Upin & Ipin (Jawi: ) is a Malaysian children's animated television series and media franchise created by Burhanuddin Md Radzi and his wife, Ainon Ariff and is produced by Les' Copaque Production, based in Shah Alam, Selangor. The series made its premiere on TV9 for 11 seasons and on Astro Ceria, Astro Prima and TV2 simultaneously from season 12 onwards. It subsequently made its premiere in Indonesia on MNCTV (formerly TPI) and RCTI. The series also released widely for online streaming on both Disney+ and Netflix.
The series follows Upin and Ipin, the five-year-old (later six-year-old) twin brothers, both of whom are characterised by their abundance of energy, imagination and curiosity about the world. Both twins, who lost their parents while they were still babies, live with their older sister Ros and grandmother, whom they call Opah, at the fictional Kampung Durian Runtuh. Overarching themes include the focus on family, growing up, and Malaysian culture. The Malaysian traditional kampung environment inspires the show's setting.
Originally a side project for the Malaysian animated film Geng: The Adventure Begins (2009), Upin & Ipin premiered on 14 September 2007 on TV9 as a six episode Ramadan and Eid-ul-Fitr special, to teach children the significance of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan and Shawwal. A second season, also centered on Ramadan, aired in 2008 spanning 12 episodes. From the third season onwards, the series is produced as a year-long season with 42 episodes. It is the longest running animated series on Malaysian television.
Upin & Ipin has received consistently high viewership in Malaysia on both broadcast television and video-on-demand services. It has influenced the development of merchandise, a feature film and a stage show featuring its characters. The program has been recognised by The Malaysia Book of Records (MBOR) thrice and has won numerous awards, including the 2007 Kuala Lumpur International Film Festival 2007 for Best Animation and the 26th Anugerah Bintang Popular Berita Harian for Most Popular Local Animation Character. Critics have praised the series for its modern and positive depiction of cultural heritage and everyday family life.
Characters
Upin and Ipin, the titular characters, are five-year-old twin brothers who are curious and energetic. They live with their 17-year-old sister, Ros, and their 68-year-old grandmother Uda (whom they call Opah) in a village called Kampung Durian Runtuh in an unspecified location in Malaysia. Their parents died during their infancy. Upin and Ipin study in the village's kindergarten, Tadika Mesra with a group of classmates, including the adorable and right-thinking Mei Mei, the poetic joker Jarjit Singh, the clumsy and short-tempered Ehsan, the easygoing and sarcastic Fizi, and the entrepreneurial and meticulous Mail.
The headman of Kampung Durian Runtuh is 72-year-old Isnin bin Khamis, better known as Tok Dalang, the wayang kulit puppeteer. Tok Dalang owns a cluster of rambutan trees for commercial purposes. He has a grandson named Badrol who first appears in Geng: The Adventure Begins, and a rooster named Rembo. Among the village's other notable residents are Muthu, owner of the village's only food stall, who lives with his animal whisperer son Rajoo and family pet cow Sapy; Salleh (Sally), a feminine-apparent who owns a mobile library, works as a radio announcer, and also an online seller, and Ah Tong, a strident-voiced vegetable farmer.
Additionally, new characters were introduced in later seasons: an Indonesian girl named Susanti who moved to Kampung Durian Runtuh with her family in season 3, Ijat (who often faints), Dzul, Devi, and an unmentioned and rarely appearing girl student named Nurul. The titular characters are voiced by Nur Fathiah Diaz for the first three seasons; from season 4 onwards, both twins are voiced by Asyiela Putri, while supporting and additional characters are voiced by the series' production staff and are referred to by their first names.
Development
Conception
Upin and Ipin were originally created as a supporting characters for Geng: The Adventure Begins, produced by Shah Alam-based animation studio Les' Copaque Production, co-founded in December 2005 by Burhanuddin Md Radzi and his wife, Ainon Ariff. Prior to Les' Copaque, Burhanuddin spent 20 years in the oil and gas industry. The series was inspired by his experience growing up in the kampung. He wanted to portray the importance of children participating in imaginative play, creating the title characters Upin and Ipin to give the series a Malaysian voice. Burhanuddin's wife, Ainon, conceived the idea for the show, despite having no professional qualifications in the animation or film industry. When he expressed his idea to produce Upin & Ipin, he recalled some people doubting the idea, saying it would not work. He said: "They told me that the audience would not accept this idea because it was set in a kampung. I was laughed at for my kampung idea". Malaysian TV network TV9 acquired the series, but in France instead of Malaysia. He then brought the Upin & Ipin video clip to the Cannes Film Festival in 2006. After returned to Malaysia from Cannes, Burhanuddin and his team conducted a research process and said: "We found that the Asian continent is looking for animation that is adapted to our culture and will benefit children". The creation of Upin & Ipin went through four important processes before being selected for technical reasons. However, he has stated that he did not want to make the series as an "Islamic animation", but he and the production team still "embedded those values" in the series.
Series animator Safwan Karim said: "We started this four-minute animated series to test the local market's acceptance and gauge how the reaction to our storytelling abilities would be". Series director Nizam Razak said, for the series, aspects of Malaysian culture set in a relaxed village are highlighted to attract the interest of the international market, citing the Japanese animated series, Doraemon, which is a bestseller worldwide despite being set in local culture rather than international culture. In 2009, Nizam, Safwan, and Anas Abdul Aziz left Les' Copaque and set up their own animation studio, Animonsta Studios, but the production of Upin & Ipin continued with Usamah Zaid Yasin serving as its director until 2013 when he left the company to establish WAU Animation.
When asked about Upin and Ipin's bald image, Burhanuddin said that the twin brothers were deliberately portrayed as bald as the hair dyeing process is quite expensive, while the names Upin and Ipin were inspired by U and I, before it was decided to become Upin and Ipin. Initially, the twin's parents were going to be included in the series. However, due to time constraints and dateline, Les' Copaque decided to portray Upin and Ipin as orphans. While telling the story behind the making of Upin & Ipin in a morning chat session held in Cyberjaya on February 24, 2022, Burhanuddin revealed that the characters of Upin and Ipin's parents were not created by coincidence because they had to chase the deadline for the broadcast which was tight at the time. He also admitted that Upin and Ipin were not originally created to be orphans. He said, "However, the situation at that time caused the characters of their parents to not be completed and instead, the next episode began with a scene of visiting the graves of the twins' parents".
Production The stories featured in Upin & Ipin depict the twin brothers engaging in imaginative play. Nur Naquyah Burhanuddin, Les' Copaque Production's Creative Content Director and Burhanuddin's daughter, explained that there was no particular reason why the twin brothers were featured in their first animated series. Initially, Les' Copaque only planned to produce a story about a naughty boy in a family and who had no friends. However, it was difficult to be certain about whether a boy would communicate on his own and how far a boy could be naughty. Burhanuddin and Ainon write most of the episode scripts. There are few writers besides the husband and wife duo, including Aliya Nazlan, Rezzuhawa Razali and Nor Aizan Embong, as well as the couple's daughter Nur Naquyah.
Upin & Ipin is animated in-house at Les' Copaque Production in Shah Alam, Selangor, where approximately 200 people work on the program. Upon the completion of the third season, Les' Copaque changed the series format to seven minutes and added episode total to 42. The production team also decided to focus more on universal content rather than on Islamic content as they found that "it [was] hard to sell [the series] globally" if Upin & Ipin continued focused on Islamic content. Much like any other animated series in the world with a shorter running time, the duration for each of the series' episodes is only seven minutes. From this process, the scriptwriter will determine the story's momentum to create a climax in each episode. Each episode consists of three parts with a duration of seven minutes for each episode. This is similar to the three-act structure, beginning, middle, end, where each episode has its own beginning, middle and end before reaching the third episode which also has its own three-act structure.
Upin & Ipin (and also Geng) is animated using the Autodesk Maya. In a press conference on the animation software in 2009, Les' Copaque's Chief Designer Fuad Md. Din said: "One of the reasons we chose this software was because it was easy. Moreover, we have experience using it before." Burhanuddin described the series' animation process "is like making a film too, [but] just without actors".
Casting The titular characters, Upin and Ipin, were voiced by Nur Fathiah Diaz for the first three seasons. From season 4 onwards, Asyiela Putri provides her voice for the twin brothers, replacing Nur Fathiah, who left the series to provide her voice for BoBoiBoy. The series' supporting and recurring characters were voiced by Les' Copaque staff throughout the season and they are referred to by their first names. Series producer Burhanuddin provides the voice for Tok Dalang, while his wife, Ainon, is the voice of Opah.
Les' Copaque, according to Burhanuddin, will usually hold an audition to find the right voice cast for each character. This is to ensure that they will find voice actors who know how to portray their characters and not just read the script. The series' production team will also prioritise quality. Before the animation production begins, they will conduct voice recording sessions beforehand.
The series also features special/cameo appearances by well-known Malaysian celebrities in certain episodes, like Aziz Sattar, Jamali Shadat and Afdlin Shauki, as well as former Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad and wife, Siti Hasmah Mohamad Ali, and cartoonist Lat.
Music Yuri Wong served as the composer of the Upin & Ipin theme music for four seasons and from season 5 onwards, Mohd Azfaren Aznam serves as the theme music composer. On 29 September 2010, Indonesian rock band Padi recorded a new theme song for the show, entitled "Sahabat Selamanya" ("Friends Forever"). Its accompanying music video, which aired on Indonesian television stations in August, shows the band singing their song in Upin and Ipin's yard, as well as selected scenes from the show.
In 2011, Les' Copaque partnered with Nova Muzik to produce an Eid-ul-Fitr album, Seronoknya Raya Bersama Upin & Ipin which features vocals from Asyiela Putri as the voices of Upin and Ipin. A year later, in 2012, Asyiela collaborated with Najwa Latif for the song "Terima Kasih Cikgu" in conjunction with Teachers' Day and an accompanying episode of the same title.