As someone who participated in Emperor of Strategy, I'll discuss some things briefly.
Last year after I finished with "Inept Emperor and Plundering Duke" (a play on the show's name), I basically had no motivation to keep working and left "More Snacks" (a play on the studio's name). If not for the production period of Emperor of Strategy lasting over a year and my sense of responsibility preventing me from just giving up, I'd have departed at the beginning of last year. In merely half a year, a reasonably well-known and large company caused a young person full of hope for donghua to end up bitterly disappointed and ashen.
Note: The names mentioned here have nothing to do with reality, it's all made up by me. If something seems familiar, you must be a hater /s
Before I joined the company, the character designs for EoS were already underway, but they were handled by freshly-graduated Internet artists that only drew insert art. Anyone who understands animation should know how animation character designs and illustration character designs are radically different. Only until a new animation director came in and redrew the character designs was the problem solved, and this was half a year after the project began.
The parts of EoS that were in-house—production, script, photography, etc. were mostly assigned to freshly-graduated university students, including myself. Everything started from scratch, everyone was fumbling in the dark. "So, the parts that were outsourced should at least be assumed by experienced people and there shouldn't be any problems"—that's what I thought at first, but the reality is that everything from the screenplay at the beginning to the photography at the end had huge problems.
The screenplay for EoS was assigned to dedicated writers, but due to problems with the novel itself and their own lack of ability, the pacing of EoS had serious issues. So what ended up happening was what everyone witnessed, speeding through the story, failing to address foreshadowing, and the emotionless looks of the characters. Added on top of this is how each episode was only 12 minutes in length while the screenplay was much longer, not to mention that 99% of the company workers have never read the original work. So you had the director deleting a bit here and deleting a bit there to avoid going over the time limit. After all, as long as it's watchable, it's fine.
The fellow who handled video editing once complained thus. On his first day of work, the boss had him re-edit the second episode in hopes of improving it. Yet, the illogical plot progression, humourless comedy, dragging dialogue, and superimposed transitions caused him to have completely no idea how to even change it. In his opinion, the script to the storyboards had massive problems, and which can't be solved with editing. Unfortunately, the reply his boss gave him was "I think young people ought to be humbler, you need to think more about your own faults."
After the screenplay, it's the headache-inducing episode direction and animation's turn. The company's animation team consisted of only 5 people, and they were all second key animators, they had no ability to deal with episode direction and first key animation at all. So, all of the layouts, episode direction, and first key animation were outsourced to Japan. As for the ability of Japanese teams that were actually willing to take on Chinese work, everyone should be well aware from the past few years. The action scene in the first episode was rejected by Tencent twice, in the end, it was narrowly approved only when they sought out a Korean team to draw it right before release. That segment was the part you saw at the very beginning of episode 1, how was it? That's the best the company could do!
Aren't there good animation outsourcing companies in China? Yes, but their response to Seven Stone was, "Sorry, we don't do donghua." So, our rejected portions were made by companies still alive in Wuxi, which was already utterly abandoned by the Japanese. All these days and nights of the production, photography, and animation staff secretly using Paintman to correct the final animation data, that's illegal in Japan. What you've seen of each episode of EoS, from the day that its release began, was sent to Tencent after we worked overtime until 1 or 2 in the morning, this happened every Sunday. Since demand still exceeds supply in China, the outsourcing companies are apathetic, "we make money by the drawing, who gives a damn about their quality," these are the true selves of the infamous Chinese outsourcing companies.
The miss who drew storyboards for EoS drew manhua before, and was hired to rescue the project. This rescuing took a year. After EoS episode 10, she said that from entering 大盐城, she could no longer recall the story properly. Why couldn't she remember? Because the last time she drew storyboards for EoS was 3 months ago. Why so long? Because there were too many projects, and she had to draw other things in the middle of the assignment. For the sake of earning money, the company accepted over 4 donghua projects at the same time. Everyone was occupied. With a production schedule like this, how could they make anything good?
A lot of comments said that EoS was low-budget. If it had more money, would it really get better? Completely wrong! For one, "EoS was basically for training new employees," I am relaying the boss's original words. For two, those within the company honestly looked down on EoS. [A certain director whose name contains three characters] and [another person whose name contains three characters] once mentioned this as they chatted: "EoS is the one you tossed to the stepmother (cared less for), [censored four-character title beginning with 古] is the dearborn IP, our future calling card, we should focus on that."
So, from the 10th episode, Seven Stone did not participate in the pre- and primary production for EoS at all, everything was outsourced to Korea. To cut down on spending, the complicated movements in the storyboards were omitted as much as possible. To cut down on spending, any cuts that Tencent had no problems with did not receive corrections. To cut down on spending, things that could be superimposed to trick the audience were superimposed, storyboards that could be reused would not consider another angle.
If you said our ability was lacking, we'd be able to slowly develop it. If you said we were inexperienced, we'd be able to ceaselessly accumulate them. But to not even attempt to sincerely make a good donghua, that lack of care, to treat animation as a tool for earning money, that's something I cannot accept.
This company has plenty of other problems. For example, the director insisting on overlays for transitions in every situation, and only being capable of transition to far shots. For the sake of looking cool, forcibly adding film-like black bars to a certain show, saying that being lazy is actually a unique animation technique worth being proud of. For example, the animation director being so fond of KyoAni's style that in the end, regardless of the initial character setting, they'd all be changed to KyoAni faces. For example, people that had no hand in production at all, but then butted in to randomly edit the video right before it was due, etc. etc.
The future of donghua leaves me with no words. A scarcity of talent, incompetent senior leadership, a blundering atmosphere for the sake of rushing and money, a market that resembles the entertainment industry to a stunning degree. Donghua in my eyes is really not all that beautiful.
And to wrap this up, let me repeat that everything is fictional. The names mentioned here have nothing to do with reality. You won't be able to find anything even if you search for them. Don't get insulted by me okay? /s