East Asian entertainment has provided us with unforgettable cultural moments, and now people in the Western World want to see more. The dive into foreign language film doesn’t exist in a vacuum – so what now?

In July of this year, the Pixar-produced “Inside Out 2” sprinted out of the gate to become the highest-grossing animated film of all time. Meanwhile, some are predicting that a strike by animators in the USA is potentially looming. 

So how does this come to be? How do we explain the huge discrepancy between box office success and layoffs? And what are the issues faced by animators working in Hollywood? 

Talking animals and moving objects, it seems like science flies out the window when it comes to animation – or does it? Anthropomorphism dominates animated films and it turns out there’s a good reason for this.