How Studio Durga is revolutionizing the Indian Anime Industry
If you think anime is popular in India, you are wrong. Chances are you don’t even know what anime means. Some might say it’s another word for cartoon, others might say it’s an animated film like Toy Story. I didn’t know what anime was until I was a college undergrad. But I had seen anime before. I watched Pokémon, Beyblade, Digimon, Cardcaptor Sakura, Yu-Gi-Oh!, Captain Tsubasa, Capeta, Dragon Ball Z, Death Note, and Naruto. It took me a while to differentiate between cartoons and anime. Anime is slowly growing in popularity amongst the young, mostly in metropolitan areas. There have been screenings of popular anime movies like Your Name and Weathering with you.
Japanese animation, or Anime, was first introduced in 1960. However, there is a debate as to whether or not anime should be considered a cartoon. Most westerners consider anime to be another form of a cartoon, but Japan does not want anime to be considered as a form of a cartoon. It is part of their culture. Anime is used in Japanese education, marketing strategies, magazines, movies, and books.
Studio Durga claims to be the first Indian Anime Studio. I don’t remember watching any Indian anime so I must agree. Their first production is Karmachakra.
Karmachakra is the story of an orphan girl trying to find her roots, revolving around mysteries about her past and present. It is a mystery drama set in a fictional present-day India that draws inspiration from psychology, Hindu mythology, and cybertechnology. — Studio Durga
Now why it took such a long time for India to produce an Anime? India is a country with great artists and amazing talent, but the entertainment industry has let us down again and again with the traditional format of cinema. Well, the answer to that is pretty simple. Not many people know anime and most importantly anime is inspired by Japanese cultures and traditions. Some anime takes an Otaku to understand them. So if anime were to be made in India, we can only take the inspiration but add our flare to it. In simple terms, it has to be of Indian traditions and customs. Now that’s a challenge as India is diverse in these aspects. So if an anime were to be made focusing on one state of the country and one language, you are essentially losing out the rest of the target audience.
But it’s okay. A lot of us watch anime in Japanese with subs and it’s considered the purist way of watching. So embracing a different tradition, culture, and language to enjoy a unique format of storytelling is the essence of anime for me.
Studio Durga made Karmachakra in Bengali. I don’t speak Bengali so I had a conversation with my friend Arnav Nag who speaks Bengali and a fellow anime lover. I had asked him to watch the anime prior to the interview.
What do you think about Karmachakra?
I liked it. I have to say the artwork looks premium and the content is very good.
What was it like to watch an anime in Bengali?
After watching Karmachakra, I don’t think I can watch an Indian Anime in any other language. Bengali is so perfect for anime. The dialogues were of the modern age. You would see teens of Kolkata speaking like this, feels natural.
Are there any traditional Bengali aspects to Karmachakra?
Yes, the title song is pretty traditional and Bengali inspired. If you see their teaser, you can find so many traditional aspects like Durga Pandaal, Shakti maa, etc., I am looking forward to seeing all of those in the complete movie.
Why it took so long for us to get an Indian Anime?
Because it’s not easy. Anime not only requires skill but a passion for it. It’s not easy to find such artists. If you listen to the podcast by the founder of Studio Durga, he mentions the difficulty in finding the right talent for this kind of work. They have been posting about this from 2016 but aired their first episode in 2020. So you can imagine the difficulty and struggle.
Anime is a diverse art form with distinctive production methods and techniques that have been adapted over time in response to emergent technologies. It combines graphic art, characterization, cinematography, and other forms of imaginative and individualistic techniques. The production of anime focuses less on the animation of movement and more on the realism of settings as well as the use of camera effects, including panning, zooming, and angle shots. Being hand-drawn, anime is separated from reality by a crucial gap of fiction that provides an ideal path for escapism that audiences can immerse themselves into with relative ease. — Wikipedia
Karmachakra: Episode Zero, an 80-minute movie spanning the first arc of Karmachakra, is currently being produced, they released first 20 minutes of the movie as mini-series on Youtube.
Karmachakra is completely produced in-house starting from artwork, till music and editing. After the first episode aired on Youtube, it created ripples, and they got nominated for the Independent Short Awards, LA, Feb 2020 and won under the category “Best Animation Short” along with honorable mentions under “Best Web Series/TV Pilot” and “Best Original Score”. They were the only Indian Studio to make it on the Independent Short Awards list.
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