India meets Japan, in a frame: How anime bridges two creative economies

Anime is emerging as a cultural bridge between two creative economies, linking Japan's global content industry with India's evolving creative economy, driven by a rising pool of talent and studios

A crimson sun bleeds through glass towers as smoke curls between skyscrapers. The city below hums like a living circuit. On glowing monitors, lines of code flicker into battlefield maps. Faces flash by – of soldiers, rebels, ghosts of memory – all drawn with Japanese precision.

 

This is anime, of course. But there’s something unmistakably Indian about it – a sepia-lit soldier in round glasses and khakis is saluting against a burning sky, his uniform and cadence recalling Indian independence hero Subhas Chandra Bose.

 

A murmur of recognition ripples through the Mumbai auditorium showing the trailer of DQN, the debut anime by Kushagra Kushwaha, an IIT Guwahati graduate who’s spent eight years in Tokyo’s studios honing the craft of this peculiarly Japanese cinema form. 

 

Showcasing anime’s trademark grammar of movement and silence, the film imagines a world where data replaces ideology, its pulse carrying echoes of a shared history – Japan’s discipline, Indian defiance.

 

“When I began working in Japan, I thought I was learning how to animate,” Kushwaha said. “But really, I was learning how to listen to silence, to rhythm, to control. India gave me chaos, Japan gave me structure. DQN is where both finally meet.”

 

When the trailer played at Mumbai’s Royal Opera House earlier this month, the applause was spontaneous – an Indian voice fluent in Japan’s visual language, drawing its own frame, had struck a chord. Bollywood celebs Riteish Deshmukh, Abhay Deol, filmmaker Zoya Akhtar and Tanmay Bhat were in the audience, signalling how anime, wildly popular across the world, has begun to find its place in India’s wider creative imagination. Why, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, too, has spoken about her interest in anime, tweeting that she can watch My Neighbour Totoro and Kiki’s Delivery Service, by Japanese animator and Studio Ghibli Co-founder Hayao Miyazaki, "any number of times".

 

That nod to Bose wasn’t accidental: “DQN isn’t set in any single country,” Kushwaha said. “But it remembers the moments when our stories met – when both nations fought, in their own ways, to rewrite their futures.”

 

The title DQN is Japanese slang from the 1990s – short for the onomatopoeic word Dokkun, which mimics the sound of a gunshot, not entirely unlike the Hindi dishkyaun. 

 

Like the heroes of anime television serials Naruto or Demon Slayer, Kushwaha’s story is one of persistence, of learning discipline through repetition and finding expression through restraint. “Every frame teaches you to wait,” he said. “You keep drawing until motion feels alive.” 

Images from Kushagra Kushwaha’s studio (Photos: 4861 Inc)

 

Drawing the bridge

 

Back home, an academic bridge is now taking shape in Hyderabad. This September, IACG Multimedia College joined hands with Kyoto Seika University, the world’s first university to teach manga (a Japanese graphic novel art form) as an academic discipline, to open India’s first school of manga and anime.

 

The collaboration will bring Japanese educators to Hyderabad, along with exchange programmes and Japanese language training. “It won’t be a translated version of Japanese education,” an IACG official said. “It will be the real thing, taught by people who live and breathe anime.”

 

The timing couldn’t be better. Japan’s animation industry faces a shortage of trained artists even as India’s fandom grows at record speed. Polaris Market Research valued India’s anime market at $1.64 billion in 2023 and expects it to cross $5 billion by 2032.

 

For many, the Kyoto-Hyderabad tie-up is more than an academic milestone: It recognises a meeting of equals – Indian creative energy and Japanese precision. 

 

Fandom frontier

 

Streaming has carried anime far beyond niche circles. Sakamoto Days held Netflix India’s Top 10 for ten weeks this year, while Demon Slayer, Spy x Family and Jujutsu Kaisen weren’t far behind.

 

For Crunchyroll, one of the world’s biggest anime platforms, India has become a core market. “India is one of our fastest-growing markets globally. We’ve seen consistent year-on-year growth in engagement over the last 2-3 years,” said Akshat Sahu, vice president, go-to-market and partnership marketing for Asia-Pacific, Middle East and North Africa. “Fans here now spend well over an hour a day watching anime.”

 

That rise is fuelled by localisation. “Over 65 per cent of our total anime viewership in India comes from Hindi, Tamil and Telugu dubs,” Sahu said. “For us, localisation goes beyond language. It’s about cultural relevance and giving fans more ways to enjoy anime, whether through simulcasts, theatrical experiences, or regional campaigns.”

 

Bengaluru, Chennai, Delhi, Hyderabad and Mumbai lead in viewership, but smaller cities are catching up fast. Crunchyroll has tapped Indian movie stars like Rashmika Mandanna and Tiger Shroff for its campaigns promoting Hindi, Tamil and Telugu dubs, while Rana Daggubati and Ali Fazal lent their voices to Solo Leveling, an anime adaptation of a South Korean web novel. 

 

“Anime in India is moving from niche to mainstream,” said Sahu. “The next leap will come from deeper localisation and community-driven fandom.”

 

It’s a shift you can see offline too. Comic Con Mumbai gatherings have drawn over 40,000 fans every year in recent years, and this August, Anime India 2025 attracted nearly 30,000 attendees with cosplayers in Jujutsu Kaisen robes, sketch artists bent over Demon Slayer panels, and traders swapping collectibles. 

 

Between drawing battles, voice-acting workshops and screenings of new anime films, the halls buzzed with the energy of a culture long watched from afar finally finding its stage in India. For many, anime has stopped being a solitary escape: It’s become a shared ritual of belonging in a place where ink, imagination and identity meet.

 

That growing sense of community is beginning to cascade through how Indian manga and anime artists see their own future – not just as fans but as creators who want to draw the next frame of this story.

 

Learning rhythms

 

For one Indian animator in Tokyo, who prefers not to be named, the bridge between India and Japan isn’t abstract – it’s lived every day, between pencil strokes and deadlines. He came to Japan in 2017 on a student visa and first began as a douga artist, the entry-level role in anime production where artists draw hundreds of in-between frames that bring key movements to life. Like Kushwaha, he started out learning rhythm through repetition before moving up to become an in-between artist connecting the key frames that make motion fluid.

 

“In Japan, animation is less about style and more about rhythm – the emotion between two drawings,” he said. “Deadlines here are sacred. Even the smallest mistake gets redone until it’s right.”

 

He believes the two countries can learn from each other. “Collaboration could benefit both sides. India can learn production discipline, and Japan, facing a labour shortage, can draw on India’s young talent. Over time, that exchange will spread anime culture globally.” 

 

In Delhi, Sushil Gunwante, an aspiring animator, has been trying to carve a similar path, albeit without institutional guidance or finances. 

 

“The stories and the way they tell them are emotional and catchy, not shallow,” he said. “All anime movies and some shows inspired me deeply. I respect the art style and the attention to detail.”

 

But language proficiency and difficult maths tests need to be cleared to study in Japan. There is a gap between passion and opportunity but this is slowly narrowing, believes Crunchyroll’s Sahu. “We’re seeing growing interest from students and creators in anime-style storytelling and production. The rising fandom is inspiring more workshops, courses, and creator communities.”

 

Beyond anime

 

For years, India’s animation industry worked behind the scenes, producing episodes of Tom & Jerry Tales and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles for global studios. Local shows like Chhota Bheem and Motu Patlu ruled children’s TV, but original adult animation barely existed.

 

That’s changing. Streaming platforms now commission Indian animation for wider audiences. Music videos and ad films borrow from anime’s sharp visual rhythm. And studios like Toonz Animation in Thiruvananthapuram are partnering with Japanese counterparts.

 

“We’ve established a strategic collaboration with 1st PLACE Inc., a Japan-based creative powerhouse known for original patents across anime, music, and live entertainment,” said P Jayakumar, CEO, Toonz Media Group. “Japan is currently witnessing a shortage of trained production talent, creating an opportunity for international studios, particularly those in India, to support anime production while respecting its artistic and cultural authenticity.”

 

The alliance extends to training. “Through Toonz Academy, we’ve begun introducing specialized anime-focused modules that emphasize art direction, storytelling aesthetics, and CG workflows aligned with anime sensibilities,” Jayakumar added. “India already possesses a strong animation base, and initiatives like the anime school in Hyderabad are nurturing a new generation of anime-trained artists.”

 

Cultural diplomacy

 

Japan’s cultural diplomacy arm, the Japan Foundation in New Delhi, has been steadily expanding anime and manga initiatives across India. In 2023, it launched a Shojo Manga exhibition that toured Delhi, Guwahati and Jorhat. The same year, the Japanese Film Festival (JFF) brought Makoto Shinkai’s Suzume, an anime blockbuster, to Indian theatres. By 2024, the foundation had joined hands with Mela! Mela! Anime Japan!! – a Japan-India event – for  its first anime-focused showcase. This year the foundation returned with Shin chan: The Spicy Kasukabe Dancers in India, an anime movie that drew large crowds.

 

“These projects,” a foundation spokesperson said, “are part of broadening cultural touchpoints beyond traditional language exchange.”

 

The Japanese Embassy estimates about 1,600 Indian students are currently studying in Japan, with plans to double that number in the next five years. “Interest in design, animation, and creative technology has grown remarkably,” an official said.

 

Even Japan’s wartime links with India – once symbolised by Subhas Chandra Bose’s alliance with Tokyo – now find a quiet echo in these new cultural exchanges and shared storytelling.

 

The next frame

 

For Kushwaha, these bridges – academic, industrial, and cultural – converge into one idea. “Indian storytelling is lyrical and expressive, filled with mythic symbolism, moral questions, and rhythm,” he said. “Japanese storytelling hides its emotion in silence, in the pause between two frames. From India, I bring the soul; from Japan, I bring structure.”

 

One result of this convergence is 4861 Inc, the studio Kushagra started. It is run by a compact team of six, with four members in India and two in Japan, joined by producer Jaynti Kanani, founder and CEO of Morphic and co-founder of Polygon, a leading global blockchain platform valued in the billions. DQN is their debut project, imagining a world where data has replaced ideology as a weapon of war. 

 

“Rather than just another anime, DQN reflects the anxieties of a generation caught between technology and meaning,” Kushwaha said. “Japanese viewers tell me it feels like anime but also different. Indian audiences call it glitched poetry.”

 

For him, DQN is less a product than a philosophy. It is proof that small studios can create big worlds. “Over time, I stopped feeling like an outsider and started feeling like a student of their system – learning not just how to draw, but how to be in the process.”

 

That process is patient, precise, and deeply human. It’s what the India–Japan bridge now hopes to teach. If it holds, the next generation of Indian animators won’t just watch Japanese stories, they’ll help tell them – and Indian ones too. Courtesy of anime. 

Anime, not cartoon 

Anime is a style of animation that originated in Japan in the early 20th century and took its modern form in the 1950s and ’60s. Known for its distinctive style of art, layered storytelling, and emotional depth, it treats animation as cinema rather than cartoon. 

Cartoons, born in America around the same time, evolved as short and funny sketches, full of slapstick and aimed mainly at children. Anime, by contrast, tells stories for all ages, using framing, pacing, and silence to build feeling. In recent decades, anime has swept cinemas across the world, entertaining children and adults in equal measure with reflective as well as playful story lines that straddle the world between reality and fantasy.