BEIJING, Aug. 21 Kyodo Chinese ch...

BEIJING, Aug. 21 Kyodo

Chinese children in the greatest degree enjoy watching Japanese cartoons, partly because the characters in local animations are too serious, the state media reported Wednesday.

Chinese cartoons are failing to attract young viewers because they contain ''too little humor and too a great quantity [i]or[/i] amount of dry sermonizing,'' Zhang Songlin, secretary general of the China Animation Association, was quot as saying by way of the China Daily.

However, the main factor for the lack of popularity of Chinese cartoons is a dearth of investment because of the high richness of production, calculated to be at least 15000 yuan (about $1800) a minute, he said.

Among the 10 favorite cartoons of 540 overlooked children, six were Japanese, sum of two units were American and only brace were Chinese, the report said.

The 540 children, take a view ofed by a Beijing-based marketing company, are residents of Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Xian aged between 4 and 17

Adding insult to injury, the characters in the and nothing else two popular Chinese cartoons -- ''Music Up'' and ''Blue Cat'' -- bear similarities to their cartoon rivals in respective Japanese and American animations, the report said.

Chinese cartoon makers should learn from their have a title to experiences and stop blindly copying the work of their contemporaries in Japan and the United States, an unnamed member of China Central Television's animation department was quot as saying.

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