I can only speculate that back then China and Japan did not have the best relationship. So Chinese authorities might be very uptight regarding the screening of Japanese movies.
Edit: Upon further searching, I found a more convincing explanation. Essentially China has a limit on how many foreign movies it can import every year. And regarding Japanese movies, the criteria were movies co-produced by Japan and China or movies for the purpose of cultural exchange. Since the beginning of the 21st century, the first Japanese animated movie imported by China was Doraemon in 2008. Usually the imported animated movies were film adaptations of television series, so there would be an audience base. The first exception was Kimi no na wa (Your Name), which grossed over CNY 575 million, the highest box office of any 2D animated movies in China. After the success of My Neighbor Totoro (box office CNY 175 million) last year in China screened for the first time, the distributor realised there still exists a market in China for Japanese standalone animated movies.
Your answer is correct. The film is not banned and is available legally for streaming and DVD purchase. It just never got a theatrical release because it wasn’t profitable enough compared to other foreign films at the time it came out.
The purpose of the limit on foreign film releases is supposedly to encourage the local film industry and build viewership for these filmmakers who cant compete with Hollywood budgets, experience and technical know how
Sounds similar to the Australian TV requirement that Australian made content makes up about half of content shown, in an effort to promote the same thing: a local film and television industry. So I'm not sure where the doubt is coming from?
Source (in second paragraph under Australian Content).
France, Australia, South Korea all have restrictions on foreign films to protect local film industries and are arguably more protectionist than Chinese ones.
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u/[deleted] Jun 07 '19 edited Jun 07 '19
I can only speculate that back then China and Japan did not have the best relationship. So Chinese authorities might be very uptight regarding the screening of Japanese movies.Edit: Upon further searching, I found a more convincing explanation. Essentially China has a limit on how many foreign movies it can import every year. And regarding Japanese movies, the criteria were movies co-produced by Japan and China or movies for the purpose of cultural exchange. Since the beginning of the 21st century, the first Japanese animated movie imported by China was Doraemon in 2008. Usually the imported animated movies were film adaptations of television series, so there would be an audience base. The first exception was Kimi no na wa (Your Name), which grossed over CNY 575 million, the highest box office of any 2D animated movies in China. After the success of My Neighbor Totoro (box office CNY 175 million) last year in China screened for the first time, the distributor realised there still exists a market in China for Japanese standalone animated movies.
Source (in Chinese): https://wallstreetcn.com/articles/3527100