Cartoon Spotlight Malaysia: Three Cartoons to Know
In our latest interview, we’re digging into the Malaysian Animation scene – speaking with Leslie Lee, a media consultant who’s worked for some of the biggest kids content networks over the course of his career.
I met Leslie at the Kre8tif Conference in Kuala Lumpur last year, where he was giving a talk on the history of Malaysian animation – it was such an interesting chat that I just had to speak with him a little more. In our chat, we explore what the Malaysian animation landscape looks like in 2024, how it’s become the ‘quiet giant of animation’ (according to Don Anderson), and where it can go from here. It also offers a bit of a behind the scenes look at the acquisition process as well.
Not only is it a fun conversation, but hopefully it will open our eyes to a new and exciting market for cartoons that seems poised to launch more strongly into the international market in the coming years…
Exploring the Malaysian Animation Industry - an interview with Leslie Lee (Media Consultant)
Auger Insights: Today, I'm speaking with Leslie Lee, currently a media consultant, but previously the VP for Kids Asia Pacific at Warner Brothers Discovery, and before that, the Executive Director of Media Networks for the Walt Disney Company, Southeast Asia. First of all, Leslie, can you give me a little bit of a background about yourself?
Leslie Lee: Where do I start? I think I can start with everything that's in the background [gestures behind him], which is comic books. I started reading comic books when I was seven years old – that's about 40 plus years ago – and it sort of sparked that love for storytelling, larger than life characters, and really animation as well, because once you get into comic books, you go into cartoons and all that. So that's how I started my love for animation.
And I've been in this industry for, I think, close to about 25 years now. I started off in theatre actually, and then went to radio, and then moved into animation – specifically with kids – with Nickelodeon. I actually started with Nickelodeon in the year 2000, when they had just started their business in Asia Pacific.
AI: So you've definitely got some heritage in the animation space!
LL: It became a bucket list for me, to ‘get my hands dirty’ in all three of the biggest kids' networks in the world. So it started with Nick, and then I went to Disney, and then ended with Cartoon Network. So that was my bucket list checked, and that's it.
AI: What I wanted to talk to you about today is the amazing talk you gave at Kre8tif 2023 about the Malaysian animation scene. I was fascinated by that, just listening to all of this history come through and clearly your passion for all of it as well. And what I wanted to do was really focus on that here with you again. In your own words, how would you describe the Malaysian animation scene right now?
LL: I would say that the Malaysian animation industry is in its teenage years: A little bit rebellious, a little bit unsure of itself, but at the same time, very confident in its outward appearance, right? With teenagers, it's always about that. They're a little bit socially awkward, but at the same time, they want to present the best of themselves. So I think the Malaysian animation industry is in that phase of about 15, 16 years, which is about right when you look at the trajectory and the growth of the industry at this point in time.
I would say that the Malaysian animation industry is now very much mature in its technical know-how, but at the same time, finding its feet and its mindset in terms of storytelling: getting their own stories – their heartfelt stories about themselves, their lives, and their heritage – to a more global audience. Prior to this, when they were in their ‘infancy’, I would say they're very much focused on telling their own stories, but for their own backyard. It was for a very domestic audience, right? So shows that are made in Malaysia for Malaysians, that was their sort of first instinct.
But now they've grown a lot more mature, a lot more confident in their skill set, and they're building stories and building worlds that are – whilst still Malaysian – global enough for a global audience to be able to appreciate. And I think that sums up what the Malaysian industry is like at the moment from a storytelling perspective, from a technical know-how, from a skill set, and from a servicing perspective. They're very, very confident and they are really doing very good work when it comes to that.
AI: Don Anderson (via Cartoon Brew) describes the Malaysian animation scene as this ‘quiet giant’ of global animation. Why should we be paying attention to Malaysia right now for those of us working in this space?
LL: One, they've got a very distinctive voice that fits what a lot of broadcasters, commissioners, and platforms are looking for, which is a diverse and a very inclusive voice. With Malaysia and many parts of Southeast Asia as well, it's a very diverse population, right? You've got the Malays, the Chinese, the Indians, and the Eurasians all living together. It's a melting pot of cultures, languages, as well as designs as well. So you get that mixed with, you know, a very interesting sensibility about community and family, which a lot of people are looking for as well. With Asians, it's all about multi-generational families living together, and you get a lot of that in the stories that are told in this region, specifically in Malaysia and Singapore. And I think that's something that a lot of people are looking for.
The other reason we should be paying attention would be the fact that the storytelling is technically very, very good, very slick. And the fact that they are being supported by MDEC, which is the sort of media agency for Malaysia, that they're really doing a lot of good work. MDEC is doing great work when it comes to supporting both new and veteran storytellers and companies in Malaysia to get their voices across globally. They are really the unsung heroes of a lot of the things that's going on, the good work that the Malaysian animation industry is doing. They don't really get a lot of credit for it, but I think they should.
Another reason would be the sense of community. I talked about community in the stories, but it also happens in the industry where the veterans are mentoring the newcomers to the industry. Fresh out of school, storytellers and animators are being taught and mentored by veterans in the industry, and I think that's very important for a continuity basis and also for the fact that you pass the know-how and the best practices to a new generation, and that's really important when it comes to storytelling and animation.
AI: And what do you think is the regional impact of this kind of voice that you're talking about, this community that you feel is such an important part of the Malaysian scene?
LL: Everyone is sitting up and paying attention. That's one. Number two, the fact that everyone wants to collaborate with Malaysian storytellers, and you can see that from a lot of the deals that have been closed recently, as well as the partnerships and co-productions that are being set aside and put together by MDEC and by the individual companies themselves. They're doing a lot of global co-productions that are very, very high quality, very commercial, whilst at the same time also focusing on things that are potentially, I would say, exportable, but really for a more domestic and regional audience.
AI: You've talked a bit about this already, I think, but if you had to distill it down, is there anything unique about this kind of Malaysian perspective on the animation space? Like what is it that is different about what Malaysia is bringing into this conversation?
LL: Because Malaysia, and likewise with Singapore, they're both very young nations, right? Malaysia is about 60 plus years old from the year they became independent. So a lot of storytellers in Malaysia, likewise in Singapore, are influenced by a lot of different sort of like inspirations. So they've got influences from the West, they've got influence from Japan and this part of the world as well, from the shadow puppetry that is so prevalent in India and Indonesia and Malaysia, to works of cartoonists and comic book artists in this region. So there's a lot of influences from these different places, and it makes for very unique storytelling, whether it's in terms of the pacing, whether it's in terms of the character designs, or the way stories are told. It's all very much unique, but at the same time universal, if I could call it that.
Three important Malaysian Animations
AI: Digging into the weeds a bit more then, at this talk you gave at last year's Kre8tif conference, you gave this fantastic potted history, of Malaysian animation. Leslie, in your opinion, what do you think are the three most important animations to come out of the Malaysian scene?
LL: I wanted to give a lot more than that, because three is just too few! And it's not just about animation right, it's about the art of storytelling.
First, I want to give credit to Lat, who is a Malaysian cartoonist. His creation, Kampung Boy – Kampung is village in the vernacular language of Malay, Kampung Boy was his creation. It was basically about a little boy who grew up in a village, and that comic strip inspired a lot of people, not just in Malaysia, but in Singapore and Indonesia as well. And I want to give credit to that, because that piece of IP was published, and then there were books and comic books and compilations, and it eventually became a cartoon.
And I think that, to me, is where everyone should be starting from – not necessarily the cartoon, because the cartoon itself was just an adaptation of a much, much more superior source material. Lat, the artist and the writer for that IP, is very much a legend on our shores. So I would say that's a first, Kampung Boy and Lat.
Kampung Boy, Lat
The second would be Upin and Ipin. Upin and Ipin started out – I think in 2006 or 7 – as a series of shorts. It was created by a company called Les’ Copaque. I'm sure you've heard about them at MDEC’s Kre8tif Conference. It's about two twin brothers, Upin and Ipin, and their family. And I talk a lot about family and community, right? It's about a family who lives in a village, and the everyday adventures of Upin and Ipin. And the reason why I chose Upin and Ipin as a second choice is because of the fact that it was actually one of the very first shows to be broadcast regionally.
Upin & Ipin, Les’ Copaque
It's a very funny story. I went to a fast food restaurant in a dodgy shopping mall in Singapore, and I saw a VCD of Upin and Ipin, right. And I was like, ‘hey, these two kids look really, really interesting. Let me buy a copy of this VCD’. And I brought it home. And this is when DVDs weren't that popular, right. So it's just VCDs. And I watched it.
It was in its original Malay language. And I was like, wow, this is really, really good. The storytelling resonated with me because of the fact that I was at Disney Channel. We were looking for local content that would engage and attract a new and different kind of audience. At that time, Disney Channel was really into that high school musical Hannah Montana phase, which is not necessarily relevant for a lot of the audience in Malaysia and part of our territories.
So I decided to do a cold call to these guys. I looked at the sleeve of the VCD and sent them an email that said, would you like to put Upin and Ipin on Disney Channel? And they actually replied. And I was like, let's do this! So we bought a couple of seasons, the first few seasons of Upin and Ipin, and put it on Disney Channel and the rest is history.
AI: That’s a pretty good reason for that to be a second one. I love the spontaneity of that, you walking into a dodgy fast food place and seeing this kind of disk and going, hang on a second – this is something that we could actually use. Oh, fantastic. Okay. So that's one and two. So what's your third one that you think is the most important?
LL: So the third I would say would be Mechamato that was recently acquired by Cartoon Network, actually by me and my team. Mechamato is interesting for the fact that it's a a superhero, a kid superhero, who uses everyday objects and mechanises them into items to defeat enemies.
Mechamato, Monsta
And I think Mechamato in itself is a fantastically wonderful, high-quality, world-class show. And if you get a chance, please go and watch that. You can tell it's a real passion project for the guys at Monsta – it's set in a fictitious city in Southeast Asia, but you could tell that it's inspired by a city in Malaysia called Malacca because there's rivers running through this and that is beautiful.
Why I place this as my number three is because of the fact that it was the first show that I acquired for Cartoon Network; it was the first Malaysia show that actually went to Japan as well. So Japan Cartoon Network aired it, Korea Cartoon Network aired it, and it garnered a lot of fans.
And you would think that a show set in a fictitious Southeast Asian country with a lot of references to things like curry puffs, which is a local snack, wouldn't really resonate in a place like Japan, which is so, you know, indigenous. But it did. It won several awards in Japan. It got picked up by Netflix, it got picked up by a lot of different broadcasters in Japan as well. And, you know, it's got lots of fan mail from Japanese kids.
And I would say that that's a sort of a testament to what I was talking about earlier: it's a local story with a lot of local influences, but it's really universal in its treatment, in the storytelling and its stories.
AI: You've laid out this fantastic history of these shows that have had this massive impact on the animation space in Malaysia. And it feels like they have really set this lovely precedent for the shows that are now coming out. So casting our eyes forward then, if you were to use your industry insight to have a thought on what you'd expect moving forward, where do you see the Malaysian animation space going from here?
LL: I see two trajectories. The first would be a lot more personal stories. I was in Malaysia with you at Kre8tif and the stories that came out of the pitches were very personal. There was a lot of stories that delved into the heritage of certain people in Malaysia, the history of Malaysia and the cultural nuances of say the East Malaysians and Central Malaysia as well. So that kind of thing. And a lot of art house type, very high quality art house content, whether they're movies, feature length, films or shorts, you get a lot of that personal touch, right? That are not necessarily commercial. They are very festival circuit.
And I applaud that because, you know, you need that kind of content to put Malaysia on the world stage when it comes to awards and accolades. And then you get the second trajectory, which is a little bit more mainstream, definitely more commercial, where the producers and the content creators are doing a lot of work with not just consumer product companies, but also with producers from the West. So from Canada, from the UK and France, you get a lot of co-productions coming out from that sort of like trajectory where they're not necessarily Malaysian stories, but they are universal stories that are catering for a more mainstream audience, while using the capabilities and the technical know-how and the efficiencies of Malaysians in that sense.
AI: Leslie, it's been fantastic talking to you per usual. What should we expect next from you moving forward?
LL: So I'm working on a couple of projects. I'm actually a consulting for a Korean company right now. I'm working on script supervising one of their shows that is getting ready for a more international audience. So they wrote the scripts in Korean and translated them. So what I'm doing right now with that company is really putting the kids' touch to a lot of their scripts to make them a little bit more relatable to that audience and making that a little bit more funny, if I could call it that. So that's my current project that I'm working on right now. It's really a lot of fun working on a project with princesses and mermaids and that kind of thing. So yeah, I'm having a lot of fun!
AI: When you're working with princesses and mermaids, it's hard not to have some fun at the same time, I think. So, Leslie, I appreciate you taking the time to talk to me today. It's been absolutely brilliant. Thank you.
LL: My pleasure.
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