Forget Oscars: Anti-graft cartoons a hit

Scene from an animation shows President Xi Jinping in action.

The animations were first uploaded to Youku, the country's popular video streaming website, last week and were subsequently picked up by other big video sites and some social media platforms, such as Sina Weibo and WeChat, in subsequent days.

By now, the clips have been played heavily on Youku, the first one having been viewed more than 1.1 million times.

Ruan Chuansheng, a criminal lawyer from Shanghai, spoke highly of the animations, saying that the videos will be helpful as the leadership pushes the anti-graft drive forward this year.

"It's rare to see cartoon images of Chinese leaders, let alone making an animation about them," Ruan said. "So the three clips show progress. They also show that our leadership would like to be close to the people."

Yi Shenghua, a lawyer specializing in graft cases in Beijing, said the cartoon images and animations are an effective way to convey the leadership's political ideas and much easier for the public to accept.

The three clips are credited to the unknown producer "Chaoyang Studio". No more details were available.

The first time leaders were shown in cartoon form was in October 2013 in an animation called How They Became State Leaders. The producer of that is also unknown.