Is the webcomic drama market real?

The price war arrives before the blockbusters.

When discussing the content industry over the past 25 years, animated web dramas are undoubtedly one of the latest and hottest keywords of the year.

From passing the C - end test at the beginning of the year and attracting industry attention, to more than a dozen platforms such as Douyin, Kuaishou, Bilibili, iQiyi, Tencent, Qimao, and Baidu investing heavily in December; currently, the "Red Fruit Free Animated Web Drama" APP has also been launched on the Android platform.

Data from ByteDance's marketing platform shows that from April to July, the supply of animated web dramas increased at a high - speed monthly compound growth rate of 83%; in the past six months, a total of 3,000 works have been launched, with a month - on - month increase of up to 603%. The market scale in 2025 is expected to exceed 20 billion yuan.

Among the recent hit dramas, "A Master's Reward: Ten - Thousand - Fold Return" by Lingju Animation has accumulated over 100 million views, continuously driving up the overall popularity. "I'm the Boss in the Apocalypse, and My Employees Are All S - Class Mutants" by Mantan Animation has a single - drama revenue share of over 2 million yuan, and the company's total revenue share is over 5 million yuan.

The cost reduction, cycle compression, and platform investment; the rapid development of AI technology has enabled animated web dramas to go through a process in one year that live - action short dramas took two or three years to complete.

However, according to the observation of "Xinsheng Pro", "Speed" may not entirely be a good thing. We still have doubts about the underlying business logic of animated web dramas - as a preliminary visualization of content, it is a transitional form and may eventually be replaced by AI animation; after a year of high - profile development in the industry, no blockbuster answer has been given yet.

Currently, the industry is showing an unhealthy trend. Many production companies are taking the path of competing on low prices and high production capacity. On the one hand, they try their best to compress costs and cycles; on the other hand, they continuously expand the team size, aiming to occupy the market by quantity. This not only goes against the path of high - quality content but also may face the risk of market bubble bursting after the window period of making quick money passes.

However, production companies are much more optimistic than we are. Although there are risks in the market and chaos in the early stage, AI is their firm answer for long - term development.

The potential of AI is clearly visible, from female - oriented dramas, 3D, IP, to the AI animation and AI live - action dramas that are already being tested for implementation. One after another emerging trend under the maturity of these technologies may open up a market worth tens of billions or even hundreds of billions in the future, and AI animated web dramas are their core ticket to the future entertainment market.

01

Competing on low prices and high production capacity, many production companies are in a melee

From Jiangyou, Lingju, Huasheng to BlueNeo, a group of relatively leading animated web drama companies entered the market at the beginning of 2025, considering the technological trend of AI animated web dramas.

Lu Shaolong, the deputy general manager of Lingju Animation, summarized three core feasibility factors: First, the technology is mature, and AIGC has reached the commercialization threshold in image generation and dynamization; second, market verification shows that the investment cycle and user retention data of AI animated web dramas are better than those of AI novels and AI live - action short dramas tested during the same period; third, in terms of the timing of the industry, the industry situation at the beginning of the year was similar to that of live - action short dramas in the middle of 2023, in a wild growth period with an undetermined pattern, providing a window period for content - based companies.

Among them, the most critical variable is still cost. Referring to short dramas, the cost of animated web dramas is basically divided into two parts: production and investment; and the rapid iteration of AI technology has continuously reduced the production cycle and production cost.

As of now, taking Lingju Animation as an example, "Using the project team system, each team has 5 - 7 people, including screenwriters, directors, card - drawers (3 - 4 people), and post - production staff. On average, it only takes 22 days from project establishment to launch for a 60 - episode (100 - minute) animated web drama."

The average industry cost (including investment testing) has dropped to 100,000 - 150,000 yuan, which is 1/5 or even 1/10 of the original dynamic comics. The profit of a single drama ranges from hundreds of thousands to several hundred thousand yuan. Jiangyou, the founder of Jiangyou Animation, said that "their hit rate is higher, and the comprehensive return rate can reach 300%."

Zhou Lu, the commercialization director of BlueNeo, also mentioned: "Currently, the production process of animated web dramas is standardized into three stages: script, storyboard, and audio - video. From text to pictures, then to storyboard generation, voice - over, and background music; except for editing, AI covers 90% of the process work, significantly reducing labor costs."

Moreover, with the continuous policy support from platforms and the "upgrade and iteration of AI technology every two months or so", the profit margin of animated web dramas will continue to increase in the future.

Wu Haiming, the CEO of Huasheng Short Dramas, said: "After better technology emerges, the number of card - drawing times will decrease, and even some links will not require human intervention. AI is the biggest change." On November 6th, Lingju Animation also tried the industry's first "animated web drama live - streaming promotion" with Douyin to reduce customer acquisition costs and create incremental revenue from IP derivatives (merchandise), further increasing the profit of a single drama.

However, the low - cost and high - efficiency nature of animated web dramas has also led to the current industry situation where production companies are rapidly expanding their teams to compete on production capacity and occupy the market by quantity.

On December 12th, the daily supply of Douyin animated web dramas exceeded the peak of 400. On December 15th, the number of newly launched dramas soared again, exceeding 400. Currently, the teams of Jiangyou and Lingju have reached 1,000 and 700 people respectively, with a ten - fold increase in personnel scale in one year, and the monthly production capacity has exceeded 100 dramas.

Source: Manju Youshu

In particular, the "equal - rights" attribute of AI has also attracted a group of production companies blindly following the trend to join the melee. Without IP and core voice in content, after entering the downstream market in large numbers, they can only choose a deformed and involuted path.

Some animated web drama companies seek cooperation with universities in the name of "industry - university - research", but actually want to use the low - cost student labor force; some platforms send undercover agents to other companies with high salaries; some production companies have only been in business for a month but claim to produce a hundred dramas per month.

Even the seemingly absurd news that "in order to extremely compress costs, some production companies outsource the production of animated web dramas to North Korea" has been confirmed by several industry insiders by "Xinsheng Pro".

Competing on low prices and high production capacity goes against the high - quality content route. We are worried that the market will become increasingly unhealthy in the long run. In response, production companies have different views.

Lingju and Huasheng believe that competing on low prices and high production capacity is a normal phenomenon in the initial stage. "Everyone is using the logic of live - action short dramas, thinking that a certain production capacity is needed to get started." Wu Haiming said "In the future, there will be two ecological niches: either pursue extreme efficiency to evoke emotions or pursue extreme quality to create IP."

Jiangyou believes that low - quality works are only acceptable in the initial stage and will be eliminated after market screening. "Audience tastes will only become more discerning and will never regress."

02

The market is not saturated yet. Female - oriented dramas, 3D, and IP are the three major directions

In addition to the policy support from platforms such as Douyin, Kuaishou, Bilibili, and Red Fruit, in the past two years, leading copyright companies such as Zhongwen Online and Yuewen have actively entered the animated web drama market.

Zhongwen Online launched the industry's first AI 3D animation "The Return of the Immortal Venerable: Ruling the World with One Hand" during the National Day holiday this year, relying on its self - developed AI animated web drama platform. At the Creator Conference in October, Yuewen launched the "Creative Partner Program", comprehensively deploying in the animated web drama market from four dimensions: IP, capital, technology, and ecosystem; not only opening up 100,000 high - quality IPs but also establishing cooperative relationships with production companies such as Jiangyou Animation, Qixiang, and Zhixingheyi.

Yang Chen, the vice - president and chief editor of Yuewen Group, said at the conference: "For a long time, the adaptation of many fantasy works has faced the bottleneck of visualization production capacity. Now, AIGC production represented by animated web dramas is becoming a new breakthrough method."

For Yuewen and Zhongwen Online, a practical need is to tell new - generation copyright stories and IP stories based on existing IPs; animated web dramas can be an important means to boost secondary - market valuation and compete for investment and financing. Downstream production companies seeking speculative opportunities do not need to consider the authenticity of the market. As long as they can make money through price competition and small - profit - high - turnover during the hot market period, it is enough.

Based on this, we are worried that the explosion of animated web dramas may not be due to the natural maturity of market demand but may be a false prosperity under the combined effect of platform policy support and corporate capital narrative. Moreover, traditional dynamic comics, the predecessors of animated web dramas, have been around for ten years but have never opened up the mass market; after a year of rapid development in the market, no benchmark work has emerged. Why is this? Is the market already saturated? Is it just a capital bubble?

In response to the questions of "Xinsheng Pro", production companies first said that animated web dramas need more traffic channels and time to become popular. "Some hit live - action short dramas generally emerged around two years after the development of short dramas." "Currently, the market has captured a group of young people who accept the animation style from traditional short drama and short - video audiences, but the niche anime users and the second - dimension audience are yet to be explored."

Secondly, "The market is definitely not a false demand, and the market is not saturated yet." Lu Shaolong explained that the basis for judgment is first, the user's willingness to pay. The daily turnover of Douyin animated web dramas has exceeded 10 million yuan and is still growing at a high speed; second, user retention and follow - up. "Our users will actively urge for updates, which is a direct proof of the attractiveness of the content."

Wu Haiming said, "If the market were saturated, there should be 3,000 high - quality dramas per month, but now there are only two or three hundred per month." Jiangyou also said that "Animated web dramas are just starting and are far from being saturated; and in any field, only low - quality content will be saturated, and truly good works will never be saturated."

Comedy daily themes such as silly comedies have shown signs of homogeneous saturation due to their low threshold and easy imitation. However, themes with strong fantasy and big ideas such as suspense, apocalypse, urban martial arts, and three - fantasy are still very popular in the market.

Thirdly, animated web dramas are still in a blue - ocean market in female - oriented dramas, 3D, and IP derivatives. These three directions are the current focus of industry attention and exploration.

In terms of female - oriented dramas, since the current users are mainly 18 - 30 - year - old men and the themes are basically concentrated in male - oriented dramas, the potential of female - oriented dramas has not been fully released.

In October, Huasheng Short Dramas produced the first female - oriented hit drama "Your Highness, Your Financial Superpower Has Arrived", which has exceeded 100 million views and become the top - consumed female - oriented drama. "We are very clear that female - oriented dramas can definitely succeed in the Douyin ecosystem." It's just that the current painting style and themes have not hit the points that female users want to see. "Once it takes off, the market space for women is still huge."

Zhou Lu also said: "Female - oriented dramas will be the next step for animated web dramas. The influx of more female users will bring great changes to the animated web drama market." At the same time, women have higher requirements for picture quality, so strategically, BlueNeo focuses on breaking through in female - oriented dramas while consolidating its male - oriented drama market.

In terms of 3D, because in the market dimension "the production capacity of traditional 3D animation is seriously insufficient, and the supply is far lower than the demand, presenting a great opportunity"; and currently, AI technology in the 3D field has matured and been implemented.

Wu Haiming also said, "Taking the domestic animations adapted from 'Douluo Dalu' and 'Fights Break Sphere' as examples, 3D animations have more audiences and higher market stability than 2D animations in the long run." At the same time, 3D is also a direction for animated web dramas to develop towards high - quality content.

In terms of IP, it has become an industry consensus to screen suitable content from online novels and short dramas for cross - media IP development. "Most likely, future blockbusters will be based on IP, and good IP is needed for adaptation."

The BlueNeo team adapted the live - action short drama "Leaping over the Dragon Gate" into the AI animated web drama "My Novel Connects the Three Realms". The drama was launched during the National Day holiday and achieved the results of "ranking second on the daily list, exceeding 10 million views in five days, and exceeding one million yuan in recharge in eight days." At the same time, BlueNeo also cooperates with leading platforms such as Yuewen and Fanqie, as well as publishers, to find IPs with good prospects for film and television adaptation in science fiction