How Genshin Impact Became China's Biggest Export

Will never play another chinese game outside of genshin. I just can't after what's happening in the western china.

The fact that Paimon from Genshin was taken from a mischievous demon from gnostic literature means this is not just a cutest name. It's no coincidence

I think a big reason is due to the different economic systems between China and other East Asian countries as well. And Hong Kong used to be a pretty big export of media, and that gave us some of the biggest Chinese cultural icons like Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan. I don’t know the political situation there, but I know it’s not exactly stable, so it’s unfortunate if that means they cannot make some excellent media

Also unrelated, but I’ve heard that people who speak English played these games dubbed in Japanese, and that angers me to no end. The reason to watch something in Japanese is because it’s the original language, not because it looks like anime.

Taiwan is not part of the People's Republic of China. Fix your map

I'm one of the aforementioned few non-Chinese Americans who took Chinese language courses throughout middle and high school and we all learned a lot and I got to have an experience with the culture. I found it really interesting and remember recent media like CJ7 and the Jackie Chan Monkey King movies fondly, but I always wondered why it wasn't as popular as Japanese and Korean media. I knew about the censorship and the poor relationship between China and the west but this is the first video I saw that went in depth about how it applies to media and Genshin. I'd also like to point out the whole "made in China" joke and really anything coming out of China being seen as cheap knock offs, which Genshin unfortunately was accused of because of the similarities to Breath of the Wild.

What I like about Genshin is it has a lot of substance to it both storywise and culturally, not only have I learned more about Chinese traditions but have also learned about how China views other cultures - for better or for worse. I also like the comparison with both the male and female characters who are (mostly) well written and were designed for the male/female gaze but while relying on other aspects besides being extremely lewd. I also like how despite the constant pedophile jokes, the children aren't designed sexually but are all fully clothed and are mainly appealing to the "cute factor", which is a refreshing break from most of these games.

China’s cultural export in recent years has actually grown significantly compared with 10 years ago. The censorship has some degree of impact on china’s creative freedom but the key factor is economic growth. Japan’s economy became strong in the 1980s and that’s when japan’s cultural products started to be popular globally, same thing happened to South Korea in the 2000s and the 2010s. China is now transitioning into a high-income economy so its culture export finally starts to grow

Your definition of "export" relies on the premise that the thing is created for the sole purpose of being exported, which was part of what Mihoyo's plan was for Genshin. Most medium consumed inside China are made by and for Chinese audience in mind. Tell me, how many Wuxia or Xianxia flicks have you watched. Would declare them to "suck" just because you don't care for the genre? See, here's the thing: they are not and never supposed to be like "K-pop". A whole large chunk of Chinese culture medium was fine with domestic consumption.

Your insight about censorship is wrong. China was never as heavy handed on censorship with domestic product as with foreign product, which was a deliberate decision. Domestic product ALWAYS have way more leeway than imorted products. China also has a way different history and interpretation of ideas based on dialectical materialism, and that is the reason why they don't care about petty "implications" in the story of their domestic product, because they don't feel any contradictions at all especially they have the active role in shaping the narratives.

Liyue's liberation corresponds to the people's revolution led by the communist party, and Inazuma is just a jab at fascist japan for all they can care.

This is why statements like "how come they don't censor this because they're the baddies" is a pure retardedness. Here's the thing, you don't get to make that judegement

This is why westerners are baffling moronic with their infantile "liberal" values when they make these assumptions because they have no idea what they are talking about within a different context and are just drunk on the illusion of "universal values" a non-existent consensus that the Anglosax media is trying to impose on everyone globally. This is exactly why they heavily censor foreign cultural influence, instead.

It has less to do with the content of the narrative itself, but more about who gets to shape/lead the narrative, who sets the standard, and this is the actual essense of what propaganda is about - not what, but who.

Chinese potential for cultural growth and export is there but is being quashed by the authorities who don't like creative freedoms getting too out of hand

I dont have any problem with japanese aesthetic for chinese games especially mihoyo game i mean they put otaku in their logo and theres tons of anime and japanese game references like the train in star rail is obviously Galaxy Express 999 references, they respect and acknowledge the source thats the most important thing and theres already too many japanese influence in asian entertainment industry that its a normal thing here, from tokusatsu to variety shows, anime game aesthetic is just a little part of it

Iam really curious about the history of japanese culture influcence not only anime but everything else like music and games to asia, i mean korean idol culture is also heavily influenced by japanese idol culture which start back in 1962, things like tokusatsu, jrpg, its a literal rabbit hole of lost in translation history

BLUE ARCHIVE MENTIONED LET'S GOOOOO

Edit: I would argue that the female demographic is just another aspect of otaku culture that gets forgotten. Which are the fujoshi and female otaku. It's a smart form of branding. Azur Lane was a boring slog for me, because of the lack of story content. I'm enjoying Path to Nowhere and Blue Archive immensely. But when I tried Azur Lane I just dropped it. The hot stuff is hot, but if that's the only hook then I'm fine with just scrolling on Twitter for r34. Hot anime waifus doesn't justify the amount of time you have to give to these gachas, especially as a free to play account.

Also, damn, Blue Archive is really that intricate? I just end up finding more reasons to love it. Really hope that company makes a great game after Blue Archive wraps up in a few years.

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One other big reason imo is that a lot of studios and manufacturers in China were used to make these Japanese and Korean products. A lot of merch you see is typically made in China, regardless of how japanese or korean that IP is. Moreover, big Chinese companies would rather invest in videogame companies than make their own (COUGH tencent COUGH)

Genshin is one of the few chinese global IPs I've seen where the merch is technically all designed and made inhouse at the same time

Its obviously not the only aspect, but one thing I noticed is that Genshin merch is far more accessible and easy to find, and even thrown at the wall at times. On Amazon, its easy to find a ton of genshin merch, and even bundled in for free. I'd get a cheap hu tao hoodie and found a free charm that came with it (usually worth $10), little tidbits like that make it much more fun to collect imo.

I spotted a lot of Bocchi scenes in this Genshin related video...

The ending I can't 😭😭😭😭😭

This is a good video but I take some umbridge with the map of China at the start of the video that includes Taiwan. Politics aside, the two regions are simply governed differently. Taiwan is not subject to the same creative censorship China is, and has a different legacy of media output. The Taiwanese version of Boys Over Flowers (Meteor Garden) used to be quite popular internationally and especially in other Asian countries, and singers like Jay Chou were a household name. This would be like taking the legacy of Hong Kong cinema on global filmmaking and lumping it with Mainland China’s.

i think well see a rpg renossance and mobile rpgs like genshin are part of it

Nikke isn’t that popular due to the lewd stuff. Anyone can make lewd stuff. The game has gotten so popular due to it also having a very good story and fairly unique gameplay for a mobile game.

Klee main is craz

Hong Kong TVB drama do not have much censorship.

that klee clip sends shivers down my spine every time i see it. anyways can someone paypal me 200 eur for me to spend on furina?

Yeah, they exported the whole damn company to my country, of course it's their biggest lmao.

Only reason I know genshin impact is Chinese is because white guy with genshin impact avatar was trashing Japan 😂

I don't think art style matters. Japanese anime in its early age (back in Astro Boys) were heavily influence by Disney. It's just a part of the natural evolution and spread of artist taste. People like this kind of shit now. Maybe in 100 years it will evolve into something completely different.

The problem is not censorship per se, but arbitrary censorship that "up to intepretation". Chinese government doesn't like writing rules down on paper because if they do that it's harder to bend it.

I want to point out that government policy for limiting import of Japanese anime is relatively recent. Back in the 90s they were actually actively promoted. All the classics like Dragon Ball/Doraemo/Detective Conan (just name it) were aired on TV across the country. It's important to realise that the creators of Genshin Impact basically grew up with Japanese anime. It is that exposure allowing them to make something like Genshin and beat Japanese in their own department.

Chinese pop culture sucked ass. For a long period of time it was led by either HK or Taiwan. Mainland only caught up recently.

Genshin is not just the only successful export by China... it's freakin the first ever successful one. It has left its mark on history for sure.

To oversimplify, China has been a developing country and it took it a relatively short time to catch up on economy but it just took longer for it catch up culturally (pop culture and modern media not traditional ones). I believe a solid economic foundation is essential for any popular culture to flourish, and equally importantly exposure of young people to the most advanced pop culture (which has been dominated by Western nations including Japan). The creator of Genshin basically grew up in the 90s where a large quantity of Japanese anime were imported to China. It's concerning nowadays government policy is turning inward and banning Japanese anime on TV and young people end up being fed with only trash cartoons rather than Dragon Balls. But I'm too worried because people can still watch anime on the internet so the overall availaiblity is higher, at least for now.

I'm going to elaborate, yeah gatchas are big Chinese exports but so is BL (danmei, boys love, yaoi, mlm) gay Chinese novels are getting animations, movies, shows that get rapidly picked up by westerners even though they are censored to hell and remove every ounce of gayness

Chinese BL market is pretty big actually!

Saying Genshin and Star Rail have good stories even for gacha standards is a joke. There’s so many better stories out there, FGO and Arknights like you brought up, GranBlue Fantasy, even Honkai Impact 3rd by Mihoyo.

I still believe your thesis holds, it’s clear that marketing Genshin towards the general public is what make it more successful than Honkai Impact 3rd which is a lot more like those other gacha games you mentioned in being targeted towards hardcore Weebs with all its characters being cute/sexy anime women and cultivating a playerbase of mostly men who hate the thought of men in their game since to them it’s about sexualizing the women even if the story is trying to show them as actual people

Sorry I’m just a long time follower of their, and others, gacha games and while there’s a lot to be praised Genshin storytelling is at the same level as Marvel. Entertaining and enjoyable but not good nor profound.

Mihoyo somehow gets away with it all, the Honkai Impact 3rd and Houkai gauken stories are TRAGIC please play them and you'll see what I mean (Houkai gauken is one of their first game and now sadly not playable in the west anymore, for Honkai impact it is the game that came out right after that im pretty sure) The concept of the world going into ruin and the herrshers- not to mention the canon lesbian relationships is shocking and also very tragic. It seems the genshin story is picking up to the honkai level and Honkai Star rail that just came out is already very good. As well as all games are apart of connected universes with Welt from Honkai Star rail being the same Welt from Honkai impact. sorry for the rant, just Mihoyo gets away with a lot and it has amazing story telling in all its games!! Im so glas the goverment isn't that strict on mobile game stories as we are able to get masterpieces like this

bruh this whole video can be summed up in 1 word, Censorship

i would've never clicked on this if it weren't for the thumbnail. haven't played genshin in months but i've been thinking about how genshin is the only mainstream chinese game that i've played (except it isnt because i played alchemy stars without realizing it was chinese).

Although many of your claims are valid, there are two very important ideas you missed. The first one is that Japan was never an enemy to the United States in terms of ideology. Japan's only threat was through economical terms, and the United States controlled Japan's economy, and it still does now. China, on the other hand, is a competitor in ideology, and that is a whole other level. For this reason, it is fair to say that China never got the chance that Japan or South Korea got to popularize its cultural content, because there is a stigma to the word China, and that differentiates China from the other two countries. In a way, you can say that China is here to replace the USSR as the United States' no.1 imaginary enemy. The second thing is, China don't invest as much (proportion wise) as Japan or South Korea do in cultural output, because the domestic market is already big enough. I think this is a foolish move on the Chinese government, but this is why Chinese companies aren't that eager to go outside the borders and promote their works, because they already have a big market domestically. Japan and South Korea don't have such a big market, so they have to rely on foreign markets, and often that results in shifting their content to fit the needs of that market. For instance, anime often features blonde characters and kpop songs always have english lyrics. Although the attempts themselves are not accurate representations of the Western culture, they do enough to make these audiences feel included. How often do you see Chinese cultural products feature Westerners? Far less frequent than the products from Korea and Japan. So inherently, Western audiences will be drawn more towards Korean and Japanese cultural products because they reserved a place for them, and sometimes they even change according to the will of the Western audience just to get into the market, but China will never do this, because what the Western audience expects from Chinese culture is completely different from what Chinese culture really is, and this misinterpretation only worsen this cycle of misunderstanding and closure.

I would like to disagree, your idea of Japanese and Korea have better culture export is incorrect. As some one who watch cinema, I would say Chinese are ahead of Japan and korea. The only thing I can think of that is non-anime Japanese and successful some what is sadako. And Godzilla is accurately American.
modern Japanese media are no where on the level of Hayao Miyazaki, a least in cinema, Shinkai Makoto is not really well known to people outside the circle.
Same with China, after Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan, Jet Li, Donnie Yen, Andy Lau, Stephen Chow, Chow Yun Fat.

They are real cinema superstar that Hollywood would pays to get them on stage, I don't think any korean kpop or japanese idols would be like them.

stfu tbh this video is more china sympathizing than a video essay which should be objective

china has the best furry bara by far

is it me or the backround music is the hsr backround music in the train 😐

in the first place mihoyo exist because a diehard eva fan wanted to make a game for his OC

communism sucks that's why

I thought their biggest export was the annoying tourists coming to my country.

Really really love the video, I love how your take is super nuanced and isn’t just “one side is bad and the other is good” but instead an analysis. Just reading some of the other comments about the success of BL from China, you get the impression that global culture isn’t something that can be controlled or fixed by one person or body, and I believe that’s the main thing holding China back in becoming a cultural powerhouse like Korea or Japan. Because Chinese culture is awesome like I’m probably not the only one to really enjoy the genshin quest with the Chinese opera. It’s when the government tries to control culture that it becomes less enjoyable and really limits what brilliant native Chinese creatives can do. If you enjoy Chinese culture, learn about the INSANE Chinese myths from the old dynasties, it’s gets WILD. Truely a loss for the global community these storytellers aren’t given the best opportunity to flourish.

Tiamat square SENT MEEEEE

tbh zhongli threw liyue under the bus because he wanted to retire while inazuma had a Chernobyl-level incident while they had a depressed goddess who didn't know how to govern

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