Romantic Karl Marx anime targets new generation of Chinese communists

"Everything I do is for the poor masses of this Earth!" bellows the deep voice over bombastic classical music. This is Karl Marx, but not as you know him: dashingly tall, with a pronounced jawline, suave brown curls and blue eyes, and speaking Chinese -- a world away from the German philosopher's typical image as an old man with a bushy white beard.

"The Leader," a seven-episode anime documenting the life of the "Communist Manifesto" author, premiers January 28 on China's largest video-streaming website, Bilibili. It is the latest production to come out of the Propaganda Department of the Communist Youth League, in association with the party's Central Office for the Research and Construction of Marxist Theory.

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