Premiere of Russian-Chinese Joint Cartoon Series to Take Place in 6 Months

The first episode of the joint Russian-Chinese cartoon series "Krosh and Panda" will come out in approximately six months in both languages, Russian and Chinese, Diana Yurinova, the vice president of International Distribution at Russian production company Riki Group, told Sputnik on Wednesday.

MOSCOW (Sputnik) — On Tuesday, the Riki Group and the Chinese CCTV Animation company signed an agreement on the joint production of the cartoon.

"Now we need a few more months to finish the preparation for [the cartoon's] production, and three — four months to produce first episodes. They will start coming out in approximately half a year, and the speed of their release is one episode a week. In a year and a half we will have 52 full episodes. The cartoon premieres will be held in Russia and China simultaneously," Yurinova said.

In the production process, the Russian side will be responsible for the creative work of the project, including script writing, elaboration of characters and locations, while the Chinese specialists will focus on animation, Yurinova stressed.

Both sides will be engaged in post-production to create Chinese and Russian versions of the series, the vice president noted, adding that the series would also be translated into English.

"We have concluded a contract for the first season and we are already discussing the theoretical possibility of subsequent seasons and a full-length film," Yurinova pointed out.

Each episode of the cartoon series, to be produced in a 3D computer-generated imagery (CGi) format, is expected to run for 12 minutes.