Notice me, senpai!

Indian anime artists are clamouring to be seen and heard. What's stopping producers and distributors from supporting homegrown work?

- Christalle Fernandes

A few years ago, if you stopped someone on the street in India to ask them what their favourite anime was, they'd say Dragon Ball Z. Or Naruto. Or One Piece. Or Demon Slayer.

Today, you’d probably get more niche picks: The Apothecary Diaries, Re:Zero, Rent-A-Girlfriend, and Zenshu. Streaming networks have tapped into the genre’s popularity. Last month, Tiger Shroff and Rashmika Mandanna teamed up with anime streamer Crunchyroll to promote Hindi, Tamil, and Telugu dubs of current and classic series. Indian brands such as The Souled Store and Bewakoof sell Naruto and One Piece merch. At Comic Con India this year, there were ninjas and princess commanders amid the superhero and videogame cosplayers.

Artists in Mumbai, Bengaluru, Kolkata, and Goa are trying to put out their own manga and anime too. But Indian manga has boss-level battles to fight. Here’s what it’s up against.

Source code

Anime is special. Unlike films and TV shows, the source material can’t come from books or video games, but from manga, the serialised Japanese graphic-novel format. In Japan, new manga volumes are released every week, and are quickly picked up for anime adaptations, which creates a rich, fast-replenishing well to draw from. But in India, “there are no scripts for anime to begin with,” says Mumbai animator Jazyl Homavazir, 39.