The exhibition offers a section for visitors to produce their own cartoon works. [Photo provided to China Daily]

However, the vast majority of celluloid film sheets have not remained intact today, he says.

"Celluloid is a consumable item that is highly flammable," the curator explains. "So, Walt Disney Studios deliberately didn't keep them in large numbers, making these surviving exhibits very precious."

The most recent celluloid sheets on display come from the 1995 Disney production, Pocahontas. And since the animation industry embraced the digital age after this point, this portion of the exhibition feels more like a homage to a bygone era.

But thanks to a few private collectors, we still have the physical evidence to remember them by.

Most of the exhibits coming to the Beijing show are on loan from individual collections. For example, 84 of the works on display were collected by Vaytch Robin, an animator who worked at the Walt Disney Studios in the 1930s, and were loaned to the national library by his daughter.

This is also true for the majority of Japanese exhibits.

Several collectors teamed up to try and recreate a world full of the most fantastic animated characters to come out of Japanese studios over the past three decades.

Manga fans will no doubt be gripped by nostalgia when they see the yellowing sketches of their childhood idols, be it Detective Conan from the Case Closed franchise, Son Goku from the Dragon Ball franchise or images from the Lupin III saga or the ongoing One Piece series.