An illustrated series reimagines famous anime characters experiencing the cultures, traditions and moods of the city. We speak to the founder of this newly-birthed community
Pikachu tries a samosa in Mumbai. Pics Courtesy/TheComixIndia
If you allow yourself to break away from the predictable commotion of the city and look closely at its streets, into the khau gullies and markets, on top of vehicles during rush hour, near heritage sites, or at that one person stopped at the signal by the traffic police, you will find the anime verse slowly trickling in to find a new home in Mumbai far away from Japan. Brought to action in the Maximum City as part of The Comix India’s (an anime community) new illustrated series, popular anime characters like Goku, Ash Ketchum, L Lawliet, Luffy, Itachi and Tanjiro, among others, try to learn the ways of a Mumbaikar.
Vegeta’s first interaction with a rickshaw driver
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With nearly 25 illustrations released till date, each post introduces an anime character who has just landed in the city and gets a culture shock as they are introduced to chasing street dogs; Maggi, as opposed to ramen; enraged traffic police, cutting chai instead of matcha, overly priced tomatoes, saree shops and rickshaw drivers with an insufferable attitude.
“We began work on this series in December last year and started posting one each day in January,” says founder Smith Sawant. “I have been watching anime since I was four years old. At that time, we didn’t even have the Internet and would wait the entire day for that one hour when they would telecast Dragon Ball Z, Beyblade and Pokémon,” the 30-year-old shares, adding that the first ever anime he watched was Dragon Ball Z. “Being a music producer by profession, it is difficult to get a track out of your head because you have listened to it at least a thousand times before you sit to edit. Anime is the only thing that helps me divert my mind; I watch it while I am working out, relaxing or doing any other activity that isn’t music production-related. It also reminds me of warm memories from my childhood. And honestly, who wouldn’t want to be a child again?”
Saitama gets a head massage
In 2018, Sawant decided to merge his twin passions, and edited a nearly four-minute-long video which compiled clips from Dragon Ball Z and the trap music he composed. “The video went viral and hit over 33 million views on YouTube,” Sawant beams. It took another anime fest for the music producer to realise that there are others who are equally passionate about anime. “An entire world is opening up to India. And since it has such a huge growing community, I thought why not give people a version set in India?” he adds.
The Vikhroli resident then worked on small anecdotes narrated via one or two illustrated pictures with a friend through December. “The idea was to not Indianise the characters. I didn’t want to detach them from Japan. Their culture is what made them popular. So, with their traits intact, I decided to reimagine how these characters would react to the culture and the people of Mumbai.”
Itachi Uchiha tries a cutting chai
While each character is introduced through only one or two images, Sawant tells us that it took enormous effort to make each of these posts look like the characters are actually in Mumbai. “Even though we used AI to create these artworks, some images took nearly 10 hours to bring to perfection. If I tell you to imagine Itachi holding up a cutting chai, you would instantly visualise it. But AI does not work like that. The prompts have to be very specific and even after multiple changes, you still have to improvise on other software like Photoshop and Illustrator. I do not understand the hate for AI sometimes. I am not a very good artist but I have amazing ideas. AI, in my case, becomes a tool that adds to my skills instead of taking away from it.”
Smith Sawant
The anime enthusiast tells us that there is plenty in the pipeline with the new community. “I cannot tell you about the projects that are in the works yet but I can tell you that there is a good reason why these anime characters are in Mumbai. The answer lies in the Gateway of India,” he teases us before signing off.
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