“Stevie Suan’s new book, Anime’s Identity, cannot resist telling a story from the production of King’s Avatar (above), a 2019 Chinese animated series that subcontracted some of its animation work to a studio in Japan, only to send back the materials on the grounds that the Japanese work was not of high enough quality. That was definitely a bad day at the office for someone, but was it trolling for the hell of it, or a sign of a true sea-change in quality control and expectations?”

Over at All the Anime, I review a great book about Japanese animation and its place in the world.