/post/1001706154">according to its monthly report</a>, relayed by the trade outlet Baijing Chuhai. More than 1.6 million showed lifelike AI characters. Close to 50,000 were 3D anime and more than 20,000 were 2D anime. An ad creative is a single version of an ad. DataEye's count follows advertising and leaves out catalogues, views and revenue.</p> <p>AI content made up 10% of <a href="/apps/reelshort/">ReelShort</a>'s releases in May, 22% in June, 45% in July, 72% in August and 88% in September, according to GASP, an independent data firm <a href="https://www.moomoo.com/hans/news/post/1001706154">cited by DataEye</a>. Its live-action output did not shrink over the same months. It stayed between 10 and 30 series a month. ReelShort was the most downloaded vertical drama app outside China in September, with more than 28 million downloads.</p> <p>Two apps built around AI series <a href="https://www.cls.cn/detail/2513459">launched in the first half of this year</a> and now sit in the revenue top ten. StoryReel took more than $10 million from in-app purchases in September and VibeShort more than $9 million, <a href="https://www.moomoo.com/hans/news/post/1001706154">DataEye estimated</a>.</p> <p>Zhou Zhipeng (周志鹏), co-founder of the AI studio Shuimu Zhineng (水母智能), described what sells in North America to <a href="https://www.cls.cn/detail/2513459">the Science and Technology Innovation Board Daily</a>. The best payers are local stories about vampires, werewolves and local billionaires. Chinese hits with the faces swapped for white ones earn less. Straight translations earn the least.</p> <h2>Who is betting on anime abroad</h2> <p>RisingJoy, a microdrama studio based in Singapore, plans 30 AI anime series by the end of March 2027, <a href="https://www.c21media.net/news/risingjoy-usiing-ai-to-create-30-vertical-anime-titles-labelled-rjoy-originals/">C21 reported</a> on 26 October. Six are finished. Among them are Addicted to the Dark Boss and Locked Away I Became Unbreakable. They are produced in Japanese and English. They run on IDN App in Indonesia and on Sooka, the streaming service of the Malaysian broadcaster Astro, where they have ranked among the top 10 titles by views on both.</p> <p>Cassandra Yang, RisingJoy's co-founder and chief executive, gave C21 her reading of the numbers. "Our own data shows the anime audience is narrower for now, but those viewers are more loyal, more engaged and more attached to the characters, and that is what franchises are built on," <a href="https://www.c21media.net/news/risingjoy-usiing-ai-to-create-30-vertical-anime-titles-labelled-rjoy-originals/">she said</a>. She also called vertical anime "an underdeveloped category".</p> <p>RisingJoy signed a framework agreement with NTT DOCOMO Studio &amp; Live, the Japanese telecom group's content arm, to distribute its vertical content internationally, anime included. Licences will be non-exclusive. Each title is agreed separately, <a href="https://www.c21media.net/news/risingjoy-usiing-ai-to-create-30-vertical-anime-titles-labelled-rjoy-originals/">C21 wrote</a>.</p> <h2>How many earn anything</h2> <p>In China last year, about one AI manju in 1,000 reached real revenue, Zhou Zhipeng <a href="https://www.cls.cn/detail/2513459">told the Science and Technology Innovation Board Daily</a>. Abroad is getting close, he said. Most of the works his industry invests in lose money, he added, and an ordinary series that passes 100 million views earns from a few tens of thousands of yuan to just over 100,000. His own company has moved to higher budgets. Its two series Mojin: Tianji Rumeng and E Ta were selected for the Fantastic Pavilion at the 79th Cannes Film Festival, <a href="https://www.cls.cn/detail/2513459">the same newspaper reported</a>. He put the cost of that kind of work at 7,000 to more than 10,000 yuan a minute, twenty times or more the 350-yuan floor in the CCTV report.</p> <p>DataEye also counted the apps. In September, 1,192 vertical drama apps and websites were buying ads outside China, 7% fewer than in August. Only 56 were new, <a href="https://www.moomoo.com/hans/news/post/1001706154">its report said</a>.</p> <p>Yi Fengping expects his Hangzhou studio to reach revenue "in the tens of millions of yuan" by the end of the year, <a href="https://www.21jingji.com/article/20261031/herald/b064eeb2c2f8b8868cc1073dab38600e.html">he told CCTV</a>.</p> <p><em>Translations from Chinese are mine. Conversions use 6.67 yuan to the dollar, the rate of 5 November 2026.</em></p>