Two years ago, Pili International Multimedia Co., a leading puppet show producer in Taiwan, launched a high-profile initial public offering at the issue price of NT$150 (US$4.80). However, its stock price has been trending down. The 3-D movie “The Arti: the Adventure Begins,” which the company released last year, was a box office flop and incurred financial losses of NT$190 million.
Such results came as a surprise to many. Nevertheless, when the anime “Thunderbolt Fantasy”—a glove puppetry TV series—produced by Pili in collaboration with the Japanese master anime playwright Gen Urobuchi was broadcast July 8, the Taiwan company’s stock price started soaring, from NT$79.30 on the last day of trading in 2015 to a record high of NT$130 in July this year, posting a growth rate of 64 percent and increasing the company’s market value by NT$2.3 billion.
This film was produced by a dream team with Japanese artists working on the script and character design and the Taiwan company taking charge of puppet- making, shooting and post-production. In particular, the Japanese version featured a popular Japanese “seiyu,” or voice actor, who delivered the characters lines and sang the theme song. By combining Taiwan’s glove puppetry culture with Japanese anime, the film became an instant hit. After its first episode was shown on Japan’s three TV stations, the anime was a topic of hot discussion on Twitter. To date, six episodes have aired on iQiyi Taiwan, which operates an online TV and movie portal, attracting about 700,000 views and topping the list in the category of animation. In mainland China, the TV series also garnered a score of 9.1 out of 10 at Douban.com, a top Chinese-language film review website. Currently, the Taiwan company is holding talks on rights with distributors in France, Germany and the U.K.
The glove puppetry and anime combination marked a milestone for Pili in taking its intellectual property to global markets. “Companies can make money easily and quickly if they know how to market their IP,” said Yang Ren-mu, a portfolio manager of Reliance Taiwan Main Stream Small and Medium Cap Fund, adding that Taiwan’s cultural and creative companies largely are engaged in original equipment manufacturing business but Pili stands out by creating their own scripts and characters. “It must expand business outside of Taiwan to expand a fan base of 50,000-100,000 on a global scale.”
Learning lessons from a box office bomb
“We never thought that the anime would be so popular, probably because we did not hold out much expectation of success,” Pili Chairman Chris Huang and his son Huang Liang-hsun said. What they did not verbalize was their frequent mood swings since the box office debacle of “The Arti: The Adventure Begins” and the drastic fall of the firm’s stock price below NT$100. “Of course, we’re in a bad mood. It was not so much about the money, but the failure to gain market recognition.”
Sixteen years ago, Pili’s film “The Legend of The Sacred Stone” created a box office miracle by reaping over NT$100 million in ticket sales. Last year, the company spent more than NT$300 million making the “The Arti: the Adventure Begins” with upgraded production technologies and specifications. “It’s our own wishful thinking. We were overconfident, thinking that as long as we kept on trying, it’d be alright,” Chris Huang said. “At that time, we held several meetings to review our practices and found a number of factors, including the lack of a specific theme, Mandarin voiceover and inadequate publicity, were the causes of fan antipathy.”
Initiating Taiwan-Japan cooperation
“Unlike electronics stocks, those issued by cultural and creative companies do not deliver immediate returns and take longer to realize their potential,” Chris Huang said. After experiencing setbacks, he realized that when doing something, he should take a bigger view and respond to market demand and changes.
Taiwan-Japan cooperation on the project aimed to tap into the markets of the countries. The preparation work was handled by the Japanese side and overseen by Huang Liang-hsun. “Cultural and creative companies should not solely rely on selling their IP. This kind of thinking is outdated,” Chris Huang said. He believes that when teaming up with foreign companies, one must adapt to local conditions. “Both sides have to jointly develop brand new IP.”
Huang Liang-hsun said that two years ago, he discovered Urobuchi shared Pili’s works on the internet, so he immediately contacted the acclaimed screenwriter to explore collaborative possibilities. “In the beginning, we intended to introduce Pili’s productions into Japan directly. But the idea was abandoned as the Japanese audience had little understanding of our storylines and performing styles.” After discussing the matter for six months, the two sides decided to work together to produce a new piece and minimize uncertainty.
During the process, several obstacles had to be overcome. For example, the characters designed by Japanese artists are more “adorable.” In the anime “Thunderbolt Fantasy,” the female protagonist Dan Fei has big eyes like others depicted in girl cartoons—quite different from the heroine puppet’s design with thin, long eyes in Pili productions. “Old fans might not get used to this kind of representation, which completely catered to the preferences of Japanese people.”
This time, Pili sought to produce a film of high standards, with the whole process taking about 11 months, three times longer than past productions. “Before we finished the work, each of our puppeteers suffered back aches,” said Hung Chia-chang, chief of the puppet operation unit at Pili’s film studio located in Yunlin County, western Taiwan. In the past, most of the shots were close-ups of the puppets, Hung said, adding that this time in order to faithfully present the features of Japanese anime, the puppeteers needed to kneel below 1.5 meters or work at a height of two stories in uncomfortable postures so that full body shots could be made. “Our chairman came to see us and did not say much because he knew we were really worn out.”
After finishing shooting, the Japanese partners checked the images repeatedly and identified such problems as the puppets with tangled hair, overly white shoe soles and disproportionately large blood splatters, Huang Liang-hsun said. Consequently, the crew had to reshoot the scenes more than 10 times. “They’re very attentive to details like an image taking place in one-eighth of a second.”
Tapping the mobile games market
“Culture can be explored from different aspects. Once constrained by a framework, it’s difficult to do something and a firm’s scale of operations will become smaller,” Chris Huang said. “Though the previous production was a financial loss, we had learned to observe market trends and to cater to mass tastes. The success of the Taiwan-Japan production is the best proof. “In the future, as long as we are 70 percent sure, we’ll move ahead.”
Recently, Chris Huang expressed a keen interest in “Pokemon Go,” the popular Japanese computer game. “Pili has created many characters and is the right outfit for the job.” The chairman said he is approaching the game company for a partnership to capitalize on the “Pokemon Go” craze.
From game licensing and movies to animations, over the last few years Pili has demonstrated the diversity of glove puppetry. “In the future, apart from selling IP, we’ll put greater emphasis on the production team,” Huang Liang-hsun said. “We’ll endeavor to boost the value of Pili productions.”
[By Lee Ya-chu / tr. by Kelly Her]