29 March,2026 09:51 AM IST | Mumbai | Junisha Dama
Nineties kids grew up on Shinchan, Pokemon and Dragon Ball Z dubbed in Hindi and telecast in the early 2000s. However, anime’s growth in India has been dramatic in the last five years
When anime character Naruto screams mid-battle, you would expect the line to be in Japanese. But of course, you can watch it in Hindi, Tamil, or Telugu.
Across India, Japanese anime is transforming. Shows once watched only by niche audiences are available in multiple Indian languages. The shift is the result of dubbing artistes and script adapters who spend weeks reshaping dialogue so it sounds natural to Indian ears.
Nineties kids grew up on Shinchan, Pokemon, and Dragon Ball Z dubbed in Hindi and telecast on television in the early 2000s. However, anime's growth in India has been dramatic in the last five years.
Streaming platforms such as Netflix and Crunchyroll have expanded anime catalogues in recent years. Even television channels like Sony YAY! have introduced dubbed anime to younger viewers.
Industry analysts say India is the second-largest market globally with 118 million active viewers. Viewership is driven by mobile streaming, fandom culture, and social media. This is thanks to a rapid localisation of content.
But localisation is rarely straightforward. Japanese anime often relies on wordplay, cultural references, and emotional beats that don't translate easily. Adapters have to make hundreds of small choices: what to keep, what to soften, and what to completely rewrite.
In other words, they are not simply translating word-for-word. Instead, they are creating a new language altogether.
Piracy remains one of the biggest threats. Voice artiste Sai Sujith says, "Once the content is released⦠it immediately comes up on a Telegram channel." For the localisation ecosystem, which includes studios, translators, voice artistes and technicians, subscription revenue is what keeps the pipeline running. Another challenge is recognition.
Crunchyroll, for the first time, introduced awards for anime dubbing artistes in India in 2025. They introduced a Best Voice Performance - Hindi category. However, the platform is yet to introduce a South Indian language category.
For viewers, the most obvious sign of localisation is the voice. Sai Sujith understands that responsibility well. A dubbing director, voice artiste and script adapter, he runs Sai Surabhi Studios in Chennai, which specialises in anime localisation for Tamil and Telugu audiences.
He is also the Tamil and Telugu voice of Naruto. "I started my anime dubbing career with Naruto," he says. "I'm the voice artiste for [main character] Naruto⦠the dubbing director and the script adapter as well."
Sujith's studio handles everything involved in localisation: script adaptation, casting voice artistes, recording and mixing audio before delivering the final version to platforms or broadcasters.
But anime dubbing demands a very different performance style compared to live-action shows. "You just can't dub an anime show as you do for live action," he explains. Live-action dubbing requires subtle emotional mirroring. Anime, on the other hand, demands intensity in tone and expression. "For anime⦠the protagonist and the antagonist, everyone is very energetic," he says. "If there is a portion where I have to shout at the top of my throat, I need to do it."
Maintaining that intensity across long-running series can be exhausting. Naruto alone runs into hundreds of episodes. Sujith estimates he has worked on close to a thousand across languages.
That physical demand is one reason many voice artistes hesitate to work on anime. "Most of the dubbing artistes that are already established are not interested in anime," he says. "Only the most enthusiastic ones are ready."
Yet the fan response can be rewarding. Dedicated viewers often recognise specific voices and studios behind dubbed versions, which rarely happen in traditional dubbing work.
Freelance dubbing artiste and script adapter Mohan Raja, who has worked on projects including Dragon Ball Super and Jujutsu Kaisen, says the process begins by watching the visuals rather than reading the script.
"Instead of looking bluntly at the script, we see the video. Only then can we understand what emotions they are conveying." Anime scripts often reach Indian studios as English subtitle files rather than Japanese originals. From there, script adapters reconstruct the dialogue in the target language.
It is an imperfect process. "You can match the original content to 85 per cent," says Sujith. "It is never a 100 per cent job."
Japanese storytelling contains idioms, repeated phrases, and cultural jokes that do not always land in Indian languages. Naruto's famous catchphrase ["Dattebayo", which translates to "Believe it!"], for instance, appears frequently in Japanese episodes. But repeating it as often in Tamil or Telugu can sound unnatural. "We try using an equivalent," Sujith explains. "But we don't use it as much as the Japanese version does."
Platforms also impose restrictions. Script adapters must avoid inserting film dialogues, movie songs or slang that could disrupt the tone of the show. The goal is not to replace Japanese culture, but simply to preserve the emotion behind it.
Prachi Popat, a content creator, grew up watching Shinchan in Hindi on television. But she never realised that Shinchan was a Japanese character, given how the cartoon was dubbed. "For some reason, when I was young, I thought Shinchan was an Indian name." Shinchan first aired in 2006 but was later banned in 2008 due to complaints from parents about the lewd language and the bad influence the character had on kids. "As an adult, I saw it in English, and I realised that the Hindi dub was more rowdy. The language was very bad. My mother would always say I will ban it⦠as I kid, I thought she had." Did watching this anime translate into a love for the medium? "Not really. I think I began watching animated content because I watched Shinchan in Hindi, but not Japanese anime particularly," she says.
For years, anime in India remained a niche hobby. Early fans watched Japanese versions with subtitles online. But localisation has dramatically widened the audience.
Ambesh Tiwari, business head - Kids & Animation and Sony AATH, says language once limited anime's reach. "Anime has long enjoyed a passionate fan base in India, but language has often limited how widely it could travel," he says.
"With dubbing now expanding into regional languages such as Tamil, Telugu, and Malayalam, the genre is becoming far more accessible beyond metros and English-speaking audiences."
Channels like Sony YAY! have seen strong engagement when anime is dubbed regionally. "When fans experience these stories in their own language, the emotional impact is far greater," Tiwari says.
For many younger viewers, dubbed anime becomes the gateway into the genre.
Few platforms invest in dubbing beyond Hindi, Tamil, and Telugu. So what about Malayalees looking to watch anime in their mother tongue?
Arjun Jeevakumar Nair and Surya Suresh of Studio Mocktale in Kerala have taken on the responsibility. "Now we see people in buses and on the streets watching anime on their phone too," says Suresh, explaining the love for the medium and the boom of anime in Kerala.
Over the last five years, through their studio, they began adapting anime in Malayalam to offer it to audiences in Kerala. Available to watch for free on YouTube, the duo adapted the script, made minor changes to lip-sync better with the characters, and eventually created a unique language altogether.
"We got a lot of feedback from the fans. Initially, it didn't sound natural, there were words like sensei that we would change, but later decided to keep. The more we worked on it, gradually it improved," says Nair. Their audience has never been restricted to India alone. "We do get viewership from Western countries as well. It's probably some sort of comfort when you are watching it in your own mother tongue, or people are too lazy to read the English subtitles," says Nair.
118 million
Industry analysts say India is the second-largest market globally with active viewers
Traditionally, most dubbing work came from international films or OTT shows. But anime now contributes a major share of the workload for many studios.
"If anime localisation is not available in the industry today, I would say at least 40 per cent of the work would have been less," says voice artiste Sai Sujith.
Localisation has also expanded the anime audience beyond big cities. Earlier, most fans were concentrated in tier-1 and 2 cities where English subtitles were common. Today, dubbed versions are reaching smaller towns and rural audiences.
"With localisation anime has reached every nook and cranny of the country," Sujith says. That growth is visible beyond streaming platforms. Anime merchandise, apparel and accessories have become increasingly popular in India, with online stores dedicated entirely to anime products.
