Photo: VCG

Poster for the Three Body animated series Photo: Courtesy of Bilibili

 A large-size vessel sailing down a river is cut into pieces by numerous nanometer threads tied to both sides of the narrowest part of the Panama Canal's Gaillard waterway. This is the last step of "Operation Guzheng," named after a Chinese stringed instrument, which aims to capture key information needed to ensure the survival of human civilization.

This is the opening scene to the animated series Three Body, which debuted on Saturday on Chinese video sharing platform Bilibili to the excitement of Chinese netizens, especially those fond of sci-fi.

The series is an adaptation of the second book from Chinese writer Liu Cixin's hit fiction trilogy The Three-Body Problem, which won the author a Hugo Award in 2015, the first for a Chinese author. It is also the first TV adaptation of the popular novel to debut, as other adaptations of the work are underway, such as TV series produced by Tencent and Netflix that are expected to be released in 2023.

A Bilibili representative told the Global Times that although the original novel has an international background, they insisted on working with a Chinese animation studio for the product as only a Chinese team could fully reflect the Chinese elements and ideological core of the work.

Creating a universe

The universe created by Liu in the trilogy is seen as a golden milestone in sci-fi. The studio went to great lengths to depict the stunning original plot, while also tweaking some of the bugs in the logic in the novel.

Zhang Shengyan, vice president of Bilibili, said at a press conference for the show that the project started in 2018 and the production team overcame many difficulties, especially in the earlier stages of production when they still needed to decide upon the direction they wanted to take with the show. Finally, they decided to be loyal to the original work out of respect for fans' love of the trilogy.

Zhang said that since animation is more of a free form when it comes to expression this makes it more suitable to depict concepts and grand scenes from the novel.

Speaking of reasons why the animation was based on the second book, Zhang explained that the production team considered the contents of the second one, including the battle between human and aliens from another planet, are more suitable for adaptation as there are more conflicts on plots with faster pace.

The viewership for the first two episodes that came out on Saturday surpassed 110 million views by Sunday afternoon.

While the first two episodes didn't make everyone happy and some reviews said it didn't live up to their imagination, the overall response has been positive.

"I think the most satisfying part for me is that some of the animation's depictions of the original work comes across more smoothly than Liu's work," a Beijing sci-fi fan surnamed Qi told the Global Times.

The story of the animated series Three Body follows the plot from the book about how a group of people created Earth-Trisolaris Organization that helps the alien life to invade the Earth and depicts how humans fight against alien pacifist from the planet Trisolaris. The sociologist Luo Ji, who helps mankind defeat Trisolaris and becomes the savior of human society, and Shi Qiang, who serves in the military, are also important roles.

Some audiences commented that the main roles like Shi and Ye Wenjie, leader of the Earth-Trisolaris Organization, do not seem like the descriptions in the novel and the pace in the animation is too fast, while some agreed on the adaptation and considered it is more reasonable.

For the launch of the animated series, Liu gave a speech that was also uploaded to Bilibili. In the lecture, he explained his thoughts on the meaning of human existence, saying that facing the universe, he is just a speck of dust, but facing himself, the universe is not as important as life.

"I hope you can feel the same way when you watch the animation. The universe is large, but life is larger."

Straight ahead

The quality of Chinese sci-fi works, be they literature or TV and films, has been increasing through the efforts of creators and government support in recent years.

Kong Youyang, a young animator from studio Hyper Pace, told the Global Times that the technology used to make sci-fi works has developed rapidly in China and Liu's storytelling level in The Three-Body Problem series has set an example for other sci-fi writers and filmmakers.

The film and TV industry has been paying increasing attention to Liu's works since his big win. In 2019, the film The Wandering Earth, based on one of his short stories, was made into a major motion picture that became the third-highest earning film in China. Meanwhile, Chinese TV and film adaptations of The Three-Body Problem are also currently underway in China.

US streaming platform Netflix has also ordered the English-language series based on the books. Si Ke, a project director for the film version at China's SKMR Global Films Company, told the Global Times that he hopes more high-quality Chinese works like The Three-Body Problem can be appreciated by the people around the world as it is a sign that the international influence of Chinese sci-fi works is expanding.