General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20266 min read

The Leader (领风者)

The Leader (领风者) is a seven-episode Chinese animated biographical series about the life of Karl Marx, premiered on January 28, 2019 on the video platform Bilibili, with each episode running about 25 minutes¹. It was jointly produced by the Office of the Central Marxist Theory Research and Construction Project, the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region Party Committee Propaganda Department, and Inner Mongolia Film Group, with academic support from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences². Chinese media described it as the first domestic animated series to recount the biographies of Marx and Friedrich Engels and their major works¹.

Key fact	Detail
Format	7 episodes, about 25 minutes each; aired weekly on Mondays on Bilibili and Youku from January 28, 2019¹^•³
Subject	The life of Karl Marx from youth to old age, including his studies, work, love with Jenny von Westphalen, friendship with Engels, and the development of his thought²
Producers	Office of the Central Marxist Theory Research and Construction Project, Inner Mongolia Party Committee Propaganda Department, Inner Mongolia Film Group; academic support from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences²
Key staff	Chief director Xiao Zhichao; series composition and chief planner Zhong Jun (CASS researcher); animation by Hangzhou Wawayu Animation³
Audience	Explicitly targeted at teenagers and the "Z generation", with Japanese anime-style designs for the young Marx and Engels¹^•⁴
Viewership	4.808 million plays by February 18, 2019; over 7.75 million by June 2019; the Bilibili page later showed 14.865 million plays and 728,000 followers⁵^•⁶^•⁷
Ratings	Douban 4.1/10 from 1,716 raters as of April 1, 2019; Bangumi users rated it 3.5/10 from 355 votes¹^•³

Spoilers

Content and style

The series presents Marx's biography from his student years to old age, covering his studies, work, marriage to Jenny von Westphalen, his friendship with Engels, and the evolution of his thought². The Bilibili synopsis describes it as the story of the "thinker of the millennium", portraying Marx both as a great figure whose ideas influenced world history and as an ordinary man whose obstructed love with Jenny and nearly-missed friendship with Engels became celebrated stories⁷.

Because the intended audience was teenagers, the young Marx and Engels were drawn in a Japanese anime style, and the theme song, plot, and dialogue were all designed to create a passionate yet thoughtful image of the protagonist¹. The title song "The Leader", performed by the band Nan Zheng Bei Zhan (NZBZ), mixes rap with children's chorus²^•¹⁰. In the Chinese dub, Marx is voiced by Teng Xin and Jenny by Shan Xin⁷.

Historical accuracy. The writers stated that a Marx biographical work had to be truthful first. Screenwriter Lu Gang said the team spent large amounts of time verifying details such as clothing, transport, and the era's industrial level, and that even minor characters were real historical figures; where Marx scholarship leaves questions unresolved, the team allowed itself reasonable imagination within a defined range². Screenwriter and director Zhuosuna told Agence France-Presse that she could not write freely because the subject carried strong symbolic meaning, and that the aim was to free Marx's theory from dull slogans¹¹.

Background and production

The series grew out of a broader effort to popularize Marxist theory among young Chinese internet users. Zhong Jun, a researcher at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences who led the creative team, had earlier produced the 2016 reading-variety program Kai Juan You Li: Marx Is Reliable (马克思靠谱), whose rap theme song "Marx Is a Post-90s Kid" received wide attention⁴. In 2018, the 200th anniversary of Marx's birth, the team was commissioned to create an animated series on Marx's life⁴.

Institutional backing. The project was planned by the Central Propaganda Department's theory bureau (the Office of the Marxist Theory Research and Construction Project) together with the Inner Mongolia propaganda department, with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences providing academic support⁸. To keep the script factual, the project office organized more than a hundred experts from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, the Central Institute for Party History and Literature Research, Peking University, Tsinghua University, and other institutions to review the script in three rounds, with further review of the finished episodes; university students from several top schools also read the drafts⁹.

Production was handled by Weiming Culture as the production company, with Hangzhou Wawayu Animation as the animation studio and teams including Xianman Culture and the Beidou Penguin dubbing studio participating⁹^•³. The chief director was Xiao Zhichao, and the scripts were credited to writers including Lu Gang of China University of Mining and Technology (Beijing) and Zhang Mingming of China University of Petroleum³^•².

Reception

The premiere drew heavy attention. The first episode, uploaded on January 28, 2019, passed one million plays with more than 160,000 comments within days according to a Global Times report cited in later coverage¹¹. Plays reached 4.808 million by February 18, 2019⁵, over 7.75 million by June 2019⁶, and the Bilibili page later recorded 14.865 million plays with 728,000 followers⁷.

Critical ratings were lower than the viewership. Zhang Qizhong, an associate professor at the Communication University of China's Animation and Digital Arts school, reported a Douban score of 4.1 from 1,716 raters as of April 1, 2019¹; other reports gave 3.9¹¹ and 4.7¹⁰. On the anime database Bangumi, users rated the series 3.5 out of 10 from 355 votes³.

Criticism of the craft. Zhang Qizhong's review credited the series with pioneering biographical animation of historical greats in Chinese animation and with giving young viewers an accessible entry to Marx and Engels, but listed production weaknesses: stiff animation from too few in-between frames, a repeated crowd shot between the 1864 founding of the International Workingmen's Association and the 1870 Hague Congress, Marx's costume unchanged until old age, and missing background information that left viewers confused, for example about why Marx studied at Berlin University but applied for his doctorate at Jena¹. Viewer comments on Bangumi similarly noted heavy use of static backgrounds and jarring switches between 2D and 3D¹². A later retrospective described the production as using "3D-rendered-2D" technique under budget pressure, with visible artifacts such as clipping hair and identical faceless crowd models in the finale¹⁰.

Related media

The series was the core of a planned transmedia product line. The producers announced a full-media Marx series including a comic book, theme song, stage play, emoji sticker packs, and merchandise⁸. Zhejiang Children's Publishing House issued a three-volume comic adaptation, of which the first volume, Mission's Origin (《使命起源》), was published in 2019 with the second, Dream Sets Sail (《梦想启航》), in editing; the comics entered recommended reading lists in several regions⁶.

Assessment

Commentary on the series divided along two lines. Official and academic voices framed it as a successful experiment in making Marxist theory reach young audiences through entertainment formats, with the series credited with sparking a wave of youth interest in Marx and Engels¹^•². Other commentary argued the series simplified 19th-century European history and idealized Marx into a near-flawless hero, and compared it unfavorably on historical nuance with the 2017 film The Young Karl Marx¹³. Zhang Qizhong's review concluded that the work opened biographical animation of historical figures in Chinese animation while leaving open the question of how to balance an animated rebirth of a historical person with maximum fidelity¹.

References

Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Series and fictional screen worlds › Anime and manga › Anime series, episodes, and franchises › OVAs, ONAs, and streaming-original anime

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026

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