Chairman Mao influenced much of the opinion on art in China during his rule.

India was producing animated features as early as 1915, and during the 1930s audiences enjoyed the adventures of Longoor and Jamba the Fox. India's first "studio" was a state-funded operation that opened in 1948. India was already a major producer and exporter of live-action films, and it was only natural that an animation department would follow. This outfit, named the Cartoon Film Unit, was subsumed under the overall umbrella of the "Films Division." Indian animation received a boost from a uniquely American source when the animation department was joined by a fascinating man named Clair Weeks. Weeks’ father had been a missionary to India for many years. Weeks went to the subcontinent to teach animation during the 1940s, bringing his animation skills and leaving a lasting legacy. It is interesting to note that some of india's most prominent animators are women. Notable among them are Nina Sabnani and Shaila Paralkar.

Many cultural traditions and stereotypes need to be bridged before Asian animation takes a strong foot hold in the U.S.

A Growing Entity
South Korea is today the third largest producer of animation in the world behind the United States and Japan. Many animation fans know that Korea does considerable labor for American and European productions; during the 1980s enormous studios such as Sun Woo Studios and Anitel had clients throughout the globe, and the names of Akom Productions and Rough Draft are well-recognized ones in the 1990s. More fascinating is the fact that South Korea produced its first feature film in 1967 and has an indigenous form of animation, manwha youngwha. Seoul held its first animation festival, SICAF, in 1995, and opened a chapter of ASIFA the following year. Directors such as Yi Hyeon-Se and independent studios such as Daiwon Animation Company are leading the way as South Korea begins to make a wider impact on the international animation community.

South Korea ranks third in the production of animation in the world, yet little is known about its original productions in the States.

No essay on Asian animation could be complete without discussing the contributions of Japan. Unfortunately, space limitations and the fact that this history is well documented in many other sources force me to forego such an examination here. Suffice it to say that the impact of anime on Asian and global animation was perhaps the most important story of the late 1980s and the entire decade of the 1990s; I merely wish to stay with the lesser-known but equally commendable efforts of the Asian mainland for the purposes of this column.

As the decade and millennium come to a close, we find Asian animation poised to boom in both the creative and economic arenas. More recent players include Hong Kong, Thailand, Malaysia, and The Philippines. The Middle East is also starting to bloom; Iran has long invested in animated cinema and has been holding festivals since 1966. Backed by state-run organizations like the Institute for Intellectual Development of Children and Young Adults, Iranian animators such as Parviz Naderi and Nooreddin Zarrinkelk were given the advantage of university graduate classes and modern technical resources. Iran opened a chapter of ASIFA in 1987.