Chinese kids enjoy watching Japanese cartoons the most, followed by U.S. fare, partly because the characters in local animation are too serious, the state media reported Wednesday.

Chinese cartoons fail to attract young viewers because they contain "too little humor and too much dry sermonizing," Zhang Songlin, secretary general of the China Animation Association, reportedly told the China Daily.

However, the main factor for the lack of popularity of Chinese cartoons is a dearth of investment because of the high cost of production, calculated to be at least 15,000 yuan (about 220,000 yen) a minute, he said.

Of the 10 favorite cartoons of the pollees, six were Japanese, two were American and two were Chinese.

The 540 children, surveyed by a Beijing-based marketing company, are residents of Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Xian aged between 4 and 17.

Adding insult to injury, the characters in the only two popular Chinese cartoons -- "Music Up" and "Blue Cat" -- resemble those of Japanese and American animations, the report said, without mentioning which Japanese and American cartoons drew popularity.

Chinese cartoon makers should learn from their own experiences and stop blindly copying the work of their contemporaries in Japan and the United States, an unnamed member of China Central Television's animation department was quoted as saying.