It's a hit! AI comics, animation, and manga—experiencing the digital cultural and creative "New Year flavor" in Chengdu | Spring Festival All Things Record

Cailian Press, February 17th (Reporter He Fan): With the launch of Seedance 2.0, public attention has once again been drawn to AIGC (Artificial Intelligence Generated Content), including AI animated dramas. Chengdu, a city that combines fashion trends with rich historical heritage, has become a "gravity field" for digital cultural and creative development, thanks to its advantages in IP and talent reserves. During this year's Spring Festival, multiple digital cultural activities such as comic conventions and Digital Light and Shadow Art Week brought more technological elements of cyberpunk into citizens' daily lives.

Digital Cultural Elements Brighten the New Year Atmosphere

One week before the Spring Festival, despite the cold wind still being fierce, the China Western International Expo City in Chengdu was bustling. From February 6th to 10th, the "National Style Awakens the Year, Welcoming a Splendid Chapter" 2026 Chengdu World Line Anime Expo attracted many "second dimension" enthusiasts from across the country. The expo covered multiple sectors including anime, games, domestic innovation, and trendy toys, with activities such as宅舞 competitions, puppet shows, and random宅舞 performances focused on national style, promoting the integration and dissemination of二次元 and national culture.

In recent years, nationally acclaimed and phenomenon-level patriotic domestic animation brands like "Nezha: The Devil's Child Comes to the Sea" have continuously emerged from Chengdu, not only enhancing Chengdu's reputation in animation but also stimulating new consumer vitality. Landmarks such as Xibo City, Tianfu Red Shopping Center, Tianfu International Animation City, and Dongjiao Memory have become popular spots for online anime fans, gamers, and offline shoppers.

Currently, Chengdu is focused on building highlands for film and animation creation, gaming and e-sports aggregation, creative design brands, digital music (performing arts) trends, online literature sources, and digital cultural equipment manufacturing centers. Data shows that by 2025, the city's core digital cultural and creative industry will generate a total revenue of 413.97 billion yuan, an 8.3% increase year-on-year.

Digital culture and creativity have added diverse artistic experiences to the city during the Spring Festival. During this period, the "2026 DIGI-PARK International Digital Light and Shadow Art Week" was held at Dongjiao Memory, integrating digital art, light graffiti, mapping, audio-visual interaction, and sound-light-electric installations across more than 15 outdoor public spaces including the Dongjiao Memory stage, industrial streets, graffiti walls, and digital windows.

Dongjiao Memory's operator, Dongfang Zhenghuo, told Cailian Press that during the Spring Festival, the 2026 DIGI-PARK Digital Light and Shadow Art Season was spectacular. In the first two days of the holiday (February 15-16), nearly 110,000 visitors came to the park, which was lively and full of festive atmosphere. Using industrial relics as a canvas, the park created immersive digital light shows, the intangible cultural heritage IP exhibition "Eastern Mythology," and digital light and shadow art installations, blending digital technology, national潮流非遗, and industrial heritage. This distinguished it from traditional lantern and temple fairs, making it a new spring check-in spot for young people. Various trendy activities and commercial interactions drew crowds, with visitors stopping to admire and take photos, creating a lively and festive scene that brought a blend of technological and cultural flavor to Chengdu’s Spring Festival.

（Photo of crowded park during the holiday at Dongjiao Memory）
Meanwhile, as a "gravity field" for digital culture and creativity, Chengdu has also developed cultural and creative industrial parks such as Tianfu Changdao Digital Cultural and Creative Park, Tianfu Software Park, and Perfect Cultural and Creative Park.

Among them, Perfect Cultural and Creative Park in Chenghua District is a特色生态型文化产业园 developed by Perfect World (002624.SZ), focusing on core digital cultural and creative industries, with animation being one of the重点发展方向. The park told Cailian Press that as of December 31, 2025, it had hosted over 130 companies including Moudou, Ande Music, Huake Animation, Starlight Box, and Light and Shadow Online, cultivating 7 large-scale enterprises. The park’s total output value has exceeded 2 billion yuan, with over 1,300 events held and more than 1.7 million citizens participating. Its copyright trading platform has registered over 3,000 copyright works, with animation accounting for over 90%. In 2025, 1,000 animation works were registered for copyright, with copyright transactions totaling 20 million yuan.

（Photo of Perfect Cultural and Creative Park）
The park incubates many companies in film, animation, technology, and music, including Perfect Kunpeng, affiliated with Hongen (stock code: IH), which created "Cosmic Guardians," now with over 10 billion total views online, and Huake Animation, known for creating phenomenon-level original IPs like "A Family of Sketches," "Zhuge Jiu Jiu," and "Xuanyuan Little Bean." The park revealed that Perfect Kunpeng has produced and released 7 seasons of TV animation and 2 theatrical animated films, with over 5 million fans worldwide, covering more than 30 countries and regions. Huake’s IPs have over 72 million fans online, with animation works exceeding 100 billion views and daily exposure surpassing 10 million.

AI Animated Dramas Ignite Market Enthusiasm

Chengdu Aiguo Digital Technology (IGCAI) founder Chen Bingjie resigned from a major Beijing tech company years ago and came to Chengdu to start a business in 2021. His company focuses on AIGC and digital economy new consumption scenarios in cultural tourism and cultural creation, with core products including AI photo booths, making it one of the first domestic entrepreneurs in 2023 involved in AI animated dramas and related training. He is very optimistic about Chengdu’s AIGC industry: "On one hand, Chengdu has a rich historical heritage; on the other, it has abundant talent reserves. Compared to Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, and Guangzhou, labor costs can be reduced by 30% to 35%."

"With the approach of the Spring Festival, orders for AI photo booths are steadily increasing, with monthly revenues surpassing one million yuan. A major internet company's annual meeting rented our machines, with a five-hour rental fee reaching 3,000 yuan, and the gross profit margin is very high," Chen said in an interview with Cailian Press. "Although some scenic spots still ordered equipment two or three days before the New Year, most orders for AI photo booths at scenic spots, annual meetings, and large supermarkets were completed in January because hardware stocking and logistics take time. Our factory in Guangdong went on holiday in early February."

（Photo of AI cultural and creative space built by IGCAI）
"Although our company is on holiday, our other project—AI animated dramas—can still take orders. After assessing feasibility, we can assign projects to employees. The framework is already set up, and everyone can work from home using a computer," Chen said. He is very optimistic about the booming AI animated drama track. He explained that with the development of AI image technology, many clients are requesting video formats, leading to the emergence of AI animated dramas. Due to continuous upgrades of AI video large models, human and time costs are greatly reduced compared to traditional animation production. Chen has outlined three paths for AI animated dramas: "First, we are developing online training courses for AI animated dramas, which will cultivate talent and help solve employment issues; second, we aim to complete an AI film or even AI commercial ads by the end of this year to accelerate commercialization; third, most current AI animated dramas focus on fantasy and martial arts themes, but in the future, I hope to launch AI series on family education, domestic themes, and those that help with cultural exports. With the application of Seedance 2.0, the computing cost for AI videos can be controlled within hundreds of yuan per minute. Although Seedance 2.0 still faces issues like scene inconsistency, overall we are very satisfied," Chen expressed confidence in future development.

Before the holiday, ByteDance launched the beta of its next-generation AI video generation model Seedance 2.0, which quickly attracted worldwide attention. It also ignited enthusiasm in the A-share market, with concepts like AI animated dramas and Seedance stocks such as Rongxin Culture (301231.SZ), Zhaochi Co., Ltd. (002429.SZ), Huanrui Century (000892.SZ), and Zhangyue Technology (603533.SH) being hotly pursued by capital and the market.

Regarding the AI animated drama industry, Huang Bin, CTO of Shanghai Yunsi Technology, told Cailian Press that his company has developed the Modelpool "Mo Chi" model aggregation platform to meet the current demand for stable and efficient production tools. By integrating mainstream large models domestically and internationally, the platform provides stable, cost-effective model interfaces and tools for AI animated content production, AI coding, and intelligent agent applications. The "Mo Chi" technology and service delivery team is mainly based in Chengdu, serving nationwide.

Huang Bin believes: "The concept of AI animated dramas officially appeared in spring 2025. Early on, relying on WenSheng video models and with mature directing and process refinement, basic commercialization was achieved. By the third quarter, the industry experienced a full explosion, with the cost per作品 including抽卡 (gacha) dropping rapidly, and daily output capacity soaring to hundreds of titles, with platform traffic, paid revenue, and user scale expanding simultaneously. After the National Day holiday in 2025, capital influx increased, and various animation production bases accelerated deployment. Upstream funds, content IP, traffic platforms, downstream production, and distribution formed a complete产业链. Compared to traditional short dramas, AI animated dramas can achieve ten to dozens of times higher traffic efficiency, attracting many industry players to seize the opportunity." Huang Bin also pointed out that the recent launch of Seedance 2.0 has significantly reduced "抽卡" costs and improved production stability. The operational logic of AI animated dramas differs markedly from long-form videos and short dramas. They do not require high user long-term stickiness, but to create爆款 (blockbusters), careful operation in IP selection, production capacity, tools and model costs, and traffic delivery is still necessary.