The original animated short film series "Capsule Plan Season 2" produced by Bilibili (hereinafter referred to as "Bilibili") officially premiered on December 5th and will be updated every Tuesday to Thursday. Capsule Plan Season 2 is divided into four chapters: Chinese New Rhyme, Mirror Life, Pioneer Science Fiction, and Life Hymn, including 13 original animated short films such as "Stealing Peaches", "Swallowing Mushrooms", and "Meow Eleven". Among them, "Stealing Peaches" is based on the eponymous work in "Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio". Director Wang Jiaguo revealed at the Beijing Film Festival that the team has expanded the original story, adding many characters such as "Fox Fairy" Mr. Hu, and showcasing the illusion in the eyes and the obsession in the heart through a mirror image comparison of one positive and one negative. "Meow Eleven" combines ink and wash strokes, presenting an innovative attempt at Eastern martial arts through the technique of "three strokes and two strokes".
According to public information, the "Capsule Plan" is a sub project of the Bilibili Animation Support Program "Bilibili Seeking Light" on Bilibili, mainly aimed at professional teams with animation production capabilities, aiming to launch high-quality animated short films with avant-garde styles. Capsule Plan Season 2 has collaborated with 13 animation producers, including Yuan Yuan, the director of the short film "Smile", who previously served as the production director of "Jiang Ziya" and "Nezha's Demon Child Comes to Life", Xie Dan, the director of "Dream Eating Mushroom", who previously directed the animated series "Youth Jinyiwei", Zhang Bo, the director of "Meow Eleven", who served as the concept design art director and storyboard director of "Wandering Earth", and Bai Mao, the director of "Bright Code! Dad", who is the author of the manga "Wasp".
The first season of "Capsule Plan" premiered on September 16, 2022, featuring 11 animated short films featuring seven emotions: "thorn, desire, joy, illusion, numbness, tears, and burning". As of now, the first season of Capsule Plan has had over 27.56 million views on Bilibili, with a rating of 9.4 points and a high score of 8.5 points on Douban.
In addition to the "Capsule Plan", "Bilibili Seeking Light" also includes two sub plans: "Original Stone" and "Small Universe". Among them, the "Original Stone Plan" is aimed at amateur animation enthusiasts, integrating and launching teaching videos related to animation basics, original teaching, and industry science popularization. It has also explored new animation creators through the Bilibili animation area draft solicitation activity. The "Small Universe Project" is aimed at students on campus, providing creative support by setting awards for animation graduation. In 2023, Bilibili Seeking Light collaborated with 11 domestic animation schools to provide resources and financial support for over 100 student works.
Guochuang Animation is an important component of the Bilibili platform ecosystem. According to statistics from Bilibili, since 2018, nearly 600 works have been released online, and the number of monthly active users of Bilibili's national innovation has increased nearly six times. At present, Bilibili has implemented more than 300 animation authorization projects such as "Time Agent", "Hundred Demons Manual", and "Two No Doubts", and the revenue of domestic creative works has exceeded 2 billion yuan. In the past year, the per capita viewing of Chinese creative content on Bilibili has reached 10, with a cumulative viewing time of over 700 million hours and a user interaction of 5 billion.
National creative anime works also maintain subscription user stickiness to a certain extent. According to the financial report of Bilibili, high-quality video content represented by OGV (Professional Institution Created Videos) has promoted the activity and overall traffic of the Bilibili community. According to Bilibili's financial report, as of the third quarter of 2023, the number of Bilibili's major members reached 21.1 million, of which over 80% were annual subscription or automatic renewal users. Bilibili will continue to focus on the two core strategies of boutique and IPization, creating high-quality content.
As a video platform that has grown from the animation community, Bilibili continues to invest in original animation content. At the national innovation press conference held on September 26th this year, Li Ni, Vice Chairman and COO of Bilibili, stated that Bilibili's investment in original content will only increase and not decrease in the next three years. In Li Ni's view, the PUGV (Professional User Generated Video) ecosystem is the driving force, the ACG (Animation, Comics, and Games, collectively known as Animation, Comics, and Games) ecosystem is the barrier, and Chinese animation determines the height of the barrier. At the press conference of the National Creative Animation Works, Bilibili announced 68 national creative works and also announced that it will collaborate with Shanghai Film and Art Studio and Shanghai Film Yuan to produce the second season of "Chinese Fantasy Tales", and will promote the development of the big movie "Summer of the Little Monster".