Drawing fire: The line from Asia's animation industry to North Korea

TOKYO/HONG KONG -- In 2023, a staff member of one Japanese studio working on an anime series to be broadcast this July was feeling a little suspicious. When studios collaborate on a series they normally communicate closely, but the representative of a Chinese company responsible for one part of the project had been unusually quiet.

"The meeting ended very quickly. ... We were worried about the quality of the finished animation," the staff member told Nikkei Asia on condition of anonymity. Those concerns were born out when the Chinese company turned in a piece of work that the Japanese studios "struggled" to make work.