The Leader revolves around the life of German philosopher Karl Marx, focusing on his political and economic theories, his romance with Jenny von Westphalen, and his friendship with Friedrich Engels.
[4] The series depicts Marx's life from his graduation from Trier High School in 1835 to his college years, where his philosophy changes from Kantianism to Hegelianism.
The series was commissioned by Chinese Communist Party's Central Office for the Research and Construction of Marxist Theory,[a] an initiative established in 2004.
[5][3] A production team to develop The Leader web series and related merchandise such as emoji, stage plays, and theme songs was formed in 2016.
[8] The series was produced by the Wawayu animation studio in partnership with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, the CCP-owned People's Daily newspaper, the think tank Weiming Culture Media,[5][3] the Inner Mongolia Film Group, the Propaganda Department of the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region Party Committee, and the Communist Youth League Central Propaganda Department.
[7][9] The series' chief scriptwriter was Zhong Jun, deputy director of the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region Party Committee Propaganda Department[10] and a researcher at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.
[2] The series reflects government officials' belief that rigid political lectures are unattractive to a generation with easy access to a booming entertainment market.
[1] Zhuo Sina, a member of The Leader staff, said that although voluminous literature exists about Marx, none of it is "in a format that young people can accept".
[6] The production of a Marx series by the Chinese government was primarily thought to be a propagandistic attempt to convey its ideology to future generations.
[3] Didi Tang wrote for The Times that the series was consistent with previous government productions, such as the television show Marx Got It Right.
Tang called it an "effort by the ruling party to spark an interest in Marx among young people", when Chinese millennials are not fully satisfied with their working conditions.
[4] When the series was announced, Rosemarie Ho of The Outline and Lorenzo Fantoni of Esquire noted the depiction of Marx and Engels' friendship and its relationship to yaoi (male homosexual-themed anime).
[10] The German radio station Deutschlandfunk Kultur noted that its number of views was not enough to place the series among the most popular Bilibili content, however,[10] and Agence France-Presse considered it an unimpressive figure for a country of 1.4 billion people.
[d] Shanghai-based newspaper Sixth Tone reported that although the December trailer "generated buzz", the series' debut had a mixed response from Chinese viewers "who have paid more attention to Marx's high cheekbones and good looks than his theories".
[46] According to Chinese youth culture and media researcher Jeroen de Kloet of the University of Amsterdam, there was too much dialogue and too few scenes to "humanize" Marx: "It's the government lecturing young people on what Marxism is about".